Editorial for the Hamlet Historian No.26

The new issue of the magazine is due out on 20th December 2014 and contains articles by Jan Stover, Mishi D. Morath and the memoirs of the late Johnny Gornall.

















Editor

In July 2015 Champion Hill will stage the return match between Dulwich Hamlet FC and German club Altona 93. It is quite a rarity for the Hamlet to be taking on foreign opposition in the modern era, so it will be well worth noting the date in your diary when more details appear. And if you were perplexed as to when the original friendly fixture took place and how it was you came to miss it, don’t fret …it was played in Hamburg 89 years ago!

The game will cement further ties between the two clubs, founded in 1893. Already the Dulwich Hamlet away kit is modelled on the Altona home kit. And many will be familiar with the Altona 93 / DHFC banner draped behind the goal.

           

A dream come true for terrace legend Mishi Morath and his counterpart at Altona, Jan Stover of the All To Nah fanzine. The pair had an amazing chance meeting a few years ago.  Mishi was visiting Hamburg and wandering round the Altona stadium when he was approached by Jan. The two got talking and Mishi came away with some of Jan’s fanzines. He then sent his German friend a copy of every back issue of the Hamlet Historian and some other fanzines, all of which Jan lapped up. It was only later that it was realised that their two clubs had actually played each other in a friendly many years earlier.

Unlike today’s senior team, the DHFC Supporters Team is quite accustomed to touring Europe, having done so many times. So, taking an opportunity to travel to Germany, acquaintance was renewed between the two clubs, and a match between the two sets of fans was played out at Altona’s Adolf Jäger stadium. When it was time for the Hamlet to return the favour towards the end of the 2012/13 season, a coachload of Altona fans visited Edgar Kail Way, Champion Hill and enjoyed a wonderful time of football and frolics. It was a grand occasion.


For this issue of the Hamlet Historian Jan Stover has kindly produced a fine piece about the encounter in 1925, in which the aforementioned club legends Edgar Kail and Adolf Jäger featured. Sadly, Jäger’s life was cut short in 1944, when he was killed attempting to defuse an Allied bomb in Altona while working as a volunteer in a bomb squad. Within weeks of his death the stadium was renamed in his honour.

As we are all so very much aware, 2014 marks the centenary of the First World War. There have been many fitting memorials, including the revamping of the Imperial War Museum in Southwark and the remarkable spectacle of the ceramic poppies at the Tower of London. The Club itself also took part in Football Remembers Week, in which footballers from all walks of life, young and old, amateur and professional, were photographed a hundred years on from the Christmas truce of 1914. This is in tribute to the impromptu football match played out between German and Allied troops. That famous lull amidst the carnage was also recently touchingly recreated for Sainsbury’s seasonal advertising campaign.

Before the Second World War Dulwich Hamlet made a number of tours to Germany. The last one was in 1930 when Cologne and Aachen were visited. Earlier trips went back as far as 1911. However, the one that took place in 1914 (Menderich Duisberg, Eberfield, Munich Gladbach) just three and a half months before the start of the First World War is perhaps the most poignant.

It is hard to imagine how opponents who were happily kicking a ball about, attacking each other’s goals on a football pitch would soon be attacking each other with bullets, bombs and bayonets in the trenches of the Western Front.  And, lest we forget, twenty two Hamlet clubmen (four more in WWII) made the supreme sacrifice, as did some men from Altona 93. May our friendship ever continue.

Jack McInroy 

Hamlet Historian 26

If all goes according to plan, a new issue of the Hamlet Historian will be available at the Dulwich Hamlet versus Witham Town match on Saturday 20th December.

The cover features Altona 93 player Adolf Jäger and the cost is £2.

An all too familiar Cup defeat ...

Please note: This article is from 2007.

By Mishi D. Morath

Thanks to a posting on the unofficial Dulwich Hamlet messageboard on the internet recently, I’m going to wind the clock back thirty five years or so. Why? Well, a chap called David Bauckham, from the website www.pyramidpassion.co.uk  posed the question:

Does anyone remember Charlie Pooley?

