Hamlet moment

LIKE Norton Woodseats, Pegasus and Stork – which back then really was the name for butter – Dulwich Hamlet was one of those memorably-named football clubs periodically encountered by North-East sides in the FA Amateur Cup.

Evenwood Town drew them in 1952-53, attracted 2,300 – about the population of the village – to the dear old Welfare Ground but lost 2-1.

West Auckland, a couple of miles down the road, had a club record 6,000 three years later – as at Rada, it seemed like everyone wanted to play Hamlet – drew 1-1 but lost the following Saturday in South London, 13,500 thronging the Champion Hall ground.

Bishop Auckland had been more successful in a semi-final at Craven Cottage, though all that memory adds is that the band played Teddy Bears' Picnic.

Dulwich’s most unforgettable to Co Durham, however, may have been in the 1924 quarter-final against Chilton Colliery Welfare, founded just five years earlier.

Chilton weren’t even in the Northern League, though it wasn’t for want of trying. They were in the Durham Palatine League, alongside the likes of Coxhoe, Kelloe and Coundon United.

In the Amateur Cup for the first time the previous season, they’d lost in the qualifying round to Darlington RA. In 1923-24 they drew 1-1 at Champion Hill and thumped their illustrious opponents 3-0 in the replay.

Almost 6,000 people thronged Chilton Rec, the sporting equivalent of a three-foot seam. “Chilton Colliery went whirling into happiness and into the semi-final of the English Amateur Cup” wrote Drandel in the Echo that Monday morning.

The semi-final was against Clapton, at Darlington. The LNER laid on specials from across the North-East, 14,068 paid to get into Feethams with many more on the stand roof, up telegraph poles and watching from the cricket sight screen next door. That was maybe the Crook contingent; the Crook train didn’t even reach Darlington until 2.36pm.

Chilton lost 3-0 but the following year again reached the quarter-final. By 1939 they’d disbanded: dust to dust, as probably they said down Chilton Colliery.

Dulwich Hamlet had been formed in 1893 with the 1/8d given for that purpose to Lorraine Wilson, a gentleman who – lest their be any confusion – usually answered to Pa.

The first ground was half a mile from the changing rooms. Champion Hill followed apace, becoming one of the best amateur grounds in the land and, in 1933, venue of the Amateur Cup final between Kingstonian and Stockton – our boys having seen off Bournemouth Gasworks Athletic in the semis.

It finished 1-1. The replay at Darlington ended in acrimony and in a year’s ban for Stockton centre forward and England amateur international Ralph Smith, a man known universally as Bullet. No doubt a hard case.

The Northern League side led after four minutes, but soon afterwards were reduced to ten men when Joe Thompson was carried off. “Internal derangement of the knee joint,” said Darlington hospital. “Unnecessary roughness,” said the Echo.

Kingstonian won 4-1, the medals presented by FA president Sir Charles Clegg. Smith not only refused his losers’ medal but, it is generally surmised, advised Sir Charles and the FA where they might most painfully relocate it before going off to Sparks’ Café for his tea.

He was 35, an engine driver in Middlesbrough, had been with Stockton for 16 years. Despite pleas for clemency from the mayor, the FA retained its uncomfortable position. Bullet never played for Stockton again.

It’s not really a hamlet, of course – anything but – though it probably was in 956AD, when first its existence was chronicled.

Champion Hill remains, though in 1991 the old stadium was knocked down and half the site sold to Messrs Sainsburys, who built a new ground on the other half.

The club website proclaims them “London’s finest football club” which is manifestly untrue, though they may well be the second finest.

Last Saturday they played the Metropolitan Police, Ryman League premier division, Dulwich the boys in blue (and pink.) It was part two of the younger son’s wedding celebrations, to be followed in the evening by a party in the City.

It should not, of course, be supposed that the Metropolitan Police are all paid-up pollisses any more than Durham Police Choir – still smart in their uniforms – is a coppers’ chorus. There’s not a police officer among them.

The same thing applies to Northallerton Police. they of the Hambleton Sunday League. The best man said that he once knew a Northallerton Police player with a record, if not as long as your arm, then at least well above the wrist.

Saturday’s crowd was 1,459, indicative of Hamlet’s growing appeal and shrewd marketing but perhaps augmented for reasons which shortly will be explained. It appeared to include just two policemen, one of them anxious erroneously to remind the hosts that they were just a small town in Shoreditch. Not what you’d call police intelligence.

There was more. “If you all hate hipsters, clap your hands….”

Dulwich were third, the Met sixth. The groom, and friends, had a tenner apiece at 3-1 on an away win and thus became so instantly emotionally attracted to the Met that they could have been sworn in as special constables.

They were to be disappointed.

The last time that Dulwich Hamlet were mentioned hereabouts was because supporters are still reputed to sing in memory of Edgar Kail, who in a 150-year period between the wars scored a record 427 goals as well as gaining three full England caps while still an amateur.

It’s to the hymn tune Sing Hosanna. “Dulwich Hamlet, Dulwich Hamlet, Edgar Kail in my heart I pray...”

Still less probably, Kail’s face also appears on a poster at the ground entrance: “Two left wingers: Edgar Kail and Che Guevra.” There’s also a poster about Paul Robeson and a third which says: “Sous les payes de terrain.”

It’s hard to suppose which might lose more in the translation.

If not necessarily left wing, the club itself is certainly liberal, enthusiastically embracing all forms of equality and diversity. Saturday’s match offers free admission to all members of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender groups (and their friends) as well as the Southwark branch of Unison.

One of many flags behind the home goal is wrongly identified by the groom as Cuba’s. “It’s the Socialist Republic of Croatia,” a helpful lady informs him.

If Dulwich Hamlet were a newspaper, it would surely be The Guardian.

Though a programme notice forbids “bottles, glass vessels and metal cans”, there’s also a huge amount of alcohol in evidence, plastic containers presumably being exempt.

The half-time queue at the bar stretches half way to New Cross, spectators balancing trays overflowing with ale halfway round the perimeter. Much more of this and they’ll want waitresses in frilly pinnies.

The chap who supposed Dulwich to be a small town in Shoreditch has also remarked adversely on hipsters, vegetarians and one or two others but can’t be seen in the second half. “He’s been locked up by the centre forward,” someone says.

Alcohol or otherwise, the atmosphere is wholly convivial, entirely unthreatening. It’s a lovely occasion, the only disappointment that it ends 0-0. As was observed in the other Hamlet: a hit, a very palpable hit.