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Dulwich Hamlet 6 [SIX] Shoreham 0

To Champion Hill! …on Saturday afternoon to re-live former Transpontine glories. If the ghost of Edgar Kail failed to appear to me at half time in the toilets, then at least I could have a good catch up with Badge Man.

C’mon Dulwich!

You can scroll through m’blog archives and dig up Dulwich Hamlet GOLD when it comes to Crap Match Reports. Probably not on V2.0 though - those pink ‘n’ blue rose tinted memories are buried away somewhere over here.

Were they actually the Golden Days of Dulwich Hamlet? It’s been almost half a decade since I was a Champion Hill regular. The team was crap, the toilets were shit and attending became a chore, and not a celebration.

I’m not painting a very appealing picture here, am I?

It was a mixture of apathy, work commitments and other hyperlocal happenings south of the river that led to the separation.

And here I was on Saturday afternoon, apathy evaporated, the working week thankfully back to Monday to Friday, and other hyperlocal happenings elsewhere now not so appealing.

Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.

Or something.

The rediscovery of Dulwich Hamlet is a rather flippant - and probably patronising - hit and miss blog post about a truly great football club. No surprises that the Hamlet somehow managed to survive almost half a decade of not having Crap Match Reports.

The core of the club keeps going. If a football club is at the heart of any community, then the volunteer fans that make sure that match day actually takes place are the bloody heroes.

Attendance is up almost 190% over a three-year period. Success on the field certainly helps. The first Championship winning team in over three decades successfully delivered the Isthmian Division One South trophy to Champion Hill last season.

But there is something quite special happening down at Dulwich right now that isn’t built around glory hunters returning to the Hamlet. The online enthusiasm that I have picked up on over recent years proved too much of an appeal to stay away.

It would be too simplistic - and factually incorrect - to say that Dulwich Hamlet is a club reborn. There are some gloriously eccentric characters forming part of The Rabble behind the goal. The Dultras are ACE, as is the endorsement from Uncle Wolfie.

But The Rabble has always contained some gloriously eccentric characters that help to define Dulwich Hamlet as so much more than any other South London non-league team. This is a Tell It Like It Is collective of South London magnificent misfits that won’t take any racist or homophobic shit.

It’s not quite an Anarcho Situationist squat behind the goal, but if you were expecting the Old Trafford prawn sarnie brigade down at Dulwich, then you may leave feeling disappointed.

Moves are being by the Supporters’ Trust to list Champion Hill as an Asset of Community Value with Southwark Council.

Billed as a work fact-finding mission (yeah, right…) my return to Dog Kennel Hill on Saturday was partly to explore what is happening at Dulwich right now, and partly to simply catch up with some old Hamlet friendly faces.

The afternoon got off to an ACE start with Mr Turnstile Man and Mr Programme Seller shaking my hand and welcoming me back. It’s been too long, fellas.

One of the attractions of watching Dulwich was always the bar that allowed you to booze and watch the game through the giant glass windows. A tasteful fresh lick of pink and blue now gives the bar a fearsome home feel. The lunchtime kick off of Man Utd Vs Crystal Palace on the big screen was merely a secondary distraction.

Come 2:45 and Mr Tannoy Man made the team announcements and it was time to take up my place with The Rabble. There were no survivors in the starting XI since my last Hamlet home match. The Rabble has aged gracefully, as well as expanding with the Dultras, the new breed of DHFC Transpontine loyalty.

Saturday’s FA Cup 1st qualifying home fixture against Shoreham saw a Hamlet team take to the Champion Hill pitch sitting pretty in pink, sixth place in the Ryman Premier. Promotion can wait for another eight months or so. Saturday was all about being Up for the Cup.

The Road to Wembley started in mid-September down at Dog Kennel Hill. The sponsorship of the competition by a crappy American lager company was thankfully not something that the Dulwich match day experience made too much of.

The old routine of analysing every move, and then failing spectacularly to make any sense of it via a Crap Match Report was ditched. Watching Dulwich is about FUN, something that the chore of endless blogging doesn’t always lend itself to (as just read on an endless blog post…)

I think that it was 4-0 to the home team at halftime. The goals just kept on going in as the songs from The Rabble increased. Back in the day and I remember a couple of ditties, three at a pinch. You could now fill an entire triple album with Rabble rebel rousers, all completely BONKERS, all completely full of Transpontine passion.

It finished 6-0 to Dulwich Hamlet. The pink ‘n’ blue ball is still sticking out like a sore thumb in the FA’s Establishment velvet bag.

Edgar Kail in my Heart…