With the new season almost here...

It's time to share with you our previous 'Community Column' from our pre-season matchday programmes, to whet your appetite

Here is what Football Committee member Mishi Morath had to say in the recent issue against Crystal Palace:

fans from any other club, no matter how big or small, those who come along will like what they see & enjoy the matchday atmosphere here, deciding to return when their main side, their first footballing love, either does not have a game, or travelling is too prohibitive, tickets too expensive...or demand outstrips the amount available. There's many reasons why you are forced to miss a match of the team that is in your heart, but you don't need to suffer withdrawal symptoms if you can't be with your beloved Lions, Addicks or Eagles.

Non League football offers you that 'escape' from sitting at home bored out of your skull, traipsing round Sainsburys or sitting in the laundrette watching your smalls spin round! As Dulwich Hamlet fans we all know supporters of other clubs who either watch professional football, or have mates who no longer go to matches, having grown out of the habit for a variety of reasons-some mentioned above- but who YOU are sure will get the 'Hamlet bug', if only they got a flavour of it...I'm sure you have been nagging them all for years! So, if you are one of our loyal season ticket holders, watch out for an offer later in the season, when we will be giving you all four complimentary tickets to invite your mates, work colleagues or neighbours to a specific home match, which is all part of our on-going campaign to attract new people through our turnstiles. We know we have a 'great product', once we have given your friends a 'nibble' we know they will be hungry for more!

Along these sort of lines we are pleased to have been working with our Supporters' Trust once more in the summer, where they have promoted our Club as well as the work they do, both at the Dulwich Fair on Goose Green, back in May; as well as earlier this month at Brockwell Park, for both days of the Lambeth Country Show. They have been collecting dozens of emails (if not hundreds) so we can offer free tickets to a game to new or lapsed fans at these events. This is just one example of the extremely constructive work carried out by both the Trust & ourselves jointly, on the Football Committee.

One thing that's implemented by a number of non-league sides up and down the country is half-price admission for season-ticket holders of Football League & Premiership clubs, and I'm sometimes asked why we don't try this at Champion Hill. The simple answer is...we genuinely don't think it would attract more support, as those with season tickets tend to be the most loyal at a club, and will be the ones who will try to get to more away games than most. So their disposable income is already spent on following their main club. We actually believe that offering such a scheme would 'alienate' some of our regulars if people got in for half price just because they follow another side. Instead we prefer to build our support by targeting our local community, through individual match offers, be it schools, youth groups, work places, churches, mosques...

We welcome your contacts to distribute tickets to, and hope to increase this work over the coming season. In particular, one of our Committee members, George Parnavelas, will be leading on this front.

This is but just one small strand of our community work, but it is very much an unsung & thankless task. We are all volunteers who hold down 'day jobs', if not retired, and the Football Committee are all simply supporters, just like all of you! Club officials in name, but fans at heart!

As crowds have grown over the last few seasons, helped in no small part it must be said by our attempts at community initiatives, we now appeal for all of your help. Not just on the community side, but raising sponsorship, helping out at the ground on matchdays, or in whatever way you might be able to help. To that end we are inviting you all along, if you are interested in any of this, to an informal open meeting at the ground on Wednesday 10th August, at half past seven. Here we will explain some of our ideas, how we need help...and just as importantly, listen to what you have to say. The aim is to set up a couple of sub-committees, provisionally 'commercial' and 'community', but this is very flexible. Please don't be scared to come along if you are 'curious' but feel you have 'nothing to offer' or 'do not have the time'. Just your presence on the night & your input of ideas can be a great help. So please put that date in your diary.

To finish this evening's column, we would also like to thank you for any generous contributions you can make to the buckets that will be shaken around the ground by our new 2016/17 charity partners 'Football Beyond Borders'. we are in the process of firming up a great relationship with then over the coming season, and this is just the start. Rather than me 'boring' you here with some of the excellent stuff they do find out for yourself by going directly to their website.

Actually, one more thing even though I said 'to finish'...on a personal note, I'd like to say a big thank you to Jack Payne, who stood down as Football Club Chairman in the summer, and was subsequently honoured to accept the post of Club President; a post not filled since the late, great Tommy Jover passed away in 2008. It is not a position filled just for the sake of it, and is held for those who can hold that office with honour & dignity. Jack certainly fulfils that criteria. His position is taken over by Liam Hickey, who I have had the great pleasure of working alongside since I got involved in the Boardroom side of things in the close-season of 2012. Liam is a strong-minded, and has the perfect drive to lead ourselves toward hopeful supporter-ownership in the future, & is already opening up an even closer working relationship & dialogue with our Trust. Ably supported by the rest of the Committee, including the vice-Chair John 'Primo' Leahy, I think this augers well for the future, as everyone pulls together and aim for our dream of a supporter-owned Dulwich Hamlet playing at a modern purpose-built community stadium next door on the currently much under-used Greendale playing field. And also, hopefully he won't edit this out, well done to Paul Griffin, who has once more produced some excellent pre-season programmes, while our regular editor John Lawrence is away on 'cricket practice'. Which sometimes suits me, as I can 'indulge' more in what I decide to share with you. I would say enjoy getting your life back to Griff, but he will simply fill up the 'spare time' doing other tasks for the Club.

The future is exciting, the future is Pink & Blue! And YOU can be part of it...not just at our opening home Ryman League fixture against Enfield Town on Tuesday 16th August, but by being at our meeting six days previous to that, which can only help strengthen our great Football Club as we all work together as one.