Constant new challenges have kept Gavin Rose at Dulwich Hamlet

BY RICHARD CAWLEY

Gavin Rose reckons one of the reasons he has stayed loyal to Dulwich Hamlet is the fresh challenges thrown up by the club’s promotions.

We broke the news on our website earlier this week that Rose – due to be out of contract at the end of this month – had agreed a new three-year deal.

If he was to stay for that length of time he would clock up 14 years in the Champion Hill hotseat.

Rose turned down three job offers last season. Dulwich have won two promotions during his tenure – the last of those in May 2018 via the play-offs to secure a National League South place.

“The good thing is that we’ve progressed as a club,” said Rose. “Maybe not at the speed I wanted, but it means that we have not stood still.

“Even though I am at the same place I’m getting new challenges along the way – so it still seems very exciting. A lot of managers move around and test themselves at a higher level, which is great. I’m not adverse to that.

“But I still feel there is a challenge here. I feel the club can progress and that I can progress with it. The challenge is still there for me.

“Everything has been agreed in principle with the new contract, I just need to sign it. But mentally I’m still at the club and committed.”

Asked about interest from elsewhere last season, Rose said: “It’s strange. I’ve never really had many job offers in the period I was at Dulwich. They seemed to come at a time when the club was quite vulnerable off the pitch, which everyone knew, and equally I wasn’t performing that great as a manager.

“I suppose it probably went down to what I had done and built over the years.

“The interest came to the club and I basically thought it was the wrong timing.”

Rose is ready to make some major changes this summer to his squad.

“I think it might be one of the biggest overhauls we have had in the last 10 years,” he said. “I’d say there will be roughly seven or eight newcomers. 

“The group needs freshening up.”