Fan backing is music to keeper Deniz’s ears
ATHLETIC’S stars have not been short of support from the stands this season in their bid to make an immediate return to the Championship.
The more vocal sections of the Pars support have serenaded their favourites in song throughout a campaign which has taken them seven points clear at the top of League One – and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
More than once, “We’ve got Deniz Mehmet in goals” has been aired in celebration of Dunfermline’s number one, who has kept 12 clean sheets from 20 league matches, with only 15 goals conceded in the 27 games he’s played in all competitions.
It has been a much happier campaign for the former Dundee United stopper, who featured just eight times last term, as a difficult season for the Pars ended in the bitter disappointment of relegation.
In an extensive chat with Press Sport prior to Saturday’s Scottish Cup tie at Partick Thistle, which Athletic lost on penalties, the 30- year- old said he was enjoying the greater positivity around the club – and the music in his honour.
“I’ve heard the song a couple of times,” he laughed.
“It’s always nice. It gives you a boost when the fans are in high spirits, they’re chanting your name or whatever.
“It is nice, but the team as a whole has been excellent up to now and, hopefully, we can just carry it on.
“A lot of it is down to the boys that are in front of me as well.”
Mehmet and his team- mates have combined to produce a miserly defensive effort this season, and he continued: “Everyone is so happy about it, from the manager and the coaching staff, all the way to us, from the front of the pitch to the back.
“A clean sheet, ultimately, people look at the goalkeeper or defensive side of it, but we’re aware that it starts from the back.
“It’s a team and a group effort, every game that happens, win, lose or draw.
“Whether we concede or we don’t, it’s everyone involved in that, and the boys have been one hundred per cent working so hard this year.
“I’ve said it so many times, in interviews I’ve had previous to this as well, but they just don’t stop.
“That’s definitely a good thing and positive to have.
“There’s such a long way to go yet. Yeah, OK, we’ve got two games in hand, but the two games in hand that we’ve got are tough, tough games; Airdrie, and obviously the Falkirk game we have to play, and that’s a derby game, anything can happen.
“It’s quite a strong League
One to be honest. It might be easy for me to say, because we’re involved in it, but, with the clubs that are in it this year, and the money that’s being spent by clubs as well, it’s attracting a lot better players, and the standard is a lot higher in this division than what I’ve seen quite some time ago.
“We’ll take each game as it comes, try and get the results every week, keep performances up, and see how far we can go.”