COLCHESTER United’s campaign to fill their stadium has succeeded in boosting attendances.

With one home match to go of this season’s Target 10,000 campaign, the club say average gates at the Weston Homes Community Stadium are up by 12 per cent on last season.

Success on the pitch has helped to swell numbers as the U’s only narrowly missed out on winning a play-off place in League One. But another factor has been its drive to recruit new supporters through Target 10,000, which is being supported by the Gazette.

The U’s went in search of new fans by dishing out discounted tickets to schools and businesses, which then sold them to pupils and employees. The 17 schools involved benefited as they were each assigned a first-team player to work with youngsters throughout the year.

They also got a percentage of the revenue from the 2,500 tickets they sold between them.

Teachers were invited to Saturday’s game against Tranmere Rovers to pick up their share of the proceeds.

Gosbecks Primary School, which sold the most tickets, was handed £1,600 to be put towards health and sporting projects.

U’s education manager Jeanette East said: “We are delighted to be putting money into the local community for such worthy projects. The player ambassador element of the scheme has been well received and the players have done a range of activities with their chosen schools.”

U’s spokesman Matt Hudson said the club were working on a follow-up to the Target 10,000 scheme for the 2010/11 season.