Inbetweener

Yes. 7.45pm kick off. All proceeds for the game against FC Assyria being split between the Southwark Refugee Communities Forum, & the British Red Cross Syria Appeal. On behalf of the club may I thank, in particular, rather than going through a long list, Southwark Councillor Jasmine Ali, for all of her help with the match.

The game is now being re-arranged for this coming Wednesday...9th March, still with a 7.45pm kick off. Hopefully with better, dryer weather. Thank you in advance for your support.

For those who are not aware...Dulwich Hamlet are staging a friendly match this coming Wednesday, NOW 9TH MARCH, against FC Assyria (from the middlesex County League Premier Division) kick off 7.45pm; after the postponement Admission is ?5 for adults & ?2 for concessions, all under 12s free. Every penny raised is being split between the Southwark Refugee Communities Forum & the British Red Cross Syria Appeal. The Cherry Tree pub are also donating the proceeds from their regular monthly Quiz Night tonight, to our fundraising, for which Dulwich Hamlet Football Club are most grateful. http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/dulwichhamlet/news/its-quiz-night-tonight-1574863.html Also, a group led by some of our supporters will be collecting non-perishable foodstuffs inside the ground on Wednesday, at the game. More details on this link: http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/dulwichhamlet/news/we-need-your-goods-as-well-as-your-presence-1569300.html Thank you all, in advance, for your support.

Altona game: This is set for 2018. Their fans fundraised to bring their side over last July. A '90th anniversary' game from when Dulwich Hamlet played them in Easter 1925! Our fans are fundraising to take our squad over there in pre-season 2018, probably late July of that year. The aim is to have a friendly against another local Hamburg non-league side on the Friday night. Saturday would be First team squad training. The two sets of fans are planning a cricket match against each other on the same day. Sunday would be the big day. A match between Dulwich Hamlet & Altona 93, to celebrate the 125th anniversary of both clubs. We would hope to have the actual dates firmed up in early 2018.

With regard to the 'history'...Dulwich Hamlet owned the ground, until the very early Seventies. It was sold back then to Office Cleaning Services, who philanthropically bought it to save the Club from financial disaster, after a decade of struggling on and off the pitch, throughout the Sixties. The Goodliffe family owned that company back then, and they played for The Hamlet in the 1930's, some of the brothers winning amateur Cup medals with the Club in those halcyon pre-war days. In the late Eighties they sold it on to Kings College London (the medical school, not the hospital). By then the old ground was ismply falling apart, with major parts of it not in use. At one stage only the centre of the old wooden stand was in use, with a safety certificate for only 300 spectators. The old ground was not just in disrepair, after decades of neglect, but also subject to the same safety laws as Anfield, Highbury, Old Trafford et al, as it had a potential capacity of over 10,000; despite crowds only being a couple of hundred at the time. Kings College came to a deal to sell their old sportsground on Dog Kennel Hill, which suffered extremely poor drainage, in return for taking over the Griffin Sportsground in the Village, which was the old Sainsburys sportsground, and in return for Dulwich Hamlet Football Club giving up the remainder of their lease, they would get a new smaller ground built, on approximately the same site. Sainsburys covers where the old training pitch was, & the Kings sportsground is now part car park part St Francis Park, which made it a public open space for the first time. If this had not gone through Dulwich Hamlet would have folded, as the Club did not have the money to maintain the ground. Unfortunately, the Club only got a short-term lease, and have suffered by some, shall we say being polite 'slightly dodgy ownership issues'. King's College remained as the landlord, and Sainsbury's have never been our landlords. Their original development paid for the ground, in return for the Club giving up the remainder of the old lease, without which they would not have been able to build their store. I hope that makes sense...