Hi, I am just writing up a few memories of watching Dulwich in the early 1970s (first match a home defeat by Hampton: FA Cup 1^st Qualifying Round 1972/73). My recollections are pretty vague but one name I remember quite well is that of Charlie Pooley. Does anyone remember him and if so can they provide any details – I recall that he had long hair & moustache (like most players back then) and played on the wing I think.

In actual fact, although Charlie seems to have made a lasting impression on him, Pooley did not appear in that FA Cup match. So, why the interest?

It turns out David is in the early stages of drafting a book on non-league football, and will include a piece on his earliest amateur experiences at Champion Hill. Not many memories were forthcoming on Charlie, it was a long time ago after all. I, myself, saw my first Hamlet game as a little seven year old boy in 1974. I would have been ten when he left us after we were relegated for the first time at the end of the 1976/77 campaign.

Pooley headed for the Croydon Arena and the ‘Blues’ of Croydon FC who leap-frogged over us from the lower division. Also headed in the same direction was Alec Jackson. Croydon, of course, are now known as the Trams but in the 1970s actual trams in South London were still a long way from returning, with the Tramlink service only becoming fully operational in May 2000.

The website query drew an anecdotal story about a Hamlet away match at Oxford City in the mid seventies when the supporters’ coach got to the White Horse ground, moments after the players’ bus. As the team were disembarking, Fred Pudney – another legend of that era – sat down on the steps and promptly threw up! Supporter Malcolm Meredith recalled another time when he was strolling round to the bar from Champion Hill’s old north terrace after one game, and by the time he got there Charlie was already showered and changed and halfway through his first pint! And Pooley had played the full ninety minutes, and not substituted early.

Back to that FA Cup game in September 1972 though. Having spent the previous decade in the doldrums, regularly competing for the Isthmian League wooden spoon with Corinthian-Casuals, Jimmy Rose took over the reigns; and not so much a breath of fresh air, more of a hurricane of hope, blew through the old, hallowed corridors of Champion Hill. The sleeping giant was finally awakening from its long slumbering, and teams were starting to take the boys in Pink ‘n’ Blue seriously.

With the team that Rose was assembling, there was the possibility of a good FA Cup run, with all the attendant publicity and glory to go with it. Hopes were high, the draw had been kind. Despite having to start in the preliminary round, the Hamlet managed to get past one of those ‘potential banana skins’ drawn away to Athenian Leaguers, Southall. A single goal from Chris Gedney was enough to see the Hamlet through. A close margin, but in cup football that is enough. The goal came just before half time; a corner taken on the right led to a mix-up in the Southall goalmouth and Gedney, who the South London Press referred to as: ‘that “picker up of unconsidered trifles”’, gave the home custodian, Colin Knight, no chance of saving a close range shot.

And so onto the first qualifying round, a home tie with another Athenian League outfit, Hampton. But they were a couple of rungs below Premier Division Southall, plying their trade in the lowly Second Division. Although Hampton finished third in the table at the end of the season, just missing out on the two promotion spots, they should still have been easy pickings for Dulwich. In the press Rose was cautious about the outcome, offering all the correct clichés for his soundbites. “We must beware of overconfidence. Although we’re obviously favourites the cup is a great leveller. Hampton will be playing a different style of football to ours which might be awkward. We’d like a good cup run and I’m keeping my fingers crossed we’ll go through to meet Molesey or Carshalton away in the next round.” Having said that I very much doubt he thought there was ever a cat in hell’s chance of the Hamlet bowing out to such lowly opposition.

