Quite the week for myself and for all right (read left) thinking people. Starting personally, Thursday saw my last birthday beginnning with a 5, though my ex sister-in-law pre-empted the big six-oh with a beautifully conceived but badly timed 60th card. Bless 'er.
The birthday bunny dug out his ice-axe and snow shoes to fight his way through the snowdrifts and polar bears around Gedling and Carlton to deliver a very lovely Boca Juniors shirt, another hole filled in the left-wing collection along with the Independiente shirt which also rocked up in the post - let's call that one a gift to myself. It was hard to find a Boca shirt without a Qatar Airways sponsor on, but Mrs Z did well to find this one with UNICEF, which is much more palatable.
I had some nice Twitter going and froing with MatÍas Moscoso, author of Todos Los Rojos, which explores the link between Forest and numerous Argentinian clubs who play in red, foremost amongst them the garibaldi reds of Independiente. Upshot of all this is a well-developed plan to head to Buenos Aires next Easter as a late 60th birthday adventure. Accommodation booked, plans made to head up by bus to Rosario to see El Che's birthplace and hopefully catch a match at the home of this favourite team, Rosario Central. As well, of course, as trying to catch Independiente in action and meeting up with MatÍas, who has kindly invited us to drop in on him.
All of which is lovely, as was the birthday skinful in the Old Angel, working our way through the chalk board of guest beers perhaps a little too enthusiastically for a school night.
Less jolly, the Gary Lineker kick-back, which is gripping the nation and providing the distraction and division the Tories depend on to keep us in our place. Keeping it brief, I'm obviously 100% behind Lineker in way I've never been before. It's entirely appropriate that he uses his privileged position to defend the weakest and most vulnerable and it's not like he did it live on air in between analysis of the latest 'was his toenail a pixel over the line' VAR borefest. No different tom the likes of Andrew Neil spouting his Tory stuff, Alan Walnut Sugar his anti-union anti-trans type stuff or Jeremy Clarkson denying climate change. The big question remains, who will ultimately be scabby enough to stand in for him if it becomes necessary?
The 'Champagne Socialst' grief he's getting naturally brought thoughts of Cloughie and his explanation of his kind of socialism. Sure he's done OK, drives a nice motor etc, but would like that opportunity for everyone. All of which made it a bit nauseating to see arch shill and borderline (?) Nazi Darren Grimes summoning the spirit of Cloughie in his put down of Lineker.
The Lineker thing also, sadly but predicatably, brought a few of Forest's less enlightened supporters out from under their rocks. In the cess-pit of Twitter, myself and a few other Garyistas were told we weren't welcome at the club and that it belonged to the right wing county, not the 'shithole city full of commies, forriners and gays'. Nice. Lee Anderson fans you'd imagine. Fuck 'em.
(The Master Race)
Another great arrival through the post this week, was issue 15 of SHAG, a new fanzine to me, but an absolute must for the socialist football fan. Although predominantly a Wrexham 'zine (sorry Notts fans!), the political content and analysis is a must-read. Highly recommended. Find SHAG (Ryan) at @SHAG23997980. More on Welsh 'zines later...
All of which brings us to Saturday's football fare. Having failed to get a ticket for Forest at Spurs, we decided to have a day in that London anyway. We got booked onto the 07:46 with all intentions of tagging onto to the big Save the NHS rally and demo and then getting down for a first visit to Dulwich Hamlet.
The demo timings didn't end up working out, so we headed daan the old East End for an explore of Brick Lane and were glad we did. A quick stroll up to the Blind Beggar a) to pass by an office I used to work in and b) to pay homage to the twins, "such lovely lads, good to their mavvers, you could leave your door open you know" as pretty much every elderly person in the pubs of Whitechapel, Mile End and Bethnal Green used to bang on about, incessantly, in my time living there. The BB was shut, so no opportunity to introduce Mrs Z to the infamous bullet hole. She was gutted. Gutted, I tells ya! Actually, indifference ruled.
