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Notice served and Dulwich Hamlet locked out of ground

Why are you being so naive? Is this commitment in writing or not? If there’s nothing in writing then sadly the football committee has no leg to stand on. Has anyone actually checked this? Was it a gentleman’s agreement or something?

What happens when people haven't earned the right to an opinion #brexit
 
Why are you being so naive? Is this commitment in writing or not? If there’s nothing in writing then sadly the football committee has no leg to stand on. Has anyone actually checked this? Was it a gentleman’s agreement or something?

As I understand it, and I'm sure a committee member will correct me if I'm wrong, the committee weren't consulted. They weren't a party in any agreement - the 'agreement' was between Meadow (as controller of the club's finances, appointed by the majority shareholder) and Meadow (landlord).
 
Not true. The club should not get seduced into thinking that they can make money out of litigation. You can only ever get back to the position you are in, and in practice there will be a cost for even that.

If the club do want formal pro bono advice then they could approach this organisation for help:
My Site
Which part of it isn't true?
How much do you think it would cost to acquire a new ground, new players, etc?
 
There's some well informed discussion going on in the comments here:
Firm in trade mark row with embattled football club

The overwhelming opinion is that Blake Morgan have been thoroughly dodgy, if not downright unethical in their conduct.

Anon @15:39 There are professional conduct provisions about this sort of thing and lawyers have been struck off for this sort of thing in the past (remember the porn rights holders and the letters to the users of IP addresses?).
Anon @10:19 I think the point here is that even a trainee would know that DHFC would have an unassailable defence. The correct response to the instructions would be to advise the client that the registrations are in bad faith and will be revoked if challenged and because there is no basis whatever for the allegation, a letter cannot be written to a lay party for professional conduct reasons.

What's actually happened is that the firm has just done whatever the client ordered it to do and was to afraid to say no for fear of losing it. That, in my book, makes this suitable for an investigation by the powers that be...
This is sailing very close to the wind. Given the prior rights position what is the purpose of the registration? What happened to acting with integrity? Oh and isn't there also a SRA Guide to Ethics in litigation which takes a pretty dim view of these types of activities? I do hope there is no suggestion of: capitulate and we will hand over the trade marks. That would get everyone into all sorts of trouble.
 
Which makes their bullshit attempt at spin WORTHLESS!
I think you could argue it worked very well. They got a little army of supporters to get all excited, get some press, etc, etc. Then they say that everything will be fine if the council are more amenable to what they want.

Pressure is transferred to the council. They cave. Job done.
 
So bar staff sacked
and according to Gavin on ITV tonight he was denied entry to the ground
is that all correct ?
also reports of 24 hour security
so take it we have to work on basis 17th we will be playing else where ? not Champion Hill ?
 
I think you could argue it worked very well. They got a little army of supporters to get all excited, get some press, etc, etc. Then they say that everything will be fine if the council are more amenable to what they want.

Pressure is transferred to the council. They cave. Job done.
You appear to have very little understanding of the situation.

And far from just getting a 'little army of supporters excited' (your patronising tone is noted), Dulwich Hamlet received support from a huge variety of sources, including Lords and Earls at the House of Lords and the Mayor of London, with both Meadow and Blake Morgan coming out of it looking like unscrupulous companies with a highly dubious code of business ethics.

Both companies may find themselves tainted by this for many years, so it's hard to see how anyone could conclude that this has proved anything but a total disaster for them.
 
I think you could argue it worked very well. They got a little army of supporters to get all excited, get some press, etc, etc. Then they say that everything will be fine if the council are more amenable to what they want.

Pressure is transferred to the council. They cave. Job done.
What brings you to this thread, other than to spout your usual drivel. Kindly fuck off. And stay fucked off.
 
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Meadow keep insisting that Hamlet had "repeatedly breached their licence" but have yet to explain any details. Anyone got any idea?
Don't know specifics but there were clauses such as all sponsorship boards should come down after matches. They didn't therefore technically a breach. Petty bullshit designed to make them always have an upper hand legally, petty nasty shitwipes that they are.
 
Nothing else to add except this is fucking horrendous behaviour and a sad indictment of what can happen when community assets aren't protected and treated as such.

