Gillingham have been working hard to make the experience for their junior fans a better one.

An independent report, commissioned by the EFL, was recently received by the club and praised their efforts in making the place more welcoming for the younger generation.

The club have redeveloped the family section in the Medway Stand and have also been running a separate matchday programme for junior supporters.

The report highlighted the “engaging matchday experience” and said: “Info provision was strong, travel and access good, the experience around the stadium positive, the refreshments experience was very good; the family stand safe, welcoming and family friendly and most of all, the mascot was outstanding!”

Free fruit was being handed out last week for junior fans and there have been face painting sessions at other fixtures.

Chief executive Tom Lawrence was delighted to see their efforts recognised.

He said: “One of our priorities during the off-season was to improve our family engagement initiatives and we worked hard on redeveloping our family enclosure in the Medway Stand to make the stadium a more welcoming place for parents to bring their children.

“I was absolutely thrilled with our recent report from the EFL and that’s testament to the hard work the staff have put in behind the scenes.

“We will continue to work with our supporters to highlight other areas in which we can improve, but it does show that we have made leaps and bounds in engaging with our younger fans, and ensuring they feel part of our club.”

Catherine Dunning is the children’s programme designer/editor and said: “The main focus was to create something football focused that children could enjoy and interact with.

“For a lot of young fans, and children in general, you can lose interest, and we wanted to create something that made the matchday experience memorable and as enjoyable as possible for them and also really engage with the younger audience – our fans of the future.”

The junior programme, which is a free insert to the standard programme, includes fun facts, games, quizzes and a matchday score prediction.

Junior Gills fans are encouraged to send in questions for the Q&A piece featured in the programme.

“It’s become very popular over the season,” she continued.

“Very few copies come back to us after a match, and any ones that do come back are left in the Megastore for our young supporters.

“We know quite a lot of people like to collect them from each game which is great, and a real positive for us to further push our engagement with our junior fans.”

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