From there up the length of Brick Lane, presumably your average racist Little Englander's idea of hell on Earth and all that is wrong with the country, but for me everything that can be so brilliant about it. A warm, welcoming melting pot of all sorts and a valuable cultural part of modern Britain. Though the famous market wasn't on, the number of vintage shops and stalls would be worth a full day trip. Sadly, the football plans precluded buying any of the masses of vinyl that caught my attention, but I couldn't resist a frankly mad cardi made of old football scarves and which has a feel of legendary Nottingham label G-Force, for those who remember their industrial cardi-coats. One slight hiccup with the scarf concoction, the presence of Über-Nazi Hansa Rostock there on the front; a job looming there for Mrs Z to stitch over an anti-fascist patch.
A nice thing, the American woman seeking the cardi showed a real interest in our plans for the day and had 'discovered' football, falling for the Lionesses last Summer. In a nice touch of synchronicity, we were able to show her the Art of Football mural of Mary Earps, which we'd never spotted on Station Street until today. Gave me a nice chance to mention that I'd coached eleven year old Mary once or twice at WB Colts too. This revelation, true, didn't get me a discount though! ;-)
From there, a fortuitously badly planned tube and walk, destination London Bridge, for an overground to East Dulwich. Badly planned insofar as Sherpa Tenzing here mistakenly got us to Waterloo Bridge, from where we jumped on a 176 bus instead. Fortuitous as, unknown to us, East Dulwich Station was closed for the day. Even Sherpas need a touch of luck.
The bus dropped us right outside the Champion Hill ground and we set off to meet Mel, General Manager, who had very kindly put us on the guest-list. The day was devoted to fund raising for local women's groups, so we paid what would have been our ticket money, plus some, into that. Mel gave us a quick run down of what's what and we settled in the fantastic clubhouse bar to enjoy a pint of Kirin and a Monkey Shoulder whilst tearing our hair out at Liverpool's inability to do Forest a favour by beating Bournemouth - not a good result.
There's little point me writing a potted history of Hamlet here - there are plenty available online or in print and they feature with a chapter all to themselves in The Roaring Red Front. Suffice to say here is a club with a remarkable reputation for inclusion and working for good causes. The Grauniad have a good tilt at explaining it all here:
As the banner behind the goal read: Ordinary Morality is for Ordinary Football Clubs. This is no ordinary football club. Often compared to St Pauli, Hamlet actually have a strong freundshaft with Altona '93, another Hamburg club, playing in the Hamburg Oberliga, whose supporters view St Pauli as somewhat too commercialised. In fact, plenty of disenchanted St Paulistas have moved across.
A rare example here of an acceptable half and halfer! Hamlet's away kit is based on Altona's home colours as a sign of the connection.
Currently hovering just above the National League South relegation zone, Hamlet were home to Havant and Waterlooville, currently sitting firmly in the playoffs. A much hoped for new manager bounce had fallen flat on Monday with a 5-1 defeat under new manager Hakan Heyrettin, whose playing career was largely at Barnet and who moved to Hamlet from Maidstone United recently.
We took our place behind the goal alongside 'The Rabble', Hamlet's best known section of supporters, responsible for such classics as 'No One Knows Us, We Don't Care' and what quickly became our favourite, to the tune of the Cornetto add (or O Sole Mio if you're a fan of Richard Osman's House of Games and fancy the 2 points for the highbrow answer):
We’re Dulwich Hamlet,
DHFC,
Delicious football,
From Tuscany,
Our ground lies
Beneath the trees,
Behind the carwash
And Sainsburys
You could feel the inclusion: all ages; lots of women, alone, in groups, whatever; young families with babies in pushchairs; black, white and all points in between; and dogs, lots of dogs. A shout out here to Eddie, Remington and the other beauty in the gallery below whose name I shamefully now cannot recall.
In terms of facilities, aside from the clubhouse bar, a wonderful food stall and a craft beer stand, plus a well stocked supporters' trust shop. The ground felt comfortable with the day's attendance around 2,500, but you could imagine the 3,300 capacity being a bit more of a squash. Today, we were able to move for the 2nd half, grabbing a pint of Peckham Pale en route - the Rabble changed end, as did the travelling H&W support, while we opted for under cover down the sideline.
