Advertising Signs

Collectors of Dulwich Hamlet memorabilia will be very interested in a bunch of posters currently up for auction on the Ebay website.

The posters are all from the 1960s advertising matches played at Champion Hill at a time when Corinthian-Casuals were groundsharing with Dulwich. The 1965 Boxing Day fixture between the two sides is advertised on the same poster as Cor-Cas v Torpoint in the FA Amateur Cup 1st round on New Year’s Day 1966.

One poster reveals a real busy week at Champion Hill with Cor-Cas at home to Maidstone United on the Tuesday followed by Dulwich v Wimbledon on the Wednesday, both games in the Isthmian League. On the Thursday the Hamlet Reserves are at home to Maidstone Reserves and then Saturday Dulwich entertain WalthamstowAvenue in the 1^st qualifying round of the FA Cup.

One cup game v Whitley Bay is advertised on two separate posters with different dates. Seven days apart, we can only assume (without looking it up) that the earlier fixture (23 January 1965) was postponed until the following week.

Several Amateur Internationals were held at the ground during the sixties including England v Netherlands and Great Britain or England v New Zealand. (Not sure what that one is all about!)

Arguably, the most interesting and collectible poster is the one advertising the game against Chelsea. This game was a friendly to celebrate the opening of the floodlights at Champion Hill in October 1964. Chelsea at the time were league leaders, and manager Tommy Docherty’s full strength side came along to play the match which they comfortably won 3-0 in front of a 4,000 crowd.

The Chelsea side was made up of household names such as goalkeeper Peter Bonnetti, Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, Barry Bridges, Johnny Hollins and Bobby Tambling. Second half substitutes included Peter Osgood, George Graham and Peter Houseman. For Dulwich Hamlet: Dave Darvill, John Hammond, Reg Merritt, Mike Woollard, Denis Joyce, James Day, Roy Wootton, Steve Dunwoody, George Nash, Albert Modesto and Dave Le Grice.

Dulwich Hamlet v Chelsea Ticket

Interestingly Roy Wooten attends most Dulwich Hamlet matches, home and away, and often stands with the supporters behind the goal getting behind the current team.

The auction for the Dulwich Hamlet v Chelsea poster can be found here. Auction finishes on 2 April 2016. Click on ‘See other items’ in the link for the bother posters.