Read Rob Hyneman's programme notes from Saturday's game against Weymouth

Hello and welcome!

It’s a busy day at Champion Hill today with lots going on. We are delighted to have the players, management and fans of Weymouth FC as our guests.

Firstly, we welcome Max Roberts. He is here with his family and friends to celebrate his 9th birthday. He loves Dulwich Hamlet, Crystal Palace and Scotland. Max and his friends will be walking out with the players at the start of the game – we wish him a happy birthday and hope he has a fantastic day!

Today is a special day in the non-league calendar and we are delighted that this year we have a home game to celebrate the event. Non-League Day was set up by 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. It has now grown to become an annual part of the football calendar. Always scheduled to coincide with an international break, Non-League Day provides a platform for clubs to promote the importance of affordable volunteer-led community football while giving fans across the country the chance to show support for their local non-league side.

As part of Non League Day we welcome fans from Premier League and League clubs to experience a match at Champion Hill. To all those who have made the trip today – we hope you have a great day and are enthused to come back again.

As part of Non League Day, we will also be supporting the work of two charities – Prostate Cancer UK and DulwichSaysNo. The club will be splitting it’s share of the 50/50 draw from today’s game between both charities.

Prostate Cancer UK

This year Prostate Cancer UK is once again the official charity partner of Non-League Day. They are calling on clubs across the land to fundraise on their match day and raise awareness of a disease killing one man every 45 minutes. Prostate Cancer UK's top priority is funding research to stop prostate cancer killing men. They are investing millions to find better treatments and better tests that can spot fast-growing cancers early, and could be used in a screening programme to save thousands of lives.

The Prostate Cancer Charity was founded in 1996 by Professor Jonathan Waxman to address the 'Outrageous and arbitrary surgical treatment of men'. They were the first national organisation for prostate cancer in the UK. Their aim was to improve the care and welfare of those affected by prostate cancer, increase investment in research, and raise public and political awareness of a long-neglected disease. They started small: five members of staff and with our helpline housed in a small room in Hammersmith hospital. It ran one day a week.

They merged with Prostate Action in 2012 and completely rebranded to form Prostate Cancer UK. In the last 20 years, they’ve invested over £37 million into groundbreaking research, and continue to provide award-winning support for men. Prostate Cancer UK have grown in size, strength and influence but their ambition is the same: to put men at the heart of everything we do. The ‘Man of Men’ badge has become a key image linked to their work and has become synonymous with their campaigns.

The ‘Man of men’ badge is made up of 77 familiar icons that you’ll see in everyday life, from toilet doors and building sites to road signs and libraries. In fact, they mean far more than that. They represent everyone involved in the fight against prostate cancer, everyone who wants to stop prostate cancer being a killer and the men they’re doing it for. They’re the fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands, partners, mates and granddads living with prostate cancer and those who have died from the disease.

For more information about the work of Prostate Cancer UK, please visit their website: www.prostatecanceruk.org

Dulwich Hamlet FC Says No!

Dulwich Hamlet is proud to be supporting the “Your City Says No” campaign. This a nationwide movement aimed at uniting communities in making a stand against serious youth violence and knife crime.

The club, and local community, were deeply saddened to hear about the death of Dennis Anderson earlier this year. Dennis Anderson was murdered in East Dulwich in February this year outside the off licence on Lordship Lane. His killer was 25 years old and also from East Dulwich. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison in August of this year.

The Dulwich movement is led by Leeanne Manzi (Dennis’ partner) and Nicola Groombridge, one of Dennis’s oldest friends. Today they are marching through East Dulwich in memory of Dennis. This will hopefully unite the local community in support and show the impact this epidemic of knife crime is having on families.

Organisers of the march said, “You never think knife crime will affect you and then all of a sudden it’s affecting innocent people who are just on a night out and in the wrong place at the wrong time. It makes you realise that it could happen to anyone and we don’t want any more families to be devastated in this way.”

Dulwich Hamlet FC is incredibly proud to get behind and promote this message. The campaign fits perfectly with our recent work with Redthread and is something the club is passionate about supporting and raising awareness of. You will see we have displayed a pitch side banner, reading ‘DulwichHamletFCSaysNo’ in support of the campaign. Events like this won’t solve the knife and youth crime epidemic in the capital but it will make people talk about it. This is hopefully the starting point in a conversation about how to tackle the knife crime issue and a step towards making our streets safer. They have set up a fundraising page for all those who wish to contribute to this campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/dulwichsaysno

As always, thank you for your support today and I hope you enjoy the game!

Rob Hyneman
DHFC Community Lead
@DHFC_Community