Matters would not have been helped by the serious injuries sustained at work by Dulwich forward Ken Jelly. Tragedy struck for the New Century employed window-cleaner when the cradle in which he was working crashed thirty feet onto the concrete pavement below. At first it was feared that the 24 year old Jelly might have suffered internal injuries but Jimmy Rose was one relieved football manager when he heard that the damage was restricted to his limbs. “At one time we thought there was damage to kidneys and vertebrae but this was not the case. In a way he was lucky. He could have fallen on his head. Of course it’s a tremendous blow just as we were beginning to click. We didn’t play well against Bromley or Southall because everyone was thinking about Kenny. But knowing Jelly as I do I wouldn’t be surprised if he was up and about and ready for training very soon.”  Despite the optimism Rose realised the seriousness of his injuries, and it was expected that Jelly would be in plaster for as long as two months, before he could even think about beginning light training. This was particularly bad luck for the new Hamlet forward. He had been dogged by injury since he left Tooting & Mitcham, and missed much of the previous season – when he was in Sutton United colours – through a broken hand. With all at the Club being so concerned about Jelly, no doubt Dulwich defender Bernie Mills would have felt a little aggrieved at the ‘lack of sympathy’ coming his way. For he too was hospitalised after a work accident, having a toenail removed!

Despite all their bad luck the Hamlet still managed to beat Bromley, in an Isthmian League match, and Southall in the Cup, as mentioned. The ‘warm up’ to the Cup clash was an Isthmian League home game with Oxford City. Honours were even, four goals shared. A cracking game, one of the best for donkey’s years. But whether that is a true verdict on the quality of the match, or merely a reflection of how poor things had been over previous years I can’t tell you. For a match which the Hamlet never won though, the accolades were top notch. ‘DULWICH PROVIDE THE EXCITEMENT’ was the headline in the SLP: “If it’s soccer entertainment you’re after then take a trip to Champion Hill where Dulwich are fast building a reputation as one of amateur soccer’s crowd pleasers. Slick-moving Dulwich might have let a home point slip but it would be an injustice for their fans to begrudge Oxford a share of the spoils from one of the best amateur matches seen in South London for years. Play swung end-to-end with lightning speed, shots flashed in at both goalkeepers from all angles, and breathless supporters rose to applaud the teams off at the end.”

So, despite the players on the sick list, there would have been plenty of confidence in the Hamlet camp for the visit of Hampton. Surely defeat was inconceivable? Although there was no actual non-league pyramid in place then, the Athenian League was acknowledged as one rung below the Isthmian, and Hampton turned out in the third tier of that competition!

But the sorry captions above the SLP report of the tie said it all:

 ‘I knew this was going to happen’ says Rose

DULWICH CRASH OUT OF FA CUP

By the odd goal in three we lost, and while not having our full FA Cup record to hand, I would hazard a guess that this must be one of our most embarrassing defeats in our entire history of entering the great old competition. We were unbeaten at home thus far, a good month into the season, and the report tells us that the visitors were allowed to score on their only two ventures into Dulwich’s half. “I was very disappointed,” said manager Jimmy Rose, “but I knew this was going to happen because we were lacking in goal scoring effort.” Brave words, so easy to be wise after the event! It was Hampton who took the lead after only eight minutes, before the Hamlet had been given any time to settle down, Peter Farren put his team ahead when Peter Smith failed to cut out a high ball from Ian Wenlock, allowing Farren to run round for an easy chip into goal, over the Dulwich custodian Geoff Parsons.

Despite the setback Dulwich calmed down and took control of the game. Surely this deficit would only be a blip in the Hamlet quest for Cup glory? On the quarter hour mark Chris Gedney ran the length of the field, only to waste a chance with a poor pass to Trevor Bladon. But the continual pressure was to prove too much for Hampton, and in the 32^nd minute Hampton goalkeeper Ron Whiteaker let a high ball from Eric Allinson slip through his fingers to put Dulwich level. And we almost went in at the break in front, after good play between Graham Smith and Gedney again, but Whiteaker tipped Gedney’s shot over the bar. Despite only hitting the back of the net once in the half the paper told us that “Dulwich kept up their reputation as crowd-pleasers shooting from all positions.”  

Despite that it was Hampton, who once again, had the earliest chance after the interval. Just two minutes into the second half they missed a chance when Yorke pushed the ball into the area for Peter Hennessey, who chipped the ball over the attacking Parsons and clean over the open goal. A let off indeed. But then it was all Hamlet pressure once more, one of the best was when Allinson floated a free kick high into the area for Micky Pratt to head down, but Ray Major just volleyed wide. It was only in the latter stages of the game that Hampton managed to break away from the relentless pressure of Dulwich. Parsons dropped a simple high cross from Kenny Reed and Ian Wenlock was there to nod it into the net, thus securing an extremely unlikely victory for little Hampton, three divisions below the Hamlet, though nowadays one level above, when if the fixture were to be played we would be the giantkillers!