( a lot to like here, including "Love Crisps Hate Racism" and the "Don't Buy the S*n" banner top left)
Hamlet, wearing a special Her Game Too version of the home kit, matched the Hawks well from the off and it always looked likely to be a tight affair. An early sending off (16 mins) for a second booking for Hawks' Joe Newton didn't seem to throw them out too badly and it remained finely balanced.
On 60 minutes, Hawks scored an impressive breakaway goal through Muhammad Faal and you wondered if that would be it. Hamlet applied plenty of pressure, but nothing to unduly trouble keeper Teddy Sharman-Lowe, on loan from Chelsea with England caps at u17 and u19 to his name. As an aside, Sharman-Lowe had seemed to relish the banter from the Rabble in the first half, maybe enjoying the atmosphere, buzz and size of the crowd without the animosity that is so often a feature. All good fun
Just as it looked to be heading for a decent away win, a misdirected clearance by Sharman-Lowe fell to Hamlet's Johl Powell to calmly return the ball into an empty net. Game on. Hamlet came close on 88 mins, hitting the post. Into time added on and to the delight of the home support (and us, by now rabid recruits to the cause), George Porter got onto the end of a long ball into the box and popped one home from close range to seal what could be an important three points. Cue bedlam and for us back to the clubhouse to meet up with Mel.
Mel introduced us, over too many beers if truth be known, to all sorts of lovely people - supporters from Austria and Italy amongst them - and she told us her story of how she got involved in this incredible club. Not my place to share that here, though. Mel had worked her way up as a volunteer, Bin Bag Mel and Merch Mel to her current GM role, in the club. An inspirational woman. Mel and director Scolly kindly went to a lot of trouble to dig us out some Halmlet stickers and we also got onto another Welsh 'zine, the well established Dial M for Merthyr. Mel found us some back copies to enjoy. A nice connection here to Carlton Town, a mere mile from my front door, who seem to have a healthy relationship with Merthyr; the two clubs play a pre-season friendly every year, due to be at CTFC this Summer. Dial M... is a great read and I'm going to have to get a subscription!
Sadly, we had to drag ourselves away, vowing to be back as soon as we possibly can. This had been a thoroughly uplifting end to what could have been a pretty grim week - in fact, the landing of Sleaford Mods new album, UK Grim, chez Zagger had seemed horribly appropriate at times. For anyone feeling out of kilter with the rest of the world, that the bad guys are winning, get yourself along to Champion Hill It's therapeutic.
We'll be back for another match as soon as we can, hopefully in the next few weeks, and then again in July for a weekend of activities with visiting supporters of Altona.
For now, all that remained was to hop drunkenly onto the 176, and stop off for a meal in China Town. The plan had been to get to the brilliant Wong Kei, with its legendary surly service, but that was too busy, so we ended up somewhere pleasant with staff who didn't shout at you.
Late train home, with plenty of philosophical (ie pissed) Reds fans on the way home from another lame drubbing. Horrible to see the battering Joe Worrall is taking on Twitter today (Sunday); no human being deserves that and certainly not over a game of bloody football. We've got some right ones and poor Joe seems to have been having to do a lot of blocking of the keyboard warriors. Believe me, the one below has been one of the less unpleasant ones, usually tagging JW in. Again, grim.
A sense of perspective from me, just coming to the end of David Marples' excellent Reds and Rams; The Story of the East Midlands Derby, which aside from some irritating typos and errors (David is a great writer, it just needed a faintly competent editor), this is a terrific roller-coaster ride through the history of both clubs and, particularly their relationship. It'd do some of our supporters a world of good to read at least the later chapters for a reminder of our time in League One, extended misery under Fawaz and a period of typically and repeatedly finishing 16th in the Championship. Come to that, being bottom with 1 point from 8 under Chris Houghton last season. How far we've come. We should enjoy the ride. It's meant to be fun.
Finally for this piece, a reminder from our friends at the Hillsborough Survivors Support Alliance that the Anniversary is approaching and that this is a difficult time for many; mostly LFC connected of course, but also a number of Forest supporters present that day. The HSA support Forest fans as well as LFC and increasing numbers of us are benefiting from their brilliant therapy programme and general kindness, warmth and comradeship. As their post today said:
Comments