Community news..

...from the last home programme.

Here's the column, from our official matchday magazine, in case you missed it, as penned by Football Club Committee member Mishi Morath:

Good afternoon, we’re back at Champion Hill, for how long nobody knows, with our seemingly never-ending saga of trying to get permission for a new purpose-built modern community stadium dragging on until the Planning Inquiry in December, but last weekend I saw the future, and I liked it. What a wonderful facility Slough Town have at Arbour Park, on the face of it. They have a number of constraints due to not running the facility themselves, and that in itself should flag warning bells for ourselves, I believe. For permission to have a new stadium does not ensure the future per se, that’s when the hard work starts for us all to get the Club we want for not just the immediate future, but for generations to come.

But that discussion is really for another day. Where we stand right now it to simply continue what we are doing, and that is trying to reach out to our local community as best we can, as a Football Committee, working alongside our Supporters’ Trust.

And today we are pleased, indeed proud, to be holding our first ever special day for local council workers, a ‘Public Sector Day’. As a Football Club we try to place ourselves at the heart of our local community, and local councils are at the heart of communities too, and to boot, almost always the largest employer in their area. I know that’s certainly the case in Southwark, and I am guessing, neighbouring boroughs too. This afternoon we have offered anyone who works for our local council, or from our neighbouring boroughs, the concession rate of admission to give them a flavour and taste of our unique non-league match day experience. I am sure that some of those who have come along will never have been to a non-league match before, never mind Champion Hill! We hope they enjoy their day, and return to our next afternoon game…which brings us to…NON LEAGUE DAY!

This is our next Saturday home game, and we are grateful to Chris Taylor, the general manager of Dulwich Hamlet Football Club Limited, for allowing this match on Saturday 7th October when we play Needham Market, to be our fourth annual PAY-WHAT-YOU-LIKE DAY. It does what it says on the tin, with every penny of profit being donated to our two chosen charities for the day, as we have done for the last three seasons. They are ‘The Copleston Centre’ who are our official DHFC 2017/18 charity partner; and the local mental health charity ‘Lambeth & Lewisham MIND’. Both of these will have tables inside the entrance to the ground on the day, so you can find out more about the work they do directly from their volunteers.

Back to this afternoon, we are also pleased to welcome a group of local guests, as part of our on-going community outreach ticketing initiative. They are members of the East Dulwich based Vale Residents’ Association, we hope they enjoy coming to the local football club on their doorstep, and trust they’ll be back for more other games, football in the afternoon and home by tea time…can’t be bad!

As you can see we’re more than open to requests for tickets from groups outside the ‘traditional’ type, namely most clubs if they ‘target’ anyone only go for schools. We welcome applications for a batch of tickets for a future home game not just from schools, but from any local organisation, be they ones working with youngsters, as in schools, junior football clubs, colleges, or youth groups; through to any adult groups. Work places, community groups, faith organisations, sports clubs… you ask and we shall deliver! Simply drop an email to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. & I will-hopefully-get back to you.
The other night when we took on Hendon, we were pleased to have John Anderson, from Poole Town Football Club, as our guest in the Boardroom. He had made the trip up to London for the second consecutive day as they’d played at Wealdstone the night before, to ask about what we do off-the-field. We’re happy to share our ideas with anyone who asks, and hope other clubs up and down the land adopt & refine them to suit their own local needs. It was a compliment to all of the work we have all done collectively over the last few seasons, for him to take the time to find out what we have achieved and we are planning to do in the near future.

On that note I finish my column today, maybe slightly longer than usual, but my fault for missing the editor’s deadline for the last home programme. Sorry John! Hopefully this is normal service resumed..

Mishi Morath (Community Initiatives lead, Football Committee)