Community lead Rob Hyneman had the following to say in our homecoming programme on Boxing Day

Hello and welcome back to Champion Hill!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Boxing Day football is always special but today is historic.

It’s been a long few months away from our rightful home, during a time when our club has had some major ups and downs. Despite everything, we are still here and back within the community we belong in. I hope today is a celebration, not only of our return home but everything this club has achieved since we last played here. This is a day that most Dulwich fans have dreamed about ever since our time in exile began. At this time, it is important to appreciate all the effort and hard work that has gone into securing our return. There are far too many people to name individually but a massive thank you to everyone who supported us and did everything they could to get us back home.

Now we are home, it is time to start looking to the future. We as a club need to re-establish ourselves within our local community. For the second half of the season, we need Champion Hill to be packed to the rafters as Gavin his team continue to show that they belong in the National South. This is when we need to be reminding people that there is no better place for them to spend a Saturday afternoon than cheering on The Hamlet.
As I’ve touched on in previous notes, continuing our community whilst we were at Tooting was a challenge. Now we are back in Southwark, we want to re-stablish our strong links within our local community. We have a number of initiatives planned including some fundraising and awareness work for our charity partner Redthread. We will also be relaunching our free tickets for schools and youth organisations offer so that we can ensure our fans of tomorrow are coming through the turnstiles. We are always on the lookout for new ideas so please get in contact, if you have any suggestions!

In the run up to Christmas, we held our under 11s football competition for local schools. This was run in partnership with Cobourg Primary School. Eighteen schools entered the competition which culminated in ten teams competing at the finals day. Bessemer Grange Primary School were deserving winners of our Boy’s competition and St Joseph’s Camberwell were victorious in the Girls’. Massive congratulations to both winning teams who will now go forward to represent Dulwich Hamlet in the National League Trust Cup.

We’d also like to thank Cobourg Primary School for hosting the event and working in partnership with us.

I hope you enjoy the game today.

Best Wishes,

Rob Hyneman
DHFC Community Lead
@DHFC_Community