Charlie Wyke is the captain on the field for Carlisle United in the League Two season which starts on Saturday at Gillingham.
In a double role appointment Sam Lavell has been appointed club captain and manager Paul Simpson has explained to the club’s official website why he selected the two for their respective roles.
Simpson said: “Charlie Wyke will be captain for the season, maybe people had already guessed that. Charlie will be the team captain and Sam Lavelle will be the club captain.
“I think Charlie leads by example, he’s vastly experienced at playing at a higher level, the players look up to him and he’s a real focal point of the team.
“I don’t want him to change his game, I don’t want him to do anything different, but I just think he’s got that respect of everybody in the group, and I’m hoping that he’ll thrive by having that armband.
“Sam has probably been fulfilling the club captain role since he arrived at the club, and he’s been doing it through pre-season.
“He’s a real good, solid pro with the way he goes about his business. I had the first conversation with him to explain my thinking. I’ve also spoken to a couple of the other ones about my thinking behind it, because I think there’s been a few who’ve shown really good leadership qualities.
“I’ve spoken to a leadership group who I want to play a part with us for the season, because I think it’s important to get feedback from the players as to what we’re doing, what they think we need to do differently, and any little issues that might be coming up.
“Now what I’m hoping is that they continue to do that, regardless of the fact they haven’t got the armband. People like Josh Vela, Terell Thomas, Aaron Hayden, and even people like Harrison Neal, who I think leads by example. He goes about his business in the right way, he’ll dig people out when they need to be, and we have to have that as a group this year.
“We want a group of leaders. We didn’t have it last season, and I think we’ve got some real good personalities and hopefully they can all play their part.
“I think you’ve got to have the right characters. You can have ability, but if you haven’t got the right personality and the right character to go with that and the right drive to want to do things properly, you’ve got a problem and it will fall down. I think we have got good characters in here.
“We have to make sure that we win games of football to keep the positivity of the characters coming through. That starts this weekend and hopefully we can get the performance right that gets to a result that gives everybody a positive feeling and gets everybody moving forward.”
