'I take joy from the role I have': 32-year-old Newcastle man dispels myths about his club role
There is someone on the books at Newcastle United who comes in for quite a bit of stick on our website and perhaps it's a bit unfair.
I have been known to make the odd joke at the expense of 32-year-old back-up goalkeeper Mark Gillespie, and I'll be the first to admit it's borne out of pure jealousy.
From the outside, the man is living the dream. He's on the books at the club he loves, working alongside his heroes getting paid to essentially be a mobile training dummy.
So he's not at the pinnacle of a young lad's dream of actually playing for Newcastle United, although he does have three appearances on his CV, but he's a lot closer than most of us will ever get.
Newcastle have two goalkeepers resigned to never playing a game
The arrival of John Ruddy, who looks to be taking up a similar role, has really made us question the purpose of having Gillespie on the books - what was he doing wrong that required us to bring in a goalkeeper on the cusp of retirement?
We understand the importance of extra goalkeepers for training, it gives the strikers something to go up against in training, it gives the likes of Nick Pope someone else to push them to be better, but how many do we actually need?
Really, it's not so much why did we keep Gillespie as much as why did we bring in Ruddy? But that's beside the point.
We actually love Gillespie's positive attitude towards his NUFC role
Gillespie, like Bruno Guimaraes, kept a little travel diary for the Japan trip which he has shared with The Athletic, and in it, he has shed more light on his role and his pride in it.
“As a player — and I had a bit of this at my previous clubs — if you’re not in the team, there’s almost a nagging feeling of not wanting them to win. I don’t have an inch of that here. If I wasn’t involved in football, I’d be in the away end — that’s what I did until I was 16. It’s not so hard for me not to play, a) because I accepted my role when I came, b) because I want Newcastle to win, and c) because I have incredible relationships with the other players.
“The pleasure I get, for example, is working with someone like Miggy (Miguel Almiron) three or four times every week in training, where he cuts in on his left foot. He does it for months and then all of a sudden, he does it in the Premier League and scores an absolute worldie. The same goes for Joelinton, for Burny and Longy, who scored against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League.
“I can look at those things and think to myself, ‘Yeah, I played a small part in that, I know where that’s come from’. I get a huge amount of pleasure from it, not just for what it means to them and the club, but for myself. I take joy from the role I have.”
We're still probably going to refer to him as a glorified training dummy, but we do absolutely love this from him.
