‘I like your pink and blue hat,‘ said the lady on the train. ‘Ooh, and the pink and blue scarf! Were they Christmas presents?’
‘No, madam,’ I huffed. ‘These are the colours of the mighty Dulwich Hamlet Football Club. I have travelled to the end of this earth to cheer them to victory.’
‘That’s nice, dear. Next stop’s Brighton.’
As soon as we stepped out of the station, the sun, unseen for generations, or at least days, burst upon the seaside town, showering it with light, warmth and a little mild radiation. The beach and seafront looked glorious bathed in the solar glow as I showed off its majesty to my teenage son.
‘You’d love it on the pier,’ I said. ‘However, we are going to the pub.’
Having been turned away from the over-18s-only Hole In The Wall, an otherwise delightful backstreeter with a reputation for fine ale, we headed to Kemptown, to the Hand in Hand. Tiny and lovely and rich with pint delights, it soon filled up with Pink and Blues and visiting Altona supporters, fans of Dulwich’s Hamburg equivalent with whom we share a warm friendship. Billy the black labrador waddled through the tables collecting affection.
“He’s named after Billy Bremner,” said the owner, a Leeds fan.
“He’s a lot friendlier than Billy Bremner,” I suggested, as Billy demanded I pet him, or else.
It’s a bit of a hike to the Enclosed Ground, the home of Whitehawk FC, named, I imagine, ironically, as it sits on a windy hill that invites a howling gale, unenclosed. Consequently, me, my lad, Pompey Dunc and Art Man grabbed a taxi. Art Man was nervous as the sliding door closed next to him, having previously broken a small bone in his hand in similar circumstances.
His famously large hands have steered him towards a life behind the stumps, keeping wicket for his local cricket team, and, he claims, three caps with the Montenegro national team.
‘A small bone in my hand is the size of an ordinary person’s femur,’ he said, reminding me of the time I was commissioned to write a script for a sadly unmade cartoon, Charlie Starr, about a fictional 1970s George Best-esque football team, who had a six-fingered goalie called Hans.
Art Man regaled us with the unfortunate story of his painful injury before ending with, ‘But I didn’t make a fuss.’
‘No,’ said the taxi driver. ‘It doesn’t sound like it.’
He got a tip.
The beer at the ground hovered around the OK mark, but Big Al was delighted with his 10 sausages and chips for a few quid. The first half started in good cheer, with Dulwich playing down the hill towards us behind the goal and dominating play. A short back pass to Jasper Sheik in goal led to not only a penalty, but the Whitehawk keeper being sent off. With a Hawk’s midfielder in goal, Luke Wanadio put the pen away for a deserved lead.
I am still surprised, if not saddened, given the Rabble’s penchant for 70s and 80s tunes, that The Selector’s On My Radio, hasn’t been converted to: ‘It’s just the same old show, Luke Wanadio’. But life is rife with disappointments.
After pints and pies, the Rabble gathered behind the other goal for a second half against 10 relegation-threatened men from the lowest scoring team in the league. What could possibly go wrong?
You may have guessed it, dear reader, but the answer was ‘everything’. Having dominated against 11, the Hamlet were hopeless against 10, giving away a needless penalty and conceding a second after Luke Robinson danced, literally danced, his way through our midfield when, following a pirouette and a brief moonwalk, he whacked the ball into the old onion bag for the winner.
‘I thought this sort of thing only happened in books.’
‘Just shoot, for fucks sake!’, Hamlet fans urged. ‘They’ve got the car park attendant in goal!’
Makeshift keeper, Rob O’Toole, spilled what paltry efforts dribbled his way before a bouncing mishit shot headed towards the top corner. Somehow the midfielder leapt like a six-fingered salmon to save the certain equaliser and preserve the points for the home side.
The Whitehawk fans are an affable bunch, but their progeny seemed to be cut from a different cloth. Instead of joining the rest of their fans behind the goal for a view of their attacks, a handful of urchins around 11-years old decided to stand in front of the Hamlet crowd to give us 90 minutes of dog’s abuse of an agricultural nature. I’m sure they will find out the hard way that not all football fans will react to provocation by singing to them in falsetto.
The Rabble dispersed to various Brighton watering holes and we found ourselves at the excellent Prince Albert, the sprawling music venue near the station with great ale, to talk about anything but the game.
Fans of Big Football are used to being mortally wounded by results, unlike a lot of non-league supporters, but this one did sting. One comment on the Hamlet forum summed it up: ‘I can deal with a boring team that wins games or an entertaining team that loses games, but not a boring team that loses games.’
Ouch.
Thankfully the pubs of Brighton and Kemptown saved the day and I will remember them long after the pitiful second half performance. The match made me determined not to go to see them in their next away game, at Cray Wanderers – the oldest football club in London. Then I thought of pre-match pints at The Park Tavern in Eltham and post-match ale at The Cockpit in Chislehurst.
Why? Why must life be so rich with goodness?
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Image credit: Hamlet crowd and Luke Wanadio by Max Magloire at Brixton Buzz
