Goalscorer on the pitch, striker Danny Mills is helping the club progress off it too as our EDI Officer, as well as educating others within the game

Danny Mills has been a fan favourite since he joined the club in the summer of 2019, playing more than 100 times in the pink and blue shirt, whilst almost reaching a half-century of goals during that time.

He has also helped teach the next generation by doing some work within the academy set-up, and stepped into the dugout to co-manage the first team between Gavin Rose's departure and Paul Barnes's arrival.

However over the last twelve months, Millsy has also begun working in a hugely important capacity away from the playing field, becoming the club's first committed EDI Officer. He chatted to the club to explain more about his role.

Firstly Danny, what is meant by EDI and how did your involvement with it come about?

EDI stands for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and my first conversation I had with the club was about a year ago. Originally the conversation was with Rob Hyneman, our Community Lead, and it was actually around seeing if I could assist the club in finding an EDI Officer, so it wasn't initially about me taking on the role.

As things developed and we started to get a bit further along, the club then asked me if I wanted to do it! It wasn't something I was thinking about at the time, but when we had a few more conversations, I said I'd be up for it! It probably took a bit longer to start than it perhaps needed to, but we got there in the end and I started just under a year ago.

In that time, what projects have you been working on with the club, and what projects do you have coming up in the future?

The first conversation we had around the role was around diversifying the fanbase, and one of the tasks was around doing that, it is something which I think will take a little while and be more of a long term plan. I said that the first thing we had to do was to put together a strategy and build an action plan and then implement it. Following that, I have put together a three year strategy, with targets within that timeframe that we could hopefully achieve.

I had many different ideas of what I would like to do and the first thing I did was to build and create a survey, which the fans would have seen last season, and with the help of some great people from behind the scenes, we managed to get that out and as part of that, we wanted to use that as part of our thinking going forward, including listening to the fans and then trying to implement some of those actions that came out of it.

One of the things that we've been working on is making sure that as a football club, we are inclusive, so we're looking at building a multi-faith prayer room/sensory room for fans. We are going to look at converting one of the squash courts into that space, so that is in the pipeline.

I have also been putting together a Player Care Package, which was signed off recently, which I will go into more detail about when it is released, but essentially it's a package that supports the players and gives details of how tackle and report racism, plus information on mental health awareness and gambling awareness. It has been a big piece of work which I have been working on since last season, and I have been trying to get major stakeholders involved, and there will be more work to come.

You mentioned having a three-year plan, are you able to outline what objectives you will be trying to implement in that time?

The first objective was to actually appoint an EDI officer, which was one of the biggest things that the club wanted to do, as well as get the fan survey out and get their voices heard. We also want to put on different initiatives over the three years, such as signing some commitments, fans may have seen us sign the Nujum Sports Muslim Athlete Charter, and we would like to commit and sign up similar inclusive charters and build our relationships with other key stakeholders within the game such as Stonewall, Level Playing Field, Kick It Out and Show Racism The Red Card.

At the end of that three years, we're not going to have dramatic change, but what we would like to have is for the club to be in a position to be in a better place than it was at the start, and the EDI role should be in a stronger place too. Over the next year or two, I want to lay the foundations of a role which can be taken forward. I think there is a lot of learning that we need to do as a club when it comes to this space, the club is more advanced than most in being an inclusive place, but I think we've got a real opportunity to integrate and imbed EDI within the club.

You have strong links with both Kick It Out and Show Racism The Red Card, what sort of work do you do with those organisations?

I used to work at Show Racism The Red Card as an educator, and would go into schools and deliver anti-racism workshops, and do teacher training too, and when I left, the CEO asked me to become a patron of the charity, so now I do a lot of promoting and go to events and I have kept a good relationship with the people there.

For me, it is about making them more of a presence within the non-league game, and last year I did an event at the club where they came down and all the players wore their shirts and the club really backed it which was brilliant.

As for Kick It Out, I sit on the Players Advisory Board representing non-league football with Anwar Uddin, who has done some amazing work in non-league and for Fans For Diversity and we basically advise Kick It Out on what we feel non-league needs, what ways they can be present, and what ways they can support clubs. One of the ways they’ve supported Dulwich is through this Player Care Package that I designed, giving us a point of contact there in Troy Townsend, where if any things do happen, or if the club need any advise, then they can go straight to him which is really good.

Last year you were named on the 2021 Football Black List, how has that accolade helped you in helping to promote your work?

It has certainly opened a few doors and put me in spaces that I probably wouldn’t have been in before, or didn’t imagine myself being in prior to jumping into this space, but it has been really positive and I think for me it has hopefully been the start of a long journey into Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

I’ve been working at a membership firm as an EDI consultant for the last seven months, and even just speaking about my experiences, and being on the Football Black List has been really helpful and it has been great to see how this year has gone and what next year might hold. For me, it is about building blocks and that was certainly one of them.

You also ran a Shout Out For Mental Health campaign, how much of a role did the Covid pandemic play in your mental health support?

To be honest, I think that without the pandemic I wouldn’t have been in this space at all. We were all plodding along and the rug got pulled out from under us and certainly for me it was a time for reflection and allowed me to think about the mental health challenges you go through as a player, and as a human being in general.

I think we’re all on that spectrum of mental health, we all have good days and we all have bad days, and I think the pandemic shone a light on that, and allowed me, and us all, to start having these conversations around what mental health is and how it affects us all.

A lot of players tend to go into coaching when they finish their careers, but the EDI path is something you want to continue for the rest of your working career isn’t it?

Absolutely, I was having a conversation with a former teammate of mine a few days ago and I was saying that as players, you get pigeonholed in a way where you’re expected to play, and then coach, and that is normally the conversation you have where someone asks you if you fancy going into coaching.

I really enjoyed coaching the academy and was a really great experience but I wouldn’t say I loved it, and I think you have to love doing that kind of thing to go into it. I see myself in another area of the game, or possibly not, but certainly within the realms of EDI. The work I do now allows me to be exposed to many different organisations and that’s the path I see myself following.

If I am to stay in football, it would either be in that space or even looking at being a director, as I have done a corporate governance qualification last year, and it is a space I really enjoy, so there are lots of different options out there, I want to continue my learning.