It's especially sad as I know many Hamlet fans became such after turning their backs on 'Modern Football'(TM) and sought refuge at Hamlet from
Definitely one scarf - a gift to Lord Roy Kennedy of Southwark yesterday morning. He appears to have been roaming the Palace of Westminster ever since - getting as many Lords and MPs as he can to support the Hamlet cause. He is also a Trust Member - has been for a few years - and has been down to Champion Hill loads of times (primarily when Millwall aren't at home). An absolute top chap.
That's what I figured, and I do love the idea of this slightly pepped-up Lord roaming the halls of Westminster, clutching that scarf in his hand and wrapping it round the neck of anyone he can find :D
 
Would it be possible for all the financial information, all the contracts etc. between the Club and Meadow to be made available for everyone to see online ? Bits and pieces of information seem to emerge from time to time so why not everything ? Only in the past week or so have I, and others, found out for the first time,from postings on forums etc, that the "back rent" was £121,000, that the "debt" is £750,000 (does that include the rent ?). There was also the £6,000 in VAT, having arisen from a VAT assessment- what income was being assessed ? I only found out from a posting on this thread that one of the contract terms was to remove the sponsorship boards after games, which seems an odd requirement for a stadium with no other user.
 
You appear to have very little understanding of the situation.

And far from just getting a 'little army of supporters excited' (your patronising tone is noted), Dulwich Hamlet received support from a huge variety of sources, including Lords and Earls at the House of Lords and the Mayor of London, with both Meadow and Blake Morgan coming out of it looking like unscrupulous companies with a highly dubious code of business ethics.

Both companies may find themselves tainted by this for many years, so it's hard to see how anyone could conclude that this has proved anything but a total disaster for them.
It’s hard to conclude anything at this juncture.

Nothing has been finalised.

You can conclude all you like when the fat lady has sung

Xxx
 



Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed
OK, I need to tell you all something, this could be quite a long thread, so don't worry about missing anything. Catch up later if needs be. I'll be on all day with this one.... In 1993, i was a young street cop in South East London.







    1. New conversation

    2. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 13h13 hours ago
      I worked on the Aylesbury Estate in Walworth. Man that was a fucking hard place to police. On my bus home, i would pass a nice little football ground in East Dulwich. Popped in for a pint and an evening game one day and fell in love with the place

      1 reply0 retweets3 likes

    3. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 13h13 hours ago
      The handful of supporters behind the goal were same ones that sold me a programme, manned the turnstiles and made the teas at half time. My kind of football club. So, after a while, i warn to The Rabble, and they warm to me... More importantly, they inspired me

      1 reply0 retweets2 likes

    4. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 13h13 hours ago
      The problems on my beat were mainly centred around youngsters with nothing to do and no role models in their lives. The club was void of supporters in great numbers but the passion in the small group that were there, was amazing.

      1 reply0 retweets1 like

    5. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 13h13 hours ago
      So, they knew what i did for a living and came up with a range of schemes and initiatives that would bond the community. We started a simple schools competition and every week, a hundred excited youngsters flocked to Champion Hill.

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    6. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 13h13 hours ago
      Walworth is a big Boxing area, so we got local Champions, British, European and Commonwealth Champions to come down the Hamlet and sign autographs for the kids who would normally be running rampage through he estates.

      1 reply0 retweets1 like

    7. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 13h13 hours ago
      And the more we took kids off of the streets, the easier life was for me on the beat. Local kids now had local heroes to look up and when they weren't at the football, they were in the boxing gyms around Camberwell and Walworth.

      1 reply0 retweets1 like

    8. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 13h13 hours ago
      Crime on my beat dropped dramatically. When we saw kids out who were doing 'proper kid stuff' me and my mates would give complimentary tickets for the football matches to them. The football Club as a tool we used to fight crime

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    9. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 13h13 hours ago
      In recent years, the football club kick-started all these community schemes and it doesn't need me to re-write all that has been said in recent years. Look it up for yourself, the myriad of schemes, promotions, initiatives that bring ppl together, as one.

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    10. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 12h12 hours ago
      It genuinely is the most inspiring place i have ever experienced. Those fans i told you about, they would come out on Christmas Day and round up lonely pensioners and take them to the Christmas Day bash at Dulwich College.

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    11. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 12h12 hours ago
      They would ask friends who were local school teachers and caretakers to apply for the free tickets for schools and take more kids off the streets...... They invited every community group, association, help promotions for pensioners....

