So, while Norwich City’s season meanders to a close, Dulwich Hamlet’s is building to a crescendo, both on and off the pitch. A 3-1 win at Lowestoft on Tuesday night puts them five points ahead at the top of the Bostik Premier League with nine games to play. Second-placed Billericay have to pack in fifteen before the end of April because of their ‘cup exploits’ (I love a football cliché).
Not surprisingly the Essex moneybags, owned and managed by a fly-tipping millionaire currently facing charges of intimidating one of his own players, have started to drop points, including a 3-1 home defeat to Dulwich a couple of weeks ago. Even if Billericay make the most of their games in hand, Dulwich are well-placed for the playoffs. If you want to see for yourself, they’re at Needham Market this coming Saturday.
Off the field, it’s a rather different matter. Dulwich Hamlet’s ground at Champion Hill, a lovely little spot in one of the leafier districts of South East London affectionately known as Tuscany after a row of Italianate trees at one end, has been closed down by the owners, a shadowy New York-based outfit called Meadow Residential, who bought the club for £5 million a few years ago for the site’s development potential.
Unfortunately, they forgot to check that their plans met Southwark Council’s local guidelines. The result is a standoff between the council and the owners, with the council playing the goodies and supporting the football club, while the owners resort to all kinds of blackmail, including most recently attempting to trademark the club’s name and presenting them with a bill for ‘unpaid rent’ of over £100,000!
It’s all been debated in the council, and even in the House of Commons, with loads of national press coverage. There was a big march through Dulwich last weekend, to save one of the oldest and most community-minded football clubs in the country. The longer-term prospects are actually quite good, with more ‘progressive’ developers making serious offers to buy Meadow out (including a housing trust led by local boy Rio Ferdinand) and Southwark Council threatening a Compulsory Purchase Order.
In the meantime, the Hamlet are playing their remaining home games at Tooting and Mitcham’s really nice ground a few miles away. One way or another, it should all turn out OK in the end.
If only the same could be said for Lowestoft Town. Promotion to the semi-pro big time of the National League North a few years ago turned out to be a logistical, football and financial disaster. More recently the loss of the club’s academy has deprived them of an estimated £100,000 in annual income.
Their playing and coaching staff have not been paid since December. Not surprisingly the best of them have gone elsewhere. There is now a very real threat of further relegation. The game against Dulwich was a complete mismatch, with Dulwich bossing the ball and 3-0 up by halftime. Lowestoft’s last-minute goal, their first shot on target all evening, came from a mysterious penalty the referee appeared to award out of pity. At least a hundred of the 350 crowd had come all the way from Dulwich and contributed generously to the pitchside bucket collection.
As things stand, it’s hard to see how Lowestoft can see out the season, let alone avoid relegation. Their only income is from match attendance, and even with widespread appeals to local football supporters turnout is pretty low and noticeably aged. Where, we might ask, are Norwich City in all of this? There were a few yellow and green scarves in evidence the other night, but barely enough to fill a car for the 50-mile round trip.
A few years ago, when Lowestoft were on the up under Craig Fleming, he told me he’d approached his old club with lots of ideas for cooperation between East Anglia’s two biggest clubs (hello Ipswich) and got nowhere. They weren’t even prepared to publicise Lowestoft home games amongst NCFC season ticket holders.
More broadly, we might also ask where the Football Association are in all this? The blazers and suits at Lancaster Gate (are they still there?) have said zilch about Dulwich’s predicament, and they probably haven’t even noticed Lowestoft’s.
While Big Football drowns in dodgy global money from oligarchs and sheikhs, the game at grassroots is struggling to survive.
Whilst I feel sorry for both Lowestoft and Dulwich neither has anyone else to blame but themselves, both tales of woe are as a result of spending more money than they earn and therefore landing themselves in a perilous financial position. I’d be worried too if I was a Billericay fan about what happens when the Tamplin bubble bursts and they are saddled with debt as well (£20,000 per week wage bill and all). Elsewhere there are well run non-League clubs who only spend what they can afford and these are the ones who should be championed!
No one to blame but themselves? Who? The players? The fans? The management? The authorities who put Lowestoft into a Northern league?
Any football club is more than one single entity and the effects of things going wrong are felt by many people, mostly entirely blameless.
Good shout Don. The club being plonked unceremoniously in the Northern section of the Conference’s second tier was a nightmare, and arguably the start of the current demise. Not only did it hinder their recruitment (and arguably their ability to consolidate at that level) but also ramped up their travel costs way beyond what had been budgeted.
Well said Gary;
Strikes me that Lowestoft must have been put there by the same idiots who seem to arrange City’s mid-week games to make it as difficult as possible for supporters to attend. London is difficult, but Middlesbrough; Wolves and Sunderland are pretty impossible for those who have to work the next day!
The thing is though, by that point they were already paying a ridiculous wage to most of their starting XI. Reports of up to £800 a week. Which is entirely unsustainable.
Granted, they had lined up more than a few London-based players who were going to sign on the premise that Town were placed in Conference South. Alas, it wasn’t to be…….and they got relegated in 2016 from the North on goal difference!
Very interesting article Andy. As someone who grew up in Lowestoft I have always had a soft spot for them, in fact my first football match was at Crown meadow though I haven’t been to a match since the the FA Vase final in 2008 (or 2009 – cant remember). I have often wondered why there isn’t more or a connection between Norwich and Lowestoft (or even, god forbid, Ipswich and Lowestoft) especially given the well trodden route down the A146 by a number of our former academy members and a number of our ex players.
Interesting comparison with Dulwich Hamlet, another team I have a soft spot for as they are only a couple of miles from where I live now. They are a very community minded club and the rally last week had what looked like best part of 1000 people involved. Part of that community spirit comes from the bar at the football ground. People turn up for an evening game often 2 hours before kick off and dont leave until an hour afterwards but not in a rough and rowdy way – its just a nice bar with a rotating selection of great local beers (we have a lot in SE London) and it really helps to bring all the fans together. I wonder if something like this could happen at Crown Meadow – we have an excellent local brewery in Lowestoft (Green Jack) and I’m sure it would help bring in some extra revenue which they desperately need
Paul – a bit hard-hearted of you but I take the broader point about money and football. Non-league is just as vulnerable to speculators/wannabe-local-heroes as Big Football, just on a smaller scale, Billericay the most spectacular current example. The point about Dulwich is that with average gates of 1500 and strong community roots, they actually are financially viable if only the owners would play straight with the people who run the football club. Again this is a wider problem, with all sorts of dodgy outfits sniffing around football grounds looking to make fortunes from housing, especially in London (Millwall the latest and biggest example).
London Canary – hard to see the Dulwich example (craft beers, organic burgers, yummie mummies and hipster dads, big pool of local football talent) applying to Lowestoft! Like a lot of ‘football strongholds’ around the country the place is actually dying on its feet. I think the onus is on bigger local football clubs and football authorities to create a strong, sustainable base for the local game, but I guess that gets a bit political….
A final update – Dulwich won 3-0 at Needham Market, who gave them a much better game than Lowestoft. Dulwich look pretty unstoppable at the moment, at least on the pitch. And to cap a perfect week Billericay got walloped at Hendon. On the other hand lowestoft managed to lose at home to the bottom side…