I’m looking forward to the day my Saturday afternoons aren’t taken up the way they are currently, so I can get to some old fashioned 3 o’clock kick-offs. With Tottenham being in the Europa League most years, I’d forgotten that football games are actually played at that time on a Saturday. It will be one of the best things about supporting Hamlet, when I can finally start getting down to these matches.
Yesterday, Dulwich suffered the first defeat of the season. From reading match reports, it sounds like Staines combined cynical play with quick attacks on the wings. A couple of people have expressed surprise that Staines ended the game with eleven players still on the field. It seems Hamlet were rattled by the Staines tactics, which is a bit surprising when you look at how many ex-pros are in the squad.
It’s a wake-up call for the team, in any case. From scanning the internet obsessively for anything related to the club, there has been a lot of optimism that might, perhaps, border on over-confidence. It’s not for a baby-faced JCL like me to have an opinion on such matters, but I wonder what promotion to the Conference South would mean for the club anyway. Presumably most supporters would welcome it, but further distances travelled will mean higher matchday costs. And there might be quite a few clubs in the league which don’t permit drinking beside the pitch. Not the most pressing concern for a football club, granted, but given the majority of the crowd at Champion Hill appears to like a tipple while the game is being played, it is a factor nonetheless.
I’m excited for Wednesday. Need to figure out how best to get to Leatherhead from SE1. Surrey and Kent are just South London’s back garden though, aren’t they? Can’t be too difficult.
Happiness... 