I have been working alongside a friend to design flags for Carlisle United. We then put these ideas to Carlisle fans with the aim of crowd funding the money, with the aim of putting up the flags up at Brunton Park and to be taken away to away games too.
Alongside raising funds for flags, Flags for United has helped raise funds for other worthy causes too.
A donation was made to Cancer Research, during Carlisle United's #10fror10 campaign, £485 worth of match tickets was donated to Carlisle Mencap and funds were raised in memory of Bradford City fans.
Paul Simpson Flag & Charitable Donation
The very beginning of the crowd funding journey was to seek funds to create a flag that could be created to thank Paul Simpson, who at the time had returned to Carlisle United and was on course to keep the club up. At the time the fundraiser was started and a design created, it was unclear if Simmo would stay at the club. So we wanted to come up with a way to thank him for his efforts. It was decided that this flag was the one to go for, which I happily designed.
The Simmo fundraiser was extremely popular, leaving us with funds beyond what we would need to buy the flag. Therefore, the remaining funds were donated to Cancer Research.
Owen Moxon & Deckchair Flags
Following the success of the Paul Simpson flag it was apparent there was an appetite for these sorts of flags to continue to be made. The next flag would be a one dedicated to Owen Moxon, depicting his image and celebration after he scored a goal in front of the away end at Hartlepool United away.
After a consultation process with early donators and fans, the below image was agreed to be the one that we would use for a Mox flag. This would include the text 'He's one of our own' which could be heard home & away as Moxon quickly found his feet at Carlisle and became a key player at his home team.
Following fundraising efforts surpassing what was expected once more, a decision was made this time to then purchase an additional flag. This time, we were looking at a union jack flag in the colours of one of Carlisle United's famous deckchair kits. A vote was put to fans to decide on which one, from that the below flag was born.
Flag Day
To build on the success of the fundraising so far and with the emergence of the Warwick Road End fan group. FlagsForUnited aimed to create a sea of flags at Brunton Park for the League Two fixture against Grimsby. Big or small, whatever colour the aim was to pack Brunton out with as many flags as possible.
Jon Colman from the News & Star has been extremely supportive of all initiatives and all things FlagsForUnited, here is his article from the Flag Day at Brunton Park. Click here to read it.
A sample of the flags in the Waterworks End during the game. Image is from Barbara Abbott.
Peeve Flag
The next flag, was a slightly more fun flag. An extremely simple design and whilst a less serious idea, one that was still extremely popular. Throughout the season and following games, Jon Colman had quite frequently posed the question to fans in the aftermath of a game if they would be having a peeve. (For those outside Cumbria, an alcoholic drink)!
From that, the next flag was made. It's a simple one, sometimes less is more!
#10for10 Ticket Campaign
The club announced a ticket deal in the run up to the Good Friday fixture vs Tranmere Rovers. The aim was simple, adult tickets would be £10 and the aim was for a crowd of over 10,000 fans. The catchy Cumbrian phrase of '10 pun to get in the grun' was penned by the club and it took off from there. As part of this another fundraiser was born for FlagsForUnited. The aim for FlagsForUnited was to raise as much funds as a collective group to donate towards the cost of tickets for some fans.
In total, we reached a sum of £485 worth of tickets. These tickets were ultimately then gifted to Carlisle Mencap.
The final attendance would smash the target set by the club too. A total of 13,410 fans attended. The biggest league attendance at Brunton Park for over 15 years.
Bradford City Memorial & Donation
Ahead of Carlisle's League Two play off fixtures against Bradford City. There was a campaign set up to raise funds in order to lay a wreath at Valley Parade in memory of the 56 Bradford fans who sadly lost their lives during the 1985 fire. After surpassing the amount required, two donations were made after the crowd funding effort. The first was a £1000 donation to the Bradford City Community Trust.
The second a £600 donation to Action For Sport, this was made in memory of the late Academy manager, Neil Matthews.
For more information on this particular one, please read this article written by Jon Colman for the News and Star.
Carlisle United fans' generous Bradford City charity donations
Both images from FlagsForUnited on twitter.
Taylor Charters & Tomas Holy Flag
We would ultimately end the season with the success of a play off final victory at Wembley, this immediately gave us two ideas for for new flags which we are in the process of fundraising for now.
We felt it was right to create a flag for Taylor Charters, the cumbrian who would score the decisive penalty to send The Blues to League One.
In true Cumbrian fashion, the first words that Charters would say to Jon Colman were 'Not bad, Eh'. From that, our latest flag was made.
Additionally, we wanted to create a flag for Tomas Holy. Our Czech goalkeeper who would go on to smash the record for clean sheets in a season for Carlisle. The design for this would be Tomas holding the League Two trophy, but rather than to a blue back drop, we wanted to put it onto the flag of his home country.
David Wilkes Memorial Flag
Following the end of the 2022/23 season and ahead of the 2023/24 season, Carlisle United announced the sad passing of David Wilkes, Head of Academy Coaching at the club. Dave had been associated with the club for many years, an extremely long standing member of staff and an extremely familiar face around the ground.
Manager Paul Simpson described David Wilkes in an article for the club as part of the fabric of the club.
In memory of Dave, we wanted to create a flag that could be placed somewhere at the club permanently. We felt that the quote from Simmo described Dave perfectly and we decided to go for the below as the design on the flag we would create. The thoughts of everyone at FlagsForUnited are with the family and friends of David.
The Future
We will continue to make flags and designs, working with the fans to come up with ideas that will improve the look and feel of Brunton Park and away ends across the country for months to come. We are currently trying to find some permanent homes for some of the flags we have already created so they can forever live in Brunton Park. Thank you to everyone who has supported myself and Chris in making our designs and ideas come to life and especially for helping us to continue to support various causes through out the time fundraising.
For more information and to see the latest stuff going on visit the Instagram & Twitter pages under the handle FlagsForUnited.