Away from the overblown circus of the Premiership, a football revolution has been quietly taking place for the past six years amid the unlikely environs of a small stadium adjacent to Sainsbury’s supermarket on Dog Kennel Hill.
For much of their 122-year history, Dulwich Hamlet have been just another football club existing amid the cloak of anonymity that envelops most non-league teams. However, since the arrival of Gavin Rose as the club’s manager in 2009, they have enjoyed a meteoric rise, both in terms of sporting success and their local and national profile.
Rose, 37, who was born and bred in Peckham, maintains a vision of football as a tool to aid community cohesion and drive social change. It’s a powerful model and one that puts many better-financed clubs to shame.
Rose’s principles were forged during the countless hours he spent playing football as a youngster at Peckham’s Leyton Square adventure playground, an inspiring environment that has positively shaped the lives of many a local youngster, including Rose and former England international Rio Ferdinand.
“My family always guided me to think not only of myself but of others,” Rose explains, a sense of fierce and determined compassion evident in his voice. “The senior play leader at Leyton Square, Michael Charalambous, really encouraged me in terms of my career. He gave me an opportunity as a volunteer and then the chance to work officially at Leyton Square. He was an inspiration.”
Rose’s experience in youth work was the spur for an ambitious social improvement project- the foundation of a local football academy named ASPIRE (Academic and sporting Inspired Routes to Excellence), in 2002. The aim was to provide local 16- to 18-year-olds with the opportunity to pursue their dreams of playing professional football, while also furthering their academic or vocational education.
“At the time, I was involved in Sunday League football with the kids at Leyton Square,” Rose recalls. “A lot of them went pro from the ages of 12 to 16, but there were a batch of players left behind who were also very good. I thought it would be a waste for them not to continue their football just because they hadn’t gone professional. I couldn’t see any other avenues for them, so we formed a partnership with Southwark College, the council and a local football club, and that’s how ASPIRE began.”
By targeting players aged 16 to 18-a demographic often neglected by professional clubs that usually sign or reject players before their 16th birthdays-Rose believes that ASPIRE, which is still going strong 13 years later, caters for a crucial and often unfulfilled need within the local community.
“When I was 16, there were a lot of guys my age who would have flourished in a scheme like this, which combined sport and education,” he points out. “Maybe then they wouldn’t have ended up on the wrong side of the law, as some did. Boys in this area are vulnerable and need as much inspiration and hope as possible.”
Rose admits that the aims of ASPIRE have gradually evolved. “Our outlook on success is quite varied,” he explains. “When we started out, getting players into league football was the aim and we have produced quite a few Premiership footballers, for example, Albert Jarrett and George Elokobi, as well as various players in the lower leagues. However as we progressed, we started to realise that getting guys through college and university, or giving them opportunities to work in the City, was just as much, if not more of an achievement.”
While ensuring that ASPIRE thrives, Rose has also seen his own career flourish since he moved into football management. It wasn’t, he admits, something that happened by design.
“The original idea was to help young people and their development in sport and education, not necessarily move into management,” he explains. “But eventually it became clear that there was an opportunity to further my career and embrace a new challenge.”
Dulwich Hamlet, for whom Rose played for a while, came calling in 2009, after educative spells managing Beckenham Town and Fisher Athletic. “Funnily enough, I remember going to watch Dulwich Hamlet about four months before I got the job,” he recalls. “At that point I had no idea I’d end up managing them! Anyway, it seemed like the club was just there, but nothing much was happening. I remember thinking, ‘This could be a great club, but it lacks direction.’”
Rose and his team focussed on establishing a long-term vision for the club. “It took a while to change things,” he admits. “We had to blood young lads through the academy and enable the players to grow. We also had to convince the supporters we were here to stay; that we weren’t just passing through like the wind.”
Greater cohesion-with all elements of Dulwich Hamlet pulling in the same direction-was identified as vital in transforming the club’s fortunes. “There were a lot of different groups who all wanted the best for the club, but were trying to do it in their own different ways,” Rose says.
“Collectively, the club wasn’t growing, so I mentioned at board meetings that we had to start working together. Meanwhile, my team concentrated on improving the playing staff and, as we attracted better players, we started to become more competitive.”
Community development fuelled the club’s growth, both on the pitch and at the turnstiles. “We started a football in the community scheme aimed at five- to 11-year-olds,” Rose elaborates. “This helped us get a lot of parents to watch games, which in turn swelled attendances. Once everyone could see what it was like with more than 200 spectators shouting and screaming their support, people began to like the atmosphere. I was told that when I started here attendances were an average of about 150, whereas last season I think the average was around 1,100. For two games last season we had about 3,000 and 1,500 was a regular attendance.”
Statistics provided by the Dulwich Hamlet podcast Forward The Hamlet underline the value of Rose’s spell at the club. Since he assumed the managerial reigns, Dulwich Hamlet have won 119 out of 216 games, while moving up to the Ryman League Premier Division (six tiers below the Premiership) and finishing in an average position of fourth.
Like every Dulwich Hamlet fan I’ve spoken to, the Forward The Hamlet team are unstinting in their praise of Rose. “Every single DHFC player who has spoken to us has highlighted two things,” they told me. “The quality of the training they receive, and the fact that Gavin is calm, thoughtful and incredibly knowledgeable.”
Rose is also a football aesthete, with Forward The Hamlet pointing out: “He won’t sacrifice a passing game for points, which is extremely uncommon at this level. You see the same style of play right through from the youth teams to the first team-many of whom are ASPIRE academy players and graduates.”
Rose himself is disarmingly modest when asked to evaluate his successes. He admits that it felt “incredibly sweet” to win promotion to the Ryman Premier in 2013 after two near misses, but when pressed about his own abilities he emphasises: “I’m still learning and my style is still evolving. I err on the side of discipline with players. Talent for some of these boys is second nature, so we have to zone in on aspects such as responsibility, reliability and being disciplined. The environment we are in shapes the way we have managed.”
Having secured sixth and fourth-place finishes in his first two seasons managing the club in the Ryman Premier, Rose has been rewarded with a new two-year contract extension that makes his commitment to the club clear.
Although he has admitted in the past that the prospect of management at a higher level appeals, for the time being, to the relief of Dulwich Hamlet’s growing fan-base, Rose seems content to reside at Champion Hill-an appropriately named workplace, if ever there was one, a true local hero.