"And we're talking about a club we'd like to see go up to new leagues etc which would involve the ground expanding from 1,000 to up to 5,000 supporter ground." Now I really am puzzled by the lack of information from Cllr. Barber! The current ground has a capacity of 3,000. As set by the London Borough of Southwark when the ground opened in 1992. We were promoted to the Premier Division of the Ryman League in 2013. In 2013/14 our average home league attendance was 667. Last season our average home attendance was 1,070. And crowds have continued to grow this season, with this Saturday just gone being a season best of 2,249; for a home league average so far of 1,202. Our lowest league gate was a 555 figure, on a midweek night, when our crowds are lower, due to less of our young family orientated support getting out on schoolnigts, the crowd for the mythical drums night being only 617. The proposed capacity for the new stadium is 4,000, as has always been mentioned as such in all preliminary public consultations with the developers. Perhaps Cllr. Barber could explain where he got the five thousand figure from?

And with regard to the PA at 9.40pm, the main 'noise' from this is before matches, and at half time. During a match, or at the final whistle, announcements are kept at a bare minimum, such as substitutions, goalscorers and so on. At the end it's a brief announcement to thank people for coming, mentioning the next game...and that's really it. You know, as happens at any and every football ground up and down the country, Premiership, Football League or non-league. I am sure, as a conscientious councillor, you are aware-having been to matches before- that the noise levels of the PA are not excessive on a matchday, or you would have complained directly to the Club by now. We must BY LAW be able to be heard CLEARLY all over the ground, in case of any emergencies. By the very nature of this, some of the sound will carry outside the ground, in the immediate vicinity for a brief amount of time.

"Inbetweener, Perhaps worth offering neighbours those boardroom tickets and discussing their genuine concerns. Other neighbours of the club have emailed me to say they're sick of the PA at 9.40pm as they also have kids with much earlier bedtimes." You simply miss the point, in that you are prepared to take as gospel a poster on here, but are not prepared to listen to people who were at the match and have posted on here. I totally take your point of not wanting a free ticket, but the reason I offered you the chance to pop into the Boardroom was that you could then express your concerns, whether based on fact or not, to those on the Football Club Committee, who run the Club. It clearly would not be practical to allow local residents, generally, into the Boardroom on a matchday, as it has a limited capacity, with club officials from both sides, sponsors and so on. But if there is anyone out there who might want to see what it's like on a Hamlet matchday, if you've not been to Champion Hill before, please feel free to email me & I will arrange some free tickets for a home Ryman League match sometime in January. Anyone can email me at [email protected] My real name is Mishi Morath. Also, with regard to addressing peoples' concerns...that would be very difficult to do, as I do not believe there is a problem with noise on a matchday, other than what you would expect at any football ground up and down the country, as I believe I tried to express in my previous post on this thread.

As a lifelong Dulwich Hamlet supporter of over forty years man and boy , and also a current Club Committee member, I have watched this thread, with much credulity. A person made a post about drums at a game when I can assure you there were NO DRUMS AT THIS MATCh, and there very rarely are. And if there are, noise at a football match...so what? For a local councillor to suggest calling in noise abatement teams without checking on knowing facts, based on a rumour started on a local internet forum, seriously calls me into question his credibility to serve the people he purports to represent, namely the local residents in his ward! If Councillor Barber wishes to contact me I am more than happy to arrange for him to be Boardroom guest at any future home Dulwich Hamlet match of his choice, so he can see exactly how 'noisy' it is. How dare our crowds blossom from a home league average of a mere 180 in the 2009/10 season to over a thousand last season? Crowds that boost not just The Hamlet, but the entire immediate local economy. Ask the chip shop at the bottom of the hill, how much of a boost the club is to them..so much so, that they have re-named their business after the Club! Or the Cherry Tree, where our fans flock before and after matches, not to mention other local food & drink establishments, visited by visiting fans too. Our crowds do back our team, but we do so in a welcoming friendly way, never abusing players because of their colour, or having tired, sexist, or homophobic chants that football grounds are stereotyped for. We do a huge amount of good work in the local community, as I am sure Cllr. Barber is aware of...and the vast majority of the local community supports, with many doing so by coming along on matchdays, and if that means a bit of noise while a game is going on...then so be it. Personally, I've never enjoyed a positive matchday atmosphere in all my years, than at a Dulwich Hamlet home game now. Perhaps he can work together with his LibDem colleagues on the council in the South Bermondsey area, to start a campaign at Millwall on noise abatement and see how far he gets. A vibrant, noisy but fun matchday at a local club like Dulwich Hamlet should be something for all local councillors to be proud of, not knock...based on internet hearsay & a made-up rumour.

