Dulwich Hamlet, Friday night BBC2

Just walked past the Hamlets ground and seen new temporary floodlights and lots of scaffold for a commentary gantry and camera positions.

They're on BBC2 for their FA cup v Carlisle. Wonder if they'll manage to better than what we did in the cup?

Just thought i'd mention it seeing as it was where Ethan Pinnock played for a long time in case anyone was interested.

 

Proper little club that mate, I've read their story a few times and they've had it rough regarding the stadium and the council.

Hope they get thru, the non league sides going on a cup run is the only bit of interest I tho k many people have in the FA cup now.

 

I've not been for a few seasons, well, since before they were kicked out and had to be taken in by Tooting. The owners of the ground have put another planning permission in for a 6 storey 250 home development with just 3 parking spaces, and a 4,000 seater ground to be pushed back, but still infringing the Metropolitan Land which is illegal. We'll see what happens, but there are some suggesting the council have softened stance against the hedge fund owners and may be willing to let it pass.

Will be carnage if allowed to pass with 250 homes most likely to have a car, and we have a controlled parking zone in operation on all the surrounding streets.

There was a massive queue for tickets the other day, so pretty sure its a sell out, but they do regularly get crowds over 2k

 

I was at the 4th qualifying round game v Havant and Waterlooville, they are my local team so go if I can’t get to see Barnsley

Dulwich were 2 nil up Inside 20 mins before Havant came back into it, gutted we didn’t get through was hoping to draw Chichester or Pompey!

 

Just had another read at the latest happenings and it just sounds chaotic. I've seen some footage of their fans, they've gone to the Palace Holmesdale end route, and to be fair they seem to make a racket.

Some serious talent has started there too. There was an article about one of the coaches who used to go around deprived areas of predominantly young black males and encourage them to go for trials at Dulwich and keep them away from gangs and knife crime. Forget the fellas name but it was a brilliant story, it's quite amazing what football can do for people's lives. Jist a shame the bigger London clubs aren't doing more in these areas.

 

That would be Gavin Rose. He's been manager for 10 years pretty much and he was the guy who partnered Pinnock. No nonsense Darren Moore esque sort of defender. Great leader and very highly thought of locally. I think he's good mates with Rio Ferdinand who hailed not far from these parts.

They commonly play a pre season game or two against league clubs and seen Charlton and Palace play there in particular. Can literally hear the tannoy from our garden and its been pleasant to see the increase in locals supporting it since we first moved here. You could literally get a seat where you liked in the side stand, even just go to the bar, lean against the windows and watch the game from a stool. Typically you'd get 300, maybe 500 for a local rival (some reason Maidstone has always had big gates), but now you're talking 2-2,500 regularly. The food hut just inside the entrance is run by the local butcher, and when the ground was reopened (the hedge fund literally put up fixed fencing all around the ground with 24hr security to stop anyone getting in), there were hundreds of volunteers tidying the terraces, scything the long grass that hadn't been touched for 18 months, really is a big part of the community and glad its back and there was governmental and mayoral support to block the owners killing it.

And interestingly.... I noticed they got the digital perimeter advertising in for the game. Funny how often small clubs are more effectively run than say, some relegation threatened Championship clubs!