More off-the-pitch community news

Here was the latest column in the Matchday Magazine, by Football Committee member Mishi Morath

Good afternoon, there’s no doubt who’s coming to Champion Hill today, as it is one of the most talked-about fixtures for many a time. Whether that’s a good or bad thing that’s not for me to discuss in an official match day magazine, but I can say that I-for one- as a Football Committee member that helps on the reaching out to the community side, find it an extremely intriguing situation. One of my comments when people from other clubs ask what we do here at Champion Hill to boost our crowds off the pitch and while explaining some of our work, is to say “just do what’s right for your community, as we do for ours.” And that is certainly something that is happening at Billericay, with fan forums, school & hospital visits and so on. As an outsider looking in, and as a supporter who hasn’t got a proverbial pot to do you know what in, it’s not the way I’d necessarily do things, but…it looks like four figure crowds at Blunts Wall Road will become the ‘norm’ for now, and no matter how that’s achieved, that must be good for non-league football at our level.

But this column is about chatting about things at Champion Hill, and we never rest on our laurels. We have a plethora of ideas to work on, some of which we can’t quite tell you of yet, as we need the “I”’s dotted and the “T”s crossed; but we can certainly plug ‘NON LEAGUE DAY’, which is on Saturday 7th October 2017, when we are at home to Needham Market. We are using this occasion to correspond with our now annual ‘Pay What You Like’ fixture, which we can do unlike last season, when we were away on ‘Non League Day’. A wonderful initiative that simply wouldn’t be possible without the agreement of Meadows Residential, so we are grateful to them, once more.

For those of you who don’t know how a ‘Pay What You Like’ game works…it does what it says on the tin. Admission at the turnstiles is whatever you choose. It’s always a huge gamble as we still have to cover the usual matchday costs of stewarding, match officials, kit wash, players’ wages & so on, but after that EVERY PENNY we take through the turnstiles is donated to charity. So the more who attend and ‘pay’ the more we can give away! Last season we shared just over THREE THOUSAND POUNDS between ‘Football Beyond Borders’ [who were our official charity partner last season] & our near neighbours, the Dog Kennel Hill Adventure Playground.

This time all profits will be split between our current chosen charity, ‘The Copleston Centre’, who are based just the other side of Dog Kennel Hill; and the local mental health organisation ‘Lambeth & Southwark MIND’. Which fits in perfectly, with the Copleston Centre hosting a mental health group, because three days after this game it is World Mental Health Day, and we will be using Non League Day to highlight mental health issues. We’re also hoping to hold a small football competition in the morning on the old all-weather back pitch, with some stalls with plenty of information around mental health issues both there in the morning, as well as inside the ground during the First Team match. We are able to do some of these ‘extra-curricular’ match day activities not just due to many people volunteering to assist, but also thanks to a donation from the UNISON trade union, for which we are extremely grateful.

As well as supplying the monthly match posters that you can pick up around the ground and from the Mega-Container, our hard-working Supporters’ Trust are working alongside the Football Committee to promote and showcase our ‘Pay What You Like’ game, and associated activities on the day; and will be designing and distributing a poster specific to this game.

Next Saturday we travel to Leiston, and Shaun Dooley is organising a supporters’ coach to this, and you can book for this in the usual way, by going to the “12th Man” Stand today. While there they have new fixture cards for you all to pick up, and also have on sale some extremely nice pocket wallet passholder thingamajigs, which are perfect for your buss pass or bank cards, at only £3 each, which every penny from their sales going directly to the “12th Man” coffers. The proceeds from which go to Gavin Rose, to boost his playing squad, on top of the budget that is laid down by our Club controllers, Meadows Residential.

Have a good afternoon, whatever the result, wherever you come from…and don’t forget the BIG Bank Holiday much awaited, mouth-watering local derby with our arch-rivals Tooting & Mitcham United, on Bank Holiday Monday, kicking off at three o’clock!

Mishi Morath (Football Committee lead on Community issues)