Dulwich Hamlet team: Parsons, Brookes, Barker, Burke, Allinson, P. Smith, Bladon, G. Smith, Pratt, Gedney, Major. Sub: Gaydon.

Ken Jelly was out of hospital by the time this match took place and was a spectator at the game. He had both wrists in plaster and bandages round his ankles. It would be quite a while before he would be fit enough to wear a Pink and Blue shirt again, but he was quoted as saying that he would go along to training sessions “just for a talk with the lads.” What’s the betting there wasn’t much discussion on this Cup debacle! Out of sight, out of mind!

There were a number of changes for the following home match with Woking, including an untried youngster George Lewzey, who had only turned eighteen a week earlier, and had no senior amateur experience. Fellow teenager Charlie Pooley also appeared. Before the match Jimmy Rose said: “My hand has been forced. I didn’t want to make changes, but the goals just aren’t coming as fast as they want to.”  He was reported to have full confidence in young debutant Lewzey. Many years later a certain Mr. Hansen, who formerly plied his trade at Anfield, before seeking the comfort of a TV studio armchair, was famously quoted as saying “You win nothing with kids.”  in reference to Alex Ferguson bedding his version of ‘Busby Babes’ at Old Trafford.

Well the Hamlet didn’t go on to win the title, but certainly tore apart Woking that night, by four goals to one. And it could have been a lot more as the SLP scribe quoted an enthusiastic Dulwich fan: ‘Two minutes from full-time someone heard the clatter of wooden seats being tipped up as people began to make their way out. The same someone shouted “Don’t go yet lads, they might get another goal.”’  It was actually the subject of the enquiry that prompted this article that got on the scoresheet against the Cards, and not Lewzey. “In the 75^th minute Charlie Pooley received a gift pass from the Woking defender Cheeseman, and his curving shot went just wide with keeper Collyer beaten. But five minutes later after neat work by Gaydon and Kenny Baker, Pooley got the ball just inside the box and shot in on the turn.”

A few years ago (three, four, five? Maybe more?) I was at the Private Banks Sportsground (I still can’t call it by its modern name of Powerleague!) on a Sunday morning watching a young Dulwich Hamlet Junior game – playing the small sided version, which is seven a side – so it must have been under eights or nines. I was standing on the touchline wearing my Dulwich Hamlet jacket with the club crest, when a man came up to me and asked if I ever went down to watch the Hamlet. It was none other than Charlie Pooley, whose boy was playing against our little ‘uns! We only had a brief chat, and unfortunately I cannot recall the opposition. But I may just try and make some enquiries with our Junior Club, and the League officials, to find out if anyone out there knows him. And if I am lucky enough to locate him then keep your eyes peeled for a possible interview with this Hamlet seventies icon in a future edition of the Hamlet Historian!

This article was originally published in HH18 Spring 2007

Mishprint

Mishprint

by Jack McInroy

f

or the first five years or so of its existence I was blissfully unaware of a certain publication dedicated to Dulwich Hamlet Football Club. It was called Champion Hill Street Blues. When I eventually did come across it I happily bought one or two issues. It contained ramblings about the club I supported. The only other place of which one could regularly read about the Hamlet was in the matchday programme or a few paragraphs in the South London Press twice a week. After reading the December 1993 Number 24 edition of CHSB fanzine, I wrote to the editor, Mishi Morath, shamelessly pointing out the faults of this ramshackle magazine. Perhaps this was very remiss of me. Well out of order to be honest, but I felt at the time I had some valid points to make.  

Mishi replied to me personally with some valid points of his own, and said that the magazine was governed by its contributors. If I could do any better, then send him some stuff and he would put it in. After all, he had been putting out fanzines since as early as 1984 – the Pink & Blue Bushwacker – when he was just seventeen! And he has never really stopped. Catch the supporters’ coach to an away fixture and read his current offering, the very enjoyable All Aboard The Skylark.

