Community Corner

[b]Community Corner[/b

]
Good afternoon,
Today we not only play host to Metropolitan Police Football Club, but also what we hope will be plenty of newcomers to Champion Hill, as part of our annual Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans Day, as part of our raising awareness & spreading the anti-homophobia message in football, which we choose to highlight in February as this is the nation-wide LGBT History Month. More of that in another page in this programme.
If it’s not too late don’t forget to pop into the Supporters’ Trust megashed, where they have special edition one-off Dulwich Hamlet Rainbow and Pink ‘n’ Blue scarves on sale this afternoon, with all of the proceeds from the sales going to the Gay Football Supporters’ Network.

We’re also pleased to have as our guests this afternoon youngsters from Dulwich College Prep School, who are coming as part of our on-going free tickets for local schools initiative, which is co-ordinated by fellow Football Committee member George Parnavelas. This is open to any school in our South London catchment area, and there really are no strings attached. It’s an offer for junior football clubs, youth groups, schools…and something we will happily offer to adults, be it your own football or sports club, social group or even workplace. All you have to do is get in contact with George, and he will reply with a voucher that will allow you to attend a future home game with our compliments. We know we have the ‘product’, we just need people out there to ‘sample’ that product. Many of our now regulars, have said their first visit to Champion Hill was via this initiative, so we know it works. You can contact George by email at dhfccommunity@gmail.com if you want to take advantage of our ‘tickets for the local community’ scheme. Whilst on the topic of outreach to schools, we are grateful for the work put in on community matters by Robert Hyneman, one of our supporters & a local teacher to boot! Much appreciated by George & myself.

You may recall that the ‘Inter City 125’ fundraising initiative were due to hold a Race night last month, which had to be postponed. We now have a new date & venue for this later in the season, and this will now take place at the ‘East Dulwich Tavern’, in their function room on the first floor, commencing at seven o’clock on Saturday 31st March. This follows on from our Bostik League home match that afternoon when we take on Dorking Wanderers.
We are looking for individuals to sponsor horses for this event. The cost is a nominal ten pounds per horse, and for the that you will get your name & also the title you choose to give your nag in the Race Card, as well as a small prize for each individual Horse Sponsor, whose gee gee gets first past the post. The more sponsors we get the closer we will get to celebrating the 125th anniversary of our venerable old club with a unique 125th anniversary celebratory game at the Adolf Jager Kampfbahn against our close friends Altona 93, from Hamburg, in Germany.

We also have one or two other final fundraisers in the pipeline, as we aim to reach our final target covering both of the matches in Hamburg, as well as travel and accommodation for the squad, and we shall have more news in my column on Tuesday evening, when we take on Harrow borough, in the London Senior Cup quarter final. Obviously, when we set our original target to raise, way back in mid-2015, this was based on the climate at the time. The pound was stronger against the Euro back then, and we are also having to counter much higher hotel bills, due the ‘supply & demand’ clash of a major pop concert that weekend at the HSV football stadium.

To close my column for today I’d like to pay tribute to a good friend of Dulwich Hamlet, Dave West, who passed away on Monday night. Dave was a lifelong football fan, & I’d stood side-by-side with him at not just many a football match, but also at ice hockey & rugby league. He was involved at Croydon FC for many a year, and also followed Folkestone Invicta, as that was the town of his birth. Rarely seen without his camera, he had a ‘soft spot’ for many a South London club, and of those his favourite would have been The Hamlet. Not only have we lost a friend, but I have lost a very good mate of several decades standing. Rest In Peace.

Mishi Morath ( Football Committee Community Initiatives lead)

Updated 17:00 - 31 Aug 2019 by Mishi Morath