Recent Commercial & Community news

Here are our two most recent columns from the Dulwich Hamlet matchday programme, on sale at home games for only £2

This column was from back on Saturday 25th October, when we hosted Hendon:

Good afternoon everyone,
This afternoon we welcome to our corner of South-East London everyone from Hendon Football Club, once more for a Premier Division fixture. And never mind where Hendon are in the league table, just to say they are even playing us at this level is a huge tribute to everyone from their club. For quite a few years now they have been in the ‘footballing wilderness’ so to speak, off the pitch, when they lost their Claremont Road ground, another much missed iconic London old former amateur venue. To have not just retained their Premier position year after year, but to have also challenged toward the play-off spots is not just an achievement, but to be frank, bloody amazing!

They are a shining example of what fans can achieve to help run their club. Something we can, possibly/hopefully look forward to ourselves in the future, fingers crossed, when our new stadium is developed next door, and we push for a serious community & fan-led ownership of our own Club.

Talking of fan-led things, I had the ‘pleasure’ if that’s the right word, to go up to Hitchin a few weeks ago, alongside Jack Bagnall & Darren McCreery, from our Supporters Trust, where we attended a public meeting at Hitchin Town FC, our old friends from their Isthmian days before they were switched over to the Southern League. Their ground is under threat from their landlords, a local charity,called the Cow Commoners Trust, purporting to be there for the benefit of local sport. Suffice to say I don’t think they are working within that remit, as they want to relocate the Canaries to the edge of town, & build a huge Tesco on their historic Top Field ground.

I think it’s vital, as football fans, and club officials, that whilst we are busy working for our own future, it is also important to support fellow friends in our football world when they are in trouble, and I would urge all Hamlet fans to offer messages of support to our friends at Hitchin, you can check out more on their website at www.savehtfc.wordpress.com

By necessity, my fault for not being organised (as our esteemed editor of this journal will attest to, as he hounds me to meet his deadlines!) this is a shorter column than usual. As I type this early on Thursday morning, having popped into work to do so, I am on annual leave today, and away on holiday for a week to the Czech Republic, so will not be at the game today. So I’d like to thank whoever steps in to sell the 50/50 Draw tickets this afternoon, hopefully Andy &/or Finn, who have helped me a few times this season.

Talking of ‘foreign climes’…one little bit of early stage information I can give you is for pre-season in July 2015! On Saturday 11th July next year we are pleased to announce that we are honoured to have a full First Team friendly at home to our German friends from Hamburg, Altona 93. This will be billed as the 90th anniversary game of when we went there, back in Edgar Kail’s days, at Easter 1926!

To add to this, you may be able to guess from their title, that they were also founded in 1893, like ourselves. And in 2018, which will be both their and our 125th anniversary, as part of our celebrations they are inviting ourselves to play them over in Germany! This is still just under four years away, but we shall soon be setting up a ‘Supporters Altona 2018’ fundraising group, to raise the funds to get our players over there. We are at an advantage on our Altona friends, as their fans have only this season to raise their 6,000 euros target to get their team over here. So ‘watch this space’, as they say, and we hope to announce more soon.

Our last home match was on Saturday 1st November, at home to Chalfont St Peter, in the FA Trophy. I wasn't able to pen an article, as I'd been on holiday just before, so fellow committee member Liam Hickey stepped into the breach:

Good afternoon everybody and welcome back to Champion Hill and may I especially welcome our visitors from Cha!font St Peter who are our visitors in today's FA Trophy tie.
Whilst our paths have not crossed for a few years now, they were regular opponents back in one of our earlier Isthmian Division One spells .

Two consecutive home league gates in excess of 1000 are a testimony to the appeal of the match day experience and the football on the pitch. There are far too many people to thank individually for all their help in pushing the club's name forward in so many different ways.across the local community and further afield. We are certainly getting our fair share of exposure as evidenced by the feature in The Independent last week.

In term of today, I would like to thank our regular home cup game match sponsor Norman Pocock of HR Jennings for his continued support and to Ralph & Bruce today's ball sponsors. If you are looking for insurance then why not get in contact with HR Jennings to see if they can provide you with what you need. Contact details are in their advert in the programme.

As you may have noticed, there has been a significant growth in programme advertising and those businesses with pitch side adverts. Most of these are local businesses who are pledging their support for our football club and so I would like to think that our supporters will take their business to them whenever possible. Please do mention Dulwich Hamlet FC when you use them.
We still have some match and ball sponsorships available and if you want to have a different match day experience then please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or give me a call on 07967 212353 to discuss what you require from the day. We believe that our packages are the most competitively priced at this level of football.

With all the sponsors we already have on board that doesn't mean we've yet got everything covered but that's not yet the case. The Football in the Community Scheme recently launched a couple of new teams and they are looking for help with sponsoring their kit. If anybody can help, or knows somebody that can, then please contact the email above or paaa7@hotmail com.
I would also like to take this opportunity to pass on my sincere thanks for the recent very generous donation by the family of Bevan Emerson which has been put to good use by the club in purchasing items for the team.

We are always looking for new sponsors and advertisers so if there is any business you use that you feel would benefit from advertising with The Hamlet then just pass on their details to me and we will do the rest. We are very flexible and can work with most budgets whether big or small. Every penny received goes to the club as the commercial team work entirely on a voluntary basis.

As well as the fundraising for the 125th Anniversary trip to our friends at Altona 93 in Germany, planning is already underway for sponsorship of the team in 2015-16. We hope to be able to announce details shortly that will be give more local businesses the chance to get some of the prime sponsorship and advertising opportunities available at an affordable price. We hope to be able to announce more details in the next home programme.
In terms of community activities then we will be announcing some further events working with the local community shortly. As always these will be aimed at getting more people to experience live football here at The Hamlet.

As part of this work we are pleased to announce a new link up with local charity CoolTan Arts who are a mental health and arts charity based in our borough, Southwark. We believe that their aims and objectives are closely aligned with our own and they will be the club's official charity partner during 2015. Again full details of the link up will follow shortly.

Finally, if you are part of a school, youth group or any type of community organisation then we would like to invite your group to experience live football here at Champion Hill. If your group, or any other that you have contacts with, would like tickets for a home league game here at Champion Hill then please send your details to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.