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    12. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 12h12 hours ago
      They created a football club that is the heart beat of a community. A place where people go and the football, as good as it is, is actually secondary to what the club is, itself.

      1 reply0 retweets1 like

    13. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 12h12 hours ago
      You may have asked who this football club. well, yesterday, legal representatives of the owners of the football club, issued the football club with a notice telling them they can no longer use the name, the nickname or the letters on any media. Electronic or otherwise.

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    14. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 12h12 hours ago
      A club with 125 years of service to the people of London, a club that provides entertainment, a magnate for local families, an aspiration for local footballers and history second to none. And why is this you may ask....

      2 replies1 retweet1 like

    15. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 12h12 hours ago
      The owners were refused planning permission for their luxury development on the grounds that they did not provide enough affordable housing.... Can you see where this is going?

      1 reply0 retweets0 likes

    16. Kevin Holland‏ @TheSolarShed 12h12 hours ago
      So in a nutshell, they have effectively 'closed' the football club, killed off it's name and for some strange reason think this will go unchallenged. This will rumble on for a while yet and this week is pivotal, as the council may well yet take decisive action....

 
I feel a great deal of empathy here.
My argument for some years re abolition.of school playing fields, is if kids could propel a cricket ball up each others nostrils or belt one a 100 yards, they would have far less inclination to stick a knife in another kid.
 
It’s hard to conclude anything at this juncture.

Nothing has been finalised.

You can conclude all you like when the fat lady has sung

Xxx
Is your life really so empty that you are reduced to this. Get your self out son, try to make some friends, foster some hobbies. Cos you are making a right tit of yourself here.
 
Some of those lords are formal lawyers. I’d ask them to do something more practical than donning a scarf on their way to the subsidised bar.

Of course, a lot more than that is and will be being done by Parliamentarians - as has been the case with Councillors. I think it's fair to say that Peter John, Catherine Rose and many others, have done much more than wear a scarf - although they have done that too.

It's a bit of fun, yes, but you will also see from Roy's comments, that most of the scarf wearers are football fans. It's important to get support and, indeed, spark a bit of anger, over the way our club has been treated and Roy is doing an absolutely bang up job.

Take the piss if you want but these are all people who can make a difference - not just for our club, but for others that will inevitably face similar problems in the future. If we get through this intact, we must surely work towards making sure that other clubs in the football family, perhaps not as resilient as ours, can survive too?
 
Of course, a lot more than that is and will be being done by Parliamentarians - as has been the case with Councillors. I think it's fair to say that Peter John, Catherine Rose and many others, have done much more than wear a scarf - although they have done that too.

It's a bit of fun, yes, but you will also see from Roy's comments, that most of the scarf wearers are football fans. It's important to get support and, indeed, spark a bit of anger, over the way our club has been treated and Roy is doing an absolutely bang up job.

Take the piss if you want but these are all people who can make a difference - not just for our club, but for others that will inevitably face similar problems in the future. If we get through this intact, we must surely work towards making sure that other clubs in the football family, perhaps not as resilient as ours, can survive too?

And this is why I support your fight. I'm doing it so that low level football teams have a chance of survival. I'm doing it so that one day, if they come for my team, they'll think twice and maybe walk away. I'm doing it so there'll be affordable football to watch.
 
Bill and o
Would it be possible for all the financial information, all the contracts etc. between the Club and Meadow to be made available for everyone to see online ? Bits and pieces of information seem to emerge from time to time so why not everything ? Only in the past week or so have I, and others, found out for the first time,from postings on forums etc, that the "back rent" was £121,000, that the "debt" is £750,000 (does that include the rent ?). There was also the £6,000 in VAT, having arisen from a VAT assessment- what income was being assessed ? I only found out from a posting on this thread that one of the contract terms was to remove the sponsorship boards after games, which seems an odd requirement for a stadium with no other user.

