Community Corner

Christmas his now gone, but here was our penultimate column from the programme, just before the break

This was our message, from our last home match, on 19th December:

Today we have the pleasure of welcoming Tonbridge Angels to Champion Hill….but not just them! Among our other guests today, and there are so many of them I hope I don’t leave anyone out…

First and foremost for me, as quite a long-standing Hamlet fan over forty years, it is a privilege to see Kimm Connett back here, with a large party of former great (& not-so-greats!) who have worn our famous Pink & Blue down the decades, under the auspices of the Dulwich Hamlet Former Players’ Association. I’ll be diplomatic, a rarity for me I’ll grant you, and won’t say who are the great, and who the more workmanlike ones were, but suffice to say football is a game of perception, and even those of slightly lesser ability than legends such as Ossie Bayram, have a million times more footballing talent in their little toe than I would ever have in my whole body!

Before the match you will see the team accompanied out by some much younger visitors, and they are all members of the Camberwell Fire under elevens football team. We hope they enjoy being with us this afternoon. Also here are two local school parties from two local primary schools, namely St Judes and Dulwich Wood. I don’t know if any of them are already Hamlet fans, but hopefully a few of them will be Hamlet fans of the future, with today being their first ever match in a long line of suffering on the terraces….well ok, it’s not all ‘suffering’ but it makes ‘success’ all the sweeter when it comes, as any football fan will tell you. These on-going school visits are all part of our outreach work, under the wing of our Football Committee member George Parnavelas, who is our lead on Schools Liasion. If you would like your school to have some free tickets for a future home game, not just for the kids, but for their families as well, then simply drop George an email at: gparnavelas@gmailcom
There’s also another group of primary school youngsters here for the game, under the wing of our official 2016/17 charity partners ‘Football Beyond Borders’. You may recall there was a large group of teenagers who they work with recently, when we hosted Metropolitan Police, but the kids here today were a little too young to stay up late for a midweek fixture. We hope they enjoy cheering on The Hamlet as much as the FBB teenagers did!

That brings us on to the subject of a collection today, as FBB will be shaking their collecting buckets from half-time onwards, as part of our link-up. We, as a Football Club, will also be donating the proceeds of the ‘50/50 Draw’ to their coffers, to top them up. As well as this they will have volunteers asking you to become FBB supporters, so if you’re approached by someone with a clipboard please don’t dismiss them as mere ‘high street chuggers’, as you can back their work by offering to pay direct from your bank account as little as ten pounds a month, which is very little at all, if you are one of our fans who are fortunate enough to be in full-time employment. And even if it’s not the right time for you, why not wish them well at this time of year.
Ah…this time of year. Personally speaking I’m often referred to as an old ‘Scrooge’ or ‘Grinch’…but on behalf of the Dulwich Hamlet Football Committee community side of things I’d like to thank everyone who has helped me over the last twelve months on so many projects, be that Committee members, Trust Board members or individual fans…together we make our great Club as great as it currently is. And in that I’d also like to thank the people at the helm, firstly, the Hadley Property Group, latterly Meadows Residential; for without their backing-both financial and organisational-over the last few seasons I would not be writing this column on a Wednesday afternoon in my lunch hour…for there would be no Dulwich Hamlet Football Club. And they-ultimately- have the final say in any community work that we carry out as a Club, as a whole.

People wish for many things at this time of year, and no matter what your reservations might be about our current owners, my wish for 2017 is a speedy resolution to the new ground proposals, which will ensure the future of The Hamlet for many years to come. I’d also, personally like to thank Gavin Rose, for agreeing to any community type approach I’ve put to him, for things such as the FC Assyria match early in 2016,roll on March, when we will be staging our third ‘mid-season awareness’ match, following on from the initial 2015 one against Stonewall FC, around the issue of homophobia in football. We shall soon we announcing more details for our forthcoming one, highlighting the plight of homelessness.

So, whatever your religion, whether a church-going Christian or not, may I wish you a very Happy Christmas, or holiday if you prefer, enjoy the break and thank you for supporting everything that I try to initiate, supported by so many of you, off-of-the-pitch.
See you all on New Years Eve, back here at Champion Hill, when we take on Wingate & Finchley, don’t forget the earlier kick-off time of one o’clock.

Mishi Morath (Dulwich Hamlet Football Committee, lead for community initiatives)