If you don't always buy a programme, & missed Tuesday nights' one against Peacehaven & Telscombe here was our message:

Good evening everyone, despite the heading in my column in the first programme of the season this is indeed a ‘commercial & COMMUNITY column’ and not just a commercial one. For although my ‘remit’ if you like, on the Club Committee is to work alongside Liam Hickey on fundraising initiatives, it’s also very much about spreading the word into the community, to try to improve the following of Dulwich Hamlet.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Supporters Trust are also on the ‘same wavelength’ with regard to this, and following their hard work over the summer attending both the Dulwich Festival Fayre on Goose Green, and the Lambeth Country Show weekend at Brockwell Park; they managed to collect a list of almost four hundred local people who they chatted to, and asked for their emails. In conjunction with ourselves on the Football Club committee they have responded to all of these (well those that were legible!) and sent out an invite to those locals with an introduction to the Club offering them no less than FOUR free tickets for these ‘newcomers’ to Champion Hill for our forthcoming match this coming Saturday, against Lewes. There are no catches, no strings attached.

And a first glance the perfectly natural reaction will be ‘why are they giving away all these free tickets? It will annoy all the regulars!’ In fact it should do the opposite! You see what we are trying to do is actually TARGET individual matches, to give a ‘flavour’ of what is rapidly becoming a unique ‘Champion Hill match experience’ where every game is fun for fans, with a great atmosphere, watching some superb football…as far away from the ‘middle aged man watching an amateur pub side’ boot a ball around…a tired, clichéd image of the game at our level that still persists.

We are trying to break that with notion, which is why, over the last couple of seasons, as the Club is becoming more and more representative and part of our local community, both on the terraces & in the boardroom, we pick on specific games to give locals their ‘first taste’ of Dulwich Hamlet, rather than just hand out tickets ‘willy nilly’, where they can be reused, and the system abused by ‘regular freeloaders’, which we believe would upset our loyal regulars.

And the choice of the Lewes match was not by ‘accident’. For the following Saturday home match, a fortnight on, is Non League Day. I am sure many of you will have heard of this, but for those who have not, it was an initiative started by a chap called James Doe in 2010 as a social media experiment, after being inspired by a pre-season trip to Devon to watch Queens Park Rangers play at Tavistock. The idea was for it being a platform for non-league clubs to promote themselves to fans of local professional sides, who wouldn’t be playing as it was an international weekend. The scheme has grown year by year, and is now aimed at not just Football League & Premiership fans, but to promote our levels of the game, generally.

A number of clubs have had ‘bumper gates’ by having a ‘PAY WHAT YOU LIKE’ Day, and thanks to the forward looking generousity of our new owners this is EXACTLY what we shall be doing against Hampton & Richmond Borough on Saturday 6th September! Simply make a donation as you come through the turnstile, or on the way out. Invite all your family and friends, in effect it is FREE to watch The Hamlet on 6th September against Hampton & Richmond Borough! Pay on the way in…or on the way out! Spread the word and we can break our record attendance for the current Champion Hill for a Hamlet game, which is currently 1,835; against Southport in the First Round Proper of the FA Cup, back in 1998. Not only is this a great way to promote our Club, we hope to give something back into our community by making a donation from the money raised, after covering the usual matchday costs, to a local charity; full details of which shall be announced soon on our
official website at www.pitchero.com/clubs/dulwichhamlet

On the same day the Supporters Trust will have a stand at the Friends of Peckham Rye Fete, which will be unsurprisingly on the Rye, from 12 noon, until about 2.30pm. They shall not just be promoting our Club, but also publicising the national anti-racism in football ‘Kick It Out’ campaign, who we are pleased to be working with on Non League Day, as one of their chosen clubs, to make our Non League Day an anti-racist initiative.

To finish my column for tonight…just in case our most loyal fans feel left out, which is our season ticket holders, who have shown their loyalty in advance by shelling out their cash (albeit you do get a number of ‘free games’ thrown in, compared to those who ‘pay on the gate’) we can’t offer you anything apart from our thanks…but we can give you four free tickets each for you to bring a new fan along, either family, friend, work colleague, neighbour, or just a random stranger sitting next to you on the bus; and you shall all soon be receiving either an email or letter offering you this for the home game at the end of September against Wingate & Finchley, on Tuesday 23rd September.

See you all again on Saturday!