There's a good piece on this from the official Ryman League website: http://www.isthmian.co.uk/serial-campaigners-cant-wait-to-start-fundraising-26361

Indeed. Your best bet is to go to the Southwark Local History Library, based behind John Harvard Library, on Borough High Street. They have a limited number for sale...but they also have thousands upon thousands of old photographs from all over the London Borough of Southwark. http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200161/local_history_library The staff are very friendly, & they have a very good photocopier there. You can probably take photos of photos too, if you have the right equipment, but not sure what they would charge for that.

To the admins: I have posted this in the Dulwich Hamlet section, but hope you allow it to stay on here to reach a wider audience, for lots of people who wouldn't look at the thread on the local football club. A forthcoming home game will have all of the proceeds to local charity, which we hope the folk from East dulwich & beyond will come along to support. here are the details... On Saturday 3rd October The Hamlet are at home to VCD Athletic. This is the week before 'Non League Day', which is a national initiative to get people, to go to their local non-league side, on a 'blank' top flight international weekend. We are scheduled to be away that day, so the Club owners HADLEY PROPERTY have kindly agreed to a 'Pay What You Like' match the week before, which is the 3rd. The beneficiaries will be Cooltan Arts, a Walworth Road charity in the mental health field, who are the club's official charity partners for 2015/16; & the British Heart Foundation. The BHF being chosen as two of our loyal fans has two very serious heart illnesses last season. Both mental health issues & heart problems are things that affect almost every single person locally, so please spread the word & tell your family, friends, work colleagues...in fact thw whole world, to come along! Your Twitter, Facebook & other social media accounts are ideal for this. Every penny raised, after the usual matchday costs will be donated to the two charities, & last season our fans & the wider local community turned out in droves, with just over ?6,000 being donated to the Mayor of Southwark's chosen charities, which were both related to working with the homeless. They were Homes4Heroes & The Robes Project.

On Saturday 3rd October The Hamlet are at home to VCD Athletic. This is the week before 'Non League Day', which is a national initiative to get people, to go to their local non-league side, on a 'blank' top flight international weekend. We are scheduled to be away that day, so the Club owners HADLEY PROPERTY have kindly agreed to a 'Pay What You Like' match the week before, which is the 3rd. The beneficiaries will be Cooltan Arts, a Walworth Road charity in the mental health field, who are the club's official charity partners for 2015/16; & the British Heart Foundation. The BHF being chosen as two of our loyal fans has two very serious heart illnesses last season. Both mental health issues & heart problems are things that affect almost every single person locally, so please spread the word & tell your family, friends, work colleagues...in fact thw whole world, to come along! Your Twitter, Facebook & other social media accounts are ideal for this. Every penny raised, after the usual matchday costs will be donated to the two charities, & last season our fans & the wider local community turned out in droves, with just over ?6,000 being donated to the Mayor of Southwark's chosen charities, which were both related to working with the homeless. They were Homes4Heroes & The Robes Project.

For those interested in poetry Southwark Libraries are starting their 6th Poetry Festival...details here on the Council website: http://www.southwark.gov.uk/events/event/3461/rhyme_and_reason_6_southwark_libraries_poetry_festival

The Dulwich Hamlet Supporters Team only play once or month or so, and are not like an 'ordianry' casual football team, as we are SPECIFICALLY for supporters of Dulwich Hamlet, who mainly play occasional matches agaisnt other supporters sides, as well as entering supporters tournaments, and going on tour outside England once a year. There is a seven-a-side league on the old all-weather pitch, behind the ground, on some evenings, and I know there are others in the area too. Try the London Football Association, they have a 'find-aclub' sort of thingy on their website. I don't know contact details, I am sure you can get them off of Google. or the London FA, but for regular 'fun' football then I would suggest the AFA type local clubs, such as Alleyn Old Boys, South Bank CUACO & the like, who have local grounds, and several teams, are Saturday football. For Sunday football I'd suggest trying, depending on your standard, the lower divisions of the Southern Sunday League, where there will be local sides, based in local venues like Dulwich Park, Peckham Rye, Clapham Common & so on. Not very helpful, but I hope it helps a little.