Bill and others, I am sorry you feel that the club has not been transparent but let's be straight here and say that all the owners of Dulwich Hamlet FC Ltd over the years have been opaque at best.
I have alluded in my recent programme columns to the back rent and I'm not having any blame loaded on the club committee in any of this. The club's debt is very evident from its published accouns and that is again something thas been there for many years.
The club committee asked to see budgets and other figures over the last few years but were shown some at a meeting some 2 years ago. However, we were not even allowed to keep a copy.
The playing budget was set by Meadow acting under their agreement with the majority shareholder, the licence was imposed and it was clear there were caveats within it that could be used to remove us as required, that's why we resisted the club entering into it until we were threatened with the gates being shut.
When Meadow dumped the club back in the hands of its majority shareholder, we have worked tirelessly to unravel the situation and understand the club's finances without any handover of information from Meadow.
We have been lucky to be able to call on favours from an accountant i know, one that Meadow left high and dry without paying his fees.
The HMRC investigation was into underdeclared gate income by people employed by Meadow.
The committee has never at any time been in a meeting with Meadow about running the Football Club as we were not the body that Meadow wanted to hand the club to when they had received planning permission.
Yet, despite being treated as an irrelevance by many, it is my team that have put their heads up to be shot at by trying to run the club finances. Even there, promises of income streams were withdrawn without notice and threw our projections out of the window.
It isn't a power thing to have be one company Directors, it's a necessity that serves to protect our legal position because we could otherwise be seen as acting in quasi Director roles as the only Director had no interest in running the business on a day to day basis. This despite many thinking we were mad.
However, this isn't about wanting thanks.
In conclusion, I can't see what can be served by putting any agreements up on a forum, even if the terms of them allowed me to.
I am always happy to chat to people about the situation and be as honest as possible but my time is currently very much taken up with talking to other clubs about using their facilities, keeping the league on our side, trying to work out how we can meet our financial obligations and some discussions about routes to get the club out of this. Oh, and a job I have to hold down.
In closing, I have to say that over anything I may have done, YTC has done even more and without him I'm not sure where we would be.
 
Would it be possible for all the financial information, all the contracts etc. between the Club and Meadow to be made available for everyone to see online ? Bits and pieces of information seem to emerge from time to time so why not everything ? Only in the past week or so have I, and others, found out for the first time,from postings on forums etc, that the "back rent" was £121,000, that the "debt" is £750,000 (does that include the rent ?). There was also the £6,000 in VAT, having arisen from a VAT assessment- what income was being assessed ? I only found out from a posting on this thread that one of the contract terms was to remove the sponsorship boards after games, which seems an odd requirement for a stadium with no other user.
members of both the football committee and the trust have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to get this information, but meadows have been totally uncooperative in these matters. It's also worth pointing out that the licence which was signed "under duress" also contained a confidentiality clause meaning the contents could not be made public, and to do so would be a breach in itself. The situation has been further exasperated by the fact that meadows insisted on managing the financial affairs, promising to give us monies from bar/gate to pay for purely football matters, wages etc. they should of been paying rent vat and so on. the questions you ask are good ones, but don't think for a second nobody else has been asking them, and for a long time before we came to this.

edit. ah liamdhfc has just answered this more comprehensively than me!
 
Fair enough. I assume all that’s in writing? I’d also assume they’ve covered their arses in a big way before making this move.

Some of those lords are formal lawyers. I’d ask them to do something more practical than donning a scarf on their way to the subsidised bar.
Only what I heard someone say, but the person who I heard talking about it is usually fairly accurate...something I overheard in the bar, not told to me directly in public.
 
Would it be possible for all the financial information, all the contracts etc. between the Club and Meadow to be made available for everyone to see online ? Bits and pieces of information seem to emerge from time to time so why not everything ? Only in the past week or so have I, and others, found out for the first time,from postings on forums etc, that the "back rent" was £121,000, that the "debt" is £750,000 (does that include the rent ?). There was also the £6,000 in VAT, having arisen from a VAT assessment- what income was being assessed ? I only found out from a posting on this thread that one of the contract terms was to remove the sponsorship boards after games, which seems an odd requirement for a stadium with no other user.
Probably you've had as much information as Steve Dye used to supply when he was in charge...
 
As liamdhfc modestly alluded to, he has been working tirelessly alongside YTC on our current crisis. Let us not forget they both have day jobs, their work on the Football Committee is a voluntary labour of love.

Whatever happens, whether we go out of existence or get through this and thrive, for me personally, for their input and lead on all this, they will be up there-using a word I don't bandy about lightly-as true Dulwich Hamlet LEGENDS. Up there alongside the likes of 'Pa' Wilson, George Wheeler, Ossie Bayram, Edgar Kail...

No more words needed from me in this post.
 
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