Seasons greeting and welcome back to Champion Hill!

Today sees the club’s return to playing football in its home of East Dulwich, with today’s National League South game against Eastbourne Borough. Having lost against Eastbourne in the FA Cup earlier in the season, I am hoping that the team can pick up three valuable league points today.

Whilst it was hoped that we would have been able to play our first ‘home’ game against Torquay earlier this month, these extra few weeks have given the club a little more time to ensure that the ground is not only ready for The Rabble’s return but a number of improvements have been put in place.

Amongst some of the improvements, you may have noticed, or currently be sitting on, the new pink seats that have recently been purchased by the Supporters’ Trust at a cost of £5,000. The Trust has requested via the club directors that this amount, together with a previous loan of £13,000 made to the football club in September – a total of £18,000 – be converted into Dulwich Hamlet FC shares.

One of the Supporters’ Trust main objectives has been to help secure a long term future for the football club in East Dulwich. Our commitment to this, especially over the past 12 months, has never been stronger and we see this as the ideal time to strengthen our commitment with the purchase of further shares in the club. The relationship between the club directors, match day committee and the Trust is as strong as I have ever seen during my time on the Trust Board. I am confident that we will all continue to work hard in not only securing the club’s future but also helping it grow and reach other communities in and around Southwark.

Our traditional Christmas party was held on Thursday 20th December at the newly re-decorated club bar, here at Champion Hill. Many thanks to all those who attended and helped raise funds for the 12th Man Scheme and this year’s club charity partner, Redthread. In addition, thanks to the many local business who donated prizes for our raffle and auction. If you were not able to attend the event last week, make sure that you pop into the bar at some point today and check out all the hard work that Dave, the new bar manager, and an amazing group of volunteers (both supporters and members of our local community) have done. With the bar opening each day after the new year, I hope that it will be a real asset for the club and supporters. One thing I am involved in introducing is regularly having dj’s playing after home games.

I hope you all have had a restful holiday period so far – I am sure many of you have been far more excited about today’s game than yesterday’s visit of Santa! Sadly, I am missing today’s game as I will be ‘up North’ for Christmas with my family. As you can imagine, I am gutted to be missing out on our return to Champion Hill. Enjoy the game today and give the team a cheer for me.

See you all, back here, on the 29th December.

Scolly

DHST Spokesperson