My letter appeared in the following edition of CHSB along with several pages of my own contributions that I put in the post to an address on the Aylesbury Estate, just a few hundred metres from my home.

Part of my original letter read, “…another 60p worth of countless typing errors, spelling misteaks, mindless obscenities and moronic insults. In its present state your magazine must only appeal to a handful of fans. My opinion of CHSB is not a lone one. Don’t misunderstand me, there is nothing wrong with writing for a small group of friends, but surely it would be better for us all if your readership was enlarged and the bigger section of fans was catered for…. [You also need to] provide the much missed ‘fun’ element that is sadly missing. The cheap laughs that you aim for by prefixing or suffixing that nasty little word “scum” everywhere falls flat on these chucklebuds. …The good points were scattered through Richard Watts’ piece.”  Richard’s masterful, insightful match reports are always worth reading.

          Coming from a graphics background, I felt the standard of artwork alone was atrocious. Looking back now I find it a bit strange to have taken this view. Many years earlier I owned a handful of issues of Sniffin’ Glue, the punk rock fanzine of the 1970s with its DIY poison pen letter type, magic marker headlines and high contrast images. I had since become a bit snobby and thought that CHSB was in dire need of a proper editor.

Although I had been aware of Mishi on the terraces of Champion Hill since he was a young teenager, I did not actually introduce myself to him until January 1994. I then realised that nobody else was going to edit this fanzine. And why should they? It was his. He had conceived it, nurtured it and brought it to maturity. The fact that I looked upon the finished product as a spotty juvenile delinquent rather than a fine young handsome man was neither here nor there.

          Over the next five and a half years I was a regular contributor to the CHSB. My illustrations, obscure jokes, attempted humorous articles, serious historical pieces, spoof love letters from the hapless Member of Parliament for Dulwich to the Dulwich Hamlet chairman, and the odd poem, very rarely, if ever, appeared under my own name. The nom de plumes I chose were borrowed from others. Gravely Roberts for example, is just author Robert Graves back to front and Rufus T Firefly came from a character in a Marx Brothers film.

Although CHSB had always occasionally featured pieces on Hamlet history, articles began to appear more regularly on the history of our once famous club. Mishi, myself, Roger Deason and Andy Tucker, to name but a few, took it upon ourselves to do our own research. Others, like Ralph Hopkins, who saw things first hand all those years ago, wrote about their own experiences. It soon became apparent that there was a real interest in things ancient as well as modern. Mishi next decided he was going to produce something called the Hamlet Historian dedicated to the club’s past exploits. A brilliant idea.

In 1996, my own book on the Hamlet’s Victory Team of 1920 was published. This was a real confidence boost for me, especially as I was in the middle of a long period of unemployment at the time. It is no fun attending countless job interviews and finding no one wants you. Five hundred copies were sold or given away and a large proportion of the profits went towards the Raise The Roof Fund, a scheme to build a covered stand behind one of the goals at Champion Hill. In the end this never got off the ground and the money, much to my own chagrin, was channeled elsewhere.

          Soon afterwards, our friendly neighbourhood programme editor, John Lawrence hurriedly brought out the first part of his own ‘The Story of Dulwich Hamlet in 100 weekly parts.’ An unexpected rival we felt were now up against!

And then things went decidedly pear shaped. Mishi’s ill conceived comments regarding the Turkish earthquake in the penultimate CHSB Editorial didn’t go down too well in some quarters. It was blatantly obvious that some people had a right to be upset. Especially any Turks associated with Dulwich Hamlet Football Club.

Following that notorious issue of CHSB, I was approached by a group of fans who decided that this was the last straw. They were reluctant to write for that fanzine anymore. Would I like to join them in creating a new less shoddy magazine? I accepted the offer but pointed out, however, that I would not want to do anything behind Mishi’s back. Until he was told that a rival to CHSB was hitting the stands (and the terraces) I would continue with him. I seem to remember being assured that he would be spoken to very shortly. Whether he was or not, I don’t know. I very rarely frequented the bar or engaged in terrace talk, so most of the time I didn’t know what was going on. No change there then.