First of all people should look at the plans more clearly...of course there will be a clubhouse, and all the facilities for a modern non-league community club. The latest plans not only include a new stadium on the current all-weather floodlit footprint on Greendale; it includes two smaller MUGA (Multi Use Games Area) all-weather pitches, on part of the current Dulwich Hamlet Football Ground footprint. Currently, with the stadium grass pitch, it cannot be used for more than a few hours a week, which is the main matchdays for Dulwich Hamlet & Fisher FC, who groundshare at Champion Hill. With a modern 4G all-weather pitch, and the MUGA areas, the ground can be in use all day, and in the evenings. Games simply won't get called off, except in extreme bad weather conditions, which means revenue on weekend match days, & there is the potenial for increased income on non-matchdays from pitch & MUGA area lettings. There will be changing rooms for both, so both can used simultaneously...and there is huge scope for community use, like letting schools use the facilities in day time. In short, the Club is not sustainable where it is currently situated, and a move next door, with a decent lease will safeguard the future of the Club not just for the rest of my life, but for future generations. And that's without going into the benefits that will be gained from this development, with the suggestion of a public Greendale Park for the adjacent scrubland. As for the comment about Hadley mobilising Hamlet fans...well if Hamlet fans support the new development they are more than capable of mobilising themselves, thank you very much. If we think it will benefit the future of our Club then we will support it...which is why so many of our fans have seen the plans & have seen what an excellent scheme it is...not just for our Club, but for the wider community that we have been part of since 1893.

I'd certainly try to get to a Poetry Night. Would be great if one of the local boozers could host one, that could include an Open Mic section...

Such a shame the Dulwich Hamlet Supporters Trust were refused permission to have a community stall here, having had a presence at both the Dulwich Country Fayre, on Goose Green & at Brockwell Park, for the Lambeth Country Show; earlier in the summer.

Well I took down any remaining posters along Lordship Lane & around Goose Green toward Peckham Rye, that were relating to our game. I was surprised to see quite a few stickers posted around, on lamp posts and bus stops, simply saying MASSAGE with a phone number. I also noted a series of posters stuck to the railings at Gosse Green, and a few other spots, promoting Zippo's Circus. I await complaints about these, or do people just complain about our Football Club?

I don't usually look on this forum, but I was 'tipped off' about this thread. My name is Mishi Morath, I'm a member of the Dulwich Hamlet Football Club committee, and was one of those involved heavily in our Non League Day event. With regard to posters being flyered everywhere....well that was an initiative by individual Club supporters, and not initiated by the Club. Not that I am being critical of that. It was a 'labour of love' well done. A lot of what has been displayed will, I am sure, have been taken down by now, by local people. However, as a gesture of goodwill, I will happily walk the entire local area, wherever I have seen them, to take down any remaining ones personally on Wednesday. This is the earliest I can do it, as I am busy tonight, after work, and the Youth Team are at home tomorrow. With regard to the East Dulwich Cinema mural, speaking personally, and not in an official Club capacity, I would love to see the mural properly covered with the message 'PAY A LIVING WAGE' as the company who are behind this venture also own the Ritzy, in Brixton, whose workers are taking selective long-term strike action for the right to earn a basic living wage. Don't be fooled by the company 'alternative' cinema image, as far as I am concerned the people of East Dulwich shouldn't support this venture, once opened, until they treat their staff fairly. Whilst on the theme of 'unsightly' posters, I presume this applies to any advertising jumble sales/lost cats/ whatever? I could understand the local annoyance if this was done every game, but this was clearly a 'one off' by enthusiastic fans, many of whom do live in the local area, and I'm sure no offence was meant. I hope many of those who came to Champion Hill for the first time enjoyed the game, and come back next Saturday when we are at home to Worthing in the FA Cup, 3.00pm kick off. Adults ?10. Concessions ?4 (Over 60s; 12 to 18s; full time students; unwaged; local NHS workers; 'blue light' members & serving members of the armed forces...all with relevant ID, if needed in that category) UNDER 12's ALWAYS FREE.