The world said goodbye to Mark Kingsman yesterday. The RSF expresses its deep sympathy to family, friends and all who knew Mark.
At a time like this, words often seem inadequate; the tragedy of Mark’s passing, and at such a young age, seems beyond words.
But Mark was a good friend to the RSF, and without his help and assistance in the early days we might never have got started, and certainly wouldn’t have reached the membership numbers we have. From the very outset Mark encouraged the early volunteers to get the group formed and, as he often said, “just get on with doing things fans should be doing”. So we did.
The very first email we sent out, calling for membership of our new organisation, he gladly forwarded on the BRFC distribution list. He did this because he believed in the club, and he believed in the vision the RSF had. Thanks to Mark the RSF received over a thousand members in the first 24 hours and now sits at around 3,000 members.
Mark was happy to facilitate fan forums, making players and coaches, and of course himself available as often as he could. This improved the fans engagement with the club generally.
And after he departed the club, he became a member of the RSF himself and always encouraged and supported what our group tried to do.
The RSF is better because of Mark Kingsman. So we, like all who know him, say thank you Mark, and goodbye until the next match.
We wont forget you and what you did for the fans.