Yes, it's a football club, but Dulwich Hamlet is somewhat different than most other football clubs at non-league level.
Talking Bull recently published an article entitled 'The Moral Victory, my year with Dulwich Hamlet FC.' It told the story of a Hereford United supporter who has moved to within 150 yards of the Dulwich ground who decided to 'support your own team'. The author had done this partly on the back of his decision to join the supporters boycott of his 'beloved Hereford'.
In his TB article he suggested there were many similarities with Hereford FC with supporters getting involved.
However today the Guardian has published an article written by Kate Foster which suggests Dulwich is somewhat more radical than Hereford. After all it is situated in South London not in the middle of the Wye Valley.
Dulwich Hamlet FC, a non-league team, has seen an extraordinary surge in support over the last few years. A record crowd of 3,000 turned up to the final game of last season against Maidstone FC, and fan numbers continue to grow.
“Normal football” this isn’t. A new season of Dulwich Hamlet games kicked off this month and each match costs only £10 to attend, attracting a diverse crowd disillusioned with Premier League extortion and regulations. They crack open cans beside the pitch or buy pints of craft beer brewed in Peckham and eat bratwurst topped with sauerkraut from a pop-up stand – we are in gentrified East Dulwich, after all.
Dulwich Hamlet’s unlikely new explosion of support, with attendance regularly in the thousands, is the envy of the non-league: Bath City FC recently sent down a representative to see what the fuss is about.
The new Dulwich Hamlet superfans, who call themselves The Rabble, are aware of their peculiarity – one of their slogans is: “Ordinary morality is for ordinary football clubs.”
Last season the team played a ground-breaking friendly against Stonewall FC, an LGBT rights charity, and regularly organise community activism such as supporting a food bank and a campaign to pay cinema workers the living wage.
The Rabble’s forays into mainstream politics include insulting the other team’s goalie by calling him a Lib Dem and making anti-Ukip Dulwich Hamlet stickers inspired by their German sister team, Altona 93. “The German version has a fist through a swastika; ours has a fist through Nigel Farage’s face,” says Duncan Hart of the Dulwich Hamlet Supporters Trust.
But behind their rowdy, tongue-in-cheek activity – which ranges from YouTube videos splicing match footage with arthouse film clips to match posters encouraging people to get down to the game, as “Dulwich Hamlet will not be televised” – the new fans are adamant that the Hamlet buzz is more than just a political piss-up.
“There are a lot of apolitical people who come here because it’s affordable. The happy end is that they find out the football is great, it’s more open and creative, which you can see on the terrace,” says Molloy-Vaughan who is leader of ComFast Chapter, a close-knit faction of fans who drink Buckfast, wear special scarves with red stars on them.
The democratic Supporters Trust is trying to integrate Dulwich Hamlet one step further into the community through fan ownership. The club is currently owned by Hadley Property Group. In the UK, only around 40 of thousands of football clubs are fully or partly fan-owned, as opposed to in Germany, where majority control by a single person or organisation is outlawed, and Argentina, where every club is owned by its fans.
Annabel Kiernan, a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, has spotted a pattern at non-league level across the country, not least at her own fan-owned team FC United, formed in reaction to the 2005 American takeover of Manchester United.
“It’s trying to recreate football before post-Hillsborough measures came in. Lots of those were positive, but it did marginalise what was previously the mainstream audience – men who wanted to stand by the pitch and drink in the stands,” she says.
Hugo Greenhalgh and Ben Sibley produce a podcast called Forward the Hamlet and have been surprised by the number of dedicated fans who tune in.
“It’s about making people aware that this level isn’t just kicking hoof and knocking about in the mud,” says Sibley. “It’s decent football.”
Molloy-Vaughan agrees, saying that while he enjoys having a pint with the players after a game, he likes to pretend there is a separation, “because I like to hero worship them”.
Dulwich Hamlet consistently play at the top of their division, meaning that promotion into the upper echelons of the non-league, Conference South, is a realistic possibility. While Molloy-Vaughan thinks promotion would be “orgasmic,” Hart disagrees: “That would involve more money, more travel to away games, no more beer on the terrace [due to regulations]. It starts cutting out the reason you’re coming here.”
As for me, I’m wondering whether the same team that put me off football might be drawing me back in. Fifteen years after my first match, I’m starting to feel some of the rapturous communal energy I’d heard football fans talk about but never understood.
At half time, fans hang up homemade banners with in-jokes and leftwing slogans. “This is Tuscany,” proclaims one, a nod to the pointy trees around the pitch. “Transpontine,” says another, a mock-intellectual reference to south London. A third declares solidarity with anti-fascist supporters of Altona 93; two have been involved in a scuffle with right-wing thugs.
“Every game’s a carnival – it’s such a welcoming crowd,” says Morath. “There’s lots of women, kids. It’s party time.”
Full article with pictures can be read at:http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/aug/23/dulwich-hamlet-londons-most-hipster-football-club