Dulwich Hamlet cut using coach to boost budget on chasing promotion

By Richard Cawley

richard@slpmedia.co.uk

Dulwich Hamlet have sacrificed using the coach to get to away games as they look at ways of maximising their spend on achieving promotion from the Bostik League Premier Division.

The South London club are on the receiving end of a bust-up between landlords Meadow Residential, who own their Champion Hill home, and Southwark Council – who have rejected the former’s redevelopment plans for the site.

Hamlet released a statement earlier this week saying that their licence to play at Champion Hill was terminated immediately. Last week they were also served with a  back-dated rent bill of £121,000.

Meadow put out their own statement on Wednesday which appeared to allow Dulwich to stay at their current base for the remainder of the season.

But Dulwich chairman Liam Hickey was exploring groundshare options and has offers from Tooting & Mitcham and Carshalton Athletic.

Manager Gavin Rose said there would be “no issues” that their league fixtures this season would be fulfilled.

And Hamlet went top of the table again on Tuesday after a 3-1 victory at big-spending Billericay Town. Striker Dipo Akinyemi, back for a third spell with the club, netted twice along with Nyren Clunis.

“We’ve been talking for the last two months about getting Dipo back to the club and there were all sorts of reasons why we couldn’t,” said Rose. “Still financially we are not in a great position but we got him over on a free transfer.

“We had to wring the money out of all sorts of areas to get him across. We’ve basically given up our coach journeys and other ancillary stuff which all add up to part of the budget – just to remain competitive.

“We have to look at the bigger picture. We have committed ourselves to try and run the team until the end of the season and then see where we are. We’ll stand by [player] contracts.

‘If it is a coach journey or a chance of winning a game then everyone chooses the latter. It is a great attitude from the players and club alike. It isn’t too dissimilar to what a lot of clubs do at this level. You’re probably looking at seven or eight coaches a season because a lot are drive-able distances anyway.

“It just means some of the luxuries we are used to as a club are not going to be used at this current time.”

The only blot on the midweek win at New Lodge was attacker Reise Allassani being stretchered off with a rib injury.

“For four or five months the lads have never known if they are going to be paid or not but have never made an issue of it,” said Rose. “They have always worked hard for the club and never made an issue of it.

“It shows their mentality. After all of the updates about the club this week they would have had questions, but they did what they needed to do.”

Rose handed a debut to Coventry goalkeeper Corey Addai at Billericay. Rose explained it was his friendship with Addai’s dad Kenny which helped sort the loan switch to cover the absence of first choice Preston Edwards, out with a knee ligament injury.

“We rode our luck at times against Billericay and Corey was fantastic, he kept us in the game on numerous occasions. We showed great fighting spirit and took our goals really well.

“His dad is a very close family friend. When I was a young lad I used to train with him at Sutton United, Kenny was a keeper at the time, and he took me under his wing. I’ve known Corey since he was a baby. That friendship made it a lot easier to get him across.”