With hindsight I feel I may have been slightly misled. I certainly don’t recall doing anything dishonest or underhand. My memory is that Mishi wasn’t happy about the exodus of his ‘staff writers’ all jumping ship at the same time. But I was under the impression that Richard would take over the new editorial role while Mishi would become a contributor to the new magazine. His main concern could then be the Hamlet Historian, something perhaps more suitable and certainly closer to his heart.

          I committed myself to provide four pages per issue to a new magazine, Thinkin’ Pink n’ Talkin’ Blues. It was my usual fayre, the same old ‘same old’ that went into Champion Hill Street Blues.

          The final CHSB was produced, and was quickly followed by the first appearance of Thinkin’ Pink n’ Talkin’ Blues in October 1999. By then the country was in the middle of the internet revolution and some wondered if this would spell the end of the printed fanzine. It didn’t – fanzines just went online instead, with everything else. Adam Shahin’s Dulwich Hamlet Online site www.dhfc.net (which had already been in existence some time) meant that topics could be raised and discussed instantly, instead of weeks after the event, as in the case of a printed fanzine. And without a paste-up line in sight.

          Mishi Morath, king of the paste-up line, may have been down but he was not out, and was set to make a comeback. Pink & Booze – the two loves of his life – was the title of his new offering. He was going to show them, the insurrection, that he could go it alone. He did have one or two faithful men who provided him with a few odds and ends – most notably Paul Griffin. But even Griff, it became clear, was saving his own sterling efforts for his excellent hyperbolic Southwark News match reports. Reports and news items, which in turn, were repeated on what was quickly becoming a more and more slick website.

          But now there were two Dulwich fanzines to collect and read – your poor man’s Snooze and SLoP I suppose. Like the Beatles and the Stones alternating their singles and LPs in the sixties, Richard and Mishi came to a gentlemen’s agreement that they would not publish in the same week. And they never did. The first four issues of TP&TB had a mighty 40 pages each. A tall order, I think, to keep up. The fifth and final issue (dated October 2000) was 12 pages short of the mark, but there was plenty there. 28 pages is ample for a fanzine. In that issue Richard stated that he needed more input from others, else the venture would fold. P&B on the other hand soon became little more than a ‘Do they mean us?’ fest.

Both Pink n’ Booze and TP&TB eventually disappeared out of sight. I always enjoyed reading Mishi’s opinions (and still do). The swearing and the blasphemy I abhor, and the gutter humour and tabloid style revelations I was never too keen on either; yet I was continually amazed that he talked a lot of sense a lot of the time – despite his sometimes drunken editorial vomit, and a seeming headlong rush towards an early grave through his spiraling alcoholism. Someone needed to, as Gary Lineker once mouthed, “Have a word with him.”

          Thankfully Mishi eventually saw his alcohol addiction for what it was and managed to quit drink altogether. For over a decade now the club’s most renowned supporter has been ‘dry’. Long may it continue. He remained editor of the Hamlet Historian until he handed me the reins in 2003. His regular offerings and encouragement helped me take on the new role with a fresh zeal. Collecting first hand accounts from old players and supporters, and digging up buried treasures from a glorious past has, we trust, brought the Hamlet’s history alive to our own generation.

I have a lot to thank Mishi for. Had he not asked me to send some articles in to CHSB I would never have gone on to churn out countless send up pieces that people seemed to enjoy reading, or go on to do so much research. That in turn led to writing a small book about the club. And then going to great lengths to ensure Edgar Kail received a Southwark People’s blue plaque, as well as commissioning a fitting bronze monument to Pa Wilson the father of Dulwich Hamlet. So I have him to thank for that. But this is beginning to sound more and more like an obituary to Mishi D. Morath. And that’s the last thing he’d want. 

Jack McInroy This article was published in HH25 Spring 2014 

Slightly adapted from a previously unpublished piece written in 2001.