Remembering Steve Connolly

It is with great sadness that I’m writing this after the passing of my best mate Steve “Deltasix” Connolly on Saturday night.

Steve, was a very familiar face around Champion Hill and at away games with his hat full of badges and accompanied by his wife Jean and their mascot Friday. Jean and Steve would travel all over the country watching Dulwich and making many friends along the way.

Steve and I first met around 35 years ago, living in Essex and both supporting Southend United at the time we started a fanzine together called The Little Gazette and published over 100 issues.

Politics and personal situation drove me away from Essex and Steve to Marbella with his wife of the time Carol. Carol sadly passed away in 2010 and by that time I was living in South London and had discovered Dulwich Hamlet FC, Champion Hill and this wonderful, magical football club that has you hooked the first time you walk through its turnstiles.

It was February 2014 when I first persuaded Steve to go to a game, an away trip to Canvey Island. Steve was back living in Essex at this time, and as I’d been raving about the likes of Nyren Clunis, Peter Adeniyi, Ellis Green and this magical little guy from Turkey Erhun Oztumer, Steve wanted to see this for himself. We lost 2-1!

That wasn’t to stop Steve though as he started coming to more games, then joined me at Champion Hill for the first time for a Tuesday night game against Bury. We started travelling to away games and Steve would often bring along his Grandson Harry and his son-in-law Nick, but together we wouldn’t miss a game home or away. I remember him staying at my flat in Battersea for a 5am start on a Sunday to get the supporters coach to Torquay for a league game away to Truro. Fun days!

Steve met this lovely lady called Jean in 2016. Jean loved football, loved cricket and loved a social life, it was a match made in heaven and I remember Jean joining us for her first Dulwich game in the 2016 the Play Off Final away to East Thurrock United. We lost that one as well but Jean and Steve would become regulars along with Friday and made many, many friends along the way.

You’re going to be sadly missed my friend by me, at Champion Hill and everybody who came into contact with you. RIP my best mate.

Ian Kemp

I’ve met a lot of people at this club but meeting Steve (Jean and Friday) for the first time is something I’ll never forget, thankfully it was the first time of many. Forever grateful to have known you, you’ll always be one of the best.

Flo Clasper

We are absolutely heartbroken to hear the news of Steve’s passing. Steve was an absolutely fantastic person, a proper Dulwich & Football fan who always had time for everyone. We always looked forward to a catch up and a drink on Saturday’s with Steve & Jean and always had a great time being in their company. (Even if the result hadn’t gone our way on the day!)

His presence at Champion Hill has been missed by many over the last few months and will continue to be after this heartbreaking news.

We send our love & condolences to Jean and all of Steve’s family and friends.

Rest In Peace Steve, you we’re one of the best.

With Love from The Price Family

Welcome to our New Website

For far too long our fans have been asking for a better website so we have taken your comments on board and have spent the last few months developing and testing a brand new website. Today we are proud to put it live!

This will make much more information much more accessible, display all the info and news you need in one place and enhance our commercial operations.

Here is a summary of what you can now expect:

• All match information, including match reports, video and photos will be in one article.
• A new design to reflect our fan culture and branding
• Mixlr enabled on the live radio match day page so you can find the live feed easily. This page will also have the score updated throughout ongoing games for both the women's and men's teams. This will be the go to place to find out the latest score if you no longer use Twitter
• Up to date league tables for all three DHFC teams
• Fixture and results pages we can update ourselves without having the rely on the league or other third parties
• More emphasis on the Women's reserves team

Over the next few months we will be moving more content over from the old website. We currently have women's content from when they joined us and men's content from the beginning of this season. Results for all three teams go back to 2019. If you are searching for old news, you can go to our old Pitchero website which will contain all historic content and will remain in place and women's content which will remain until the end of February. 

We hope you like our new online look and if you wish to leave feedback, please visit our contact page.

Hamlet nominated for FvH Award

Dulwich Hamlet FC have been nominated for the Non League Award at the 2024 Football V Homophobia Awards in Manchester next month.

This is the third year in a row that Dulwich have been nominated for the award having won in 2022 and coming in 2nd place to fellow Isthmian League side Concord Rangers last year.

The award celebrates the achievements of clubs within the National League System, in relation to their work on LGBTQ+ inclusion in football. This award is for clubs outside the professional football leagues and includes clubs that play in Vanarama National League, Northern Premier League, Southern League and Isthmian League. The award will be made to a Non-League Club which has gone above and beyond to tackle issues of exclusion in the game over the past year. Non-League Clubs could have, for example:

• Worked internally to make the club more inclusive for LGBTQ+ people
• Publicly supported the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people
• Implemented training for staff, volunteers and players
• Taken part in the Month of Action, Trans Week of Action, Rainbow Laces or engaged in other similar campaigns/charities
• Worked with the community to promote a better understanding of the issues faced by LGBTQ+ people in football, or worked on greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ people within the club

In 2023, we once again welcomed TRUK United to Champion Hill for 2 games as we also welcomed the first Trans Masc team in the World as they took on our Dulwich Hamlet supporters XI.

In December at our Men's fixture with Bognor Regis and our Women's fixture with Crawley members of our management teams and playing squads wore Rainbow, Transgender, Lesbian, Bisexual and Pansexual laces at our annual Rainbow Laces fixtures.

The Hamlet continue to lead the way for LGBTQ+ inclusivity in football and have a number of exciting new plans to make our football club even more inclusive as we move further into 2024.

Dulwich Hamlet FC Christmas Appeal 2023

Dulwich Hamlet will be supporting King’s College Hospital and The Albrighton Centre this Christmas!