All at Dulwich Hamlet Football Club are saddened at the news of the death of one of our greatest ever supporters on Friday night

Pat Mitchell, who was 89, died in Lewisham Hospital. She was legendary, not just at Champion Hill, but throughout the whole of the Isthmian League, and beyond, for her famous rattle!

Pat was a lifelong fan, who was always at matches with her late husband Ron. Together they ran the old Supporters Club coaches, throughout the seventies & eighties, no matter where the game was, competitive or pre-season they would make sure Hamlet fans were able to travel. Over the years, not just through coach travel, but as stalwarts of the Supporters Club, which they helped establish in 1974, they raised thousands of pounds for the Football Club, which they always handed over with very little fuss.

It is traditionally the manager & players who get the plaudits when a Club does well, and the Chairman who basks in glory, but behind every Club too, are unsung heroes like Pat & Ron, without whom clubs could not have functioned properly in decades past. Dulwich Hamlet Football Club owe them both a huge debt of gratitude.

Ill health meant Pat wasn't able to visit Champion Hill in the last few years of her life, but she was always in touch with supporters, like Bill Azzi, who she would phone after most games, even before the final whistle had blown, such was her keenness to find out the score! Nothing gave her more pleasure to hear of the latest win, and she devoured every word of the matchday programmes that Bill kept her supplied with.

Deepest sympathy goes to her son John, and the other members of her family.

PAT MITCHELL, affectionately known by generations of Hamlet fans as 'Pat the Rattle', REST IN PEACE.