Dulwich Hamlet and the club's communication problem with fans

[Pink Panther]

Ricketts and Jeffrey struggled with injuries/knocks most of the 2nd half and would no doubt have been replaced if we had not used all our Subs in the first half. Midfield must be a concern in the next few weeks as Scott limped off, Ricketts was struggling and Allen still out. Good to see the latter climbing up the stand to sit down in the 2nd half. So hopefully back soon. Great finishing by Wanadio for his goals .

I believe Allen and Gyebi were available for selection for the first time since their clash of heads yesterday, having sat out a mandatory period due to concussion protocols whilst resuming light training, but obviously not selected given the strength in depth of our squad.

I know the club has a policy of not giving detailed updates on injured players but, given the nature of that particular incident, a lot of supporters were very worried about the potential long term wellbeing of those players and a lot of people who saw it (which I didn't myself) are quite annoyed that some sort of reassurance wasn't given.

 

[Moroccan Sunset]

I know the club has a policy of not giving detailed updates on injured players but, given the nature of that particular incident, a lot of supporters were very worried about the potential long term wellbeing of those players and a lot of people who saw it (which I didn't myself) are quite annoyed that some sort of reassurance wasn't given.

Completely agree - glad someone else has said so! Was beginning to think it was just me. Thought the radio silence was so poor given the obvious severity of the injuries, and after everything that had happened with Alex Fletcher last season. When I saw no updates the next morning I genuinely started to wonder if something really serious had happened.

Golden rule of comms: silence is the worst possible course of action. Even if the club hasn't heard anything, say it hasn't heard anything. Bc when it turns out the players are alright(ish), people are gonna be pissed off that they were left to worry uneccessarily.

I think its a prime example of the iffy comms/relationship between club and fans (see the Crouch thing, the lack of a high level strategy, the general aversion to this forum, the cryptic 'we've learnt our lessons' from our time in the NLS that gets wheeled out from time to time, are we in the league cup this season? Etc.)

I know Urban75 isn't an official comms channel and it shouldn't be seen as such, but it is a fantastic opportunity to communicate directly with the fans, acknowledge ideas, answer qs (without ofc giving away club secrets or publishing accounts down to the last p). It should be a way of bonding the club and fans closer together, but I feel like it's viewed as the opposite.

If this is the season we all need to pull together with Hak and the lads, then I think the club has to get closer to the fans, or at least improve communication with them.

Not aimed at you, baleboy_93 - I know you have your orders. And I'm not beating anyone with a stick - it's just something that concerns me.

 

[Moroccan Sunset]

I don't think thats fair Moroccan Sunset, as Ben, Liam and Tom are all on here pretty regularly and for me comms have been really good in recent times.

Of course there will be blips - it's a non league club - like the recent confusion over the women's second team being cancelled or not as the case may be.

But compared to lots of other clubs I think we have it pretty good.

I wouldnt class that as 'confusion' - I'd say that's exactly the kind of communication mishap that I'm talking about. Either the team has been cancelled or it hasn't.

I'm perhaps a bit more sensitive to the topic bc I had a pretty piss poor experience with the club - comms-wise - at the back of last season, when I couldn't get an answer out of them for over a week on a fairlt straightfwd decision. I won't go into details, but it was just days of unanswered emails.

I didn't agree with him on some things, but I think Mishi had this nailed. He communicated as much as humanly possible through the club's website and usually shared as much as he could on here as well. I don't think that was done to gossip or anything - I just think he understood better than many people I've met, the power of making people feel like they're informed and therefore able to engage with the club and develop an actual interest in it (rather, for e.g., than turning up once every fortnight, calling us 'the Hamlets' for 90 mins and thinking Jamie Splatt still fucking played for us.) It was also a great way of maximising the club's publicity machine, but I'm going off piste there.

Mishi would alos be the first to say that just bc it's non-league and largely run by volunteers, it doesn't mean it shoudln't deliver a professional service. And we're better staffed now than we were in the days when he made those kinds of remarks.

This wsn't intended as bitchiness - more constructive.

 

[AveryDave]

Communication from the club confuses the life out of me. There are short periods of improvement but then it seems to slip down the list of priorities and regresses again. Part of it seems to be internal within the club as well - like the Chairman having no input to or idea of what teams the club were intending to put out for this season when asked about it at the DHST AGM.

I also think expectations on what should be communicated and how are very personal which makes it harder to nail down - whilst some are frustrated others are very happy. And it's not in all areas - the format and content of the men's player announcements were excellent over the summer, a huge improvement on prior years.

For my part - which is obviously the experience of one amongst thousands - it's left me feeling pretty uninvested as the season starts. We've heard very little of what the club has done in the post-season to close some of the gaps on the men's playing side, and the situation around the women's reserve side was pretty remarkable, falling into the category of issues the club is seemingly all too happy to publicly ignore.

Meanwhile we've got a new team that we know very little about and the sum total of 6 minutes of interviews with the manager across 9 pre-season games. An early opportunity to start to rebuild the relationship between the men's playing side and the supporters feels like it's been missed.

 

[Alex W]

Completely agree - glad someone else has said so! Was beginning to think it was just me. Thought the radio silence was so poor given the obvious severity of the injuries, and after everything that had happened with Alex Fletcher last season. When I saw no updates the next morning I genuinely started to wonder if something really serious had happened.

Golden rule of comms: silence is the worst possible course of action. Even if the club hasn't heard anything, say it hasn't heard anything. Bc when it turns out the players are alright(ish), people are gonna be pissed off that they were left to worry uneccessarily.

I think its a prime example of the iffy comms/relationship between club and fans (see the Crouch thing, the lack of a high level strategy, the general aversion to this forum, the cryptic 'we've learnt our lessons' from our time in the NLS that gets wheeled out from time to time, are we in the league cup this season? Etc.)

I know Urban75 isn't an official comms channel and it shouldn't be seen as such, but it is a fantastic opportunity to communicate directly with the fans, acknowledge ideas, answer qs (without ofc giving away club secrets or publishing accounts down to the last p). It should be a way of bonding the club and fans closer together, but I feel like it's viewed as the opposite.

If this is the season we all need to pull together with Hak and the lads, then I think the club has to get closer to the fans, or at least improve communication with them.

Not aimed at you, baleboy_93 - I know you have your orders. And I'm not beating anyone with a stick - it's just something that concerns me.

I'd agree that the comms around the Allen and Gyebi injuries left a lot to be desired, but I completely disagree with the suggestion that the club should feel obliged to engage with this forum more than it does. To be honest, it often feels that people on this forum think they're much more representative of the fanbase than they actually are.

This is just one of many online communities where fans of Dulwich Hamlet gather to natter about the football. That's absolutely fine, but there's no reason Urban 75 should have special status, and everyone should consider themselves very lucky that Ben Clasper, Tom Bale and others choose to engage with this specific community.

I wouldn't demand the Chairman comes into me and my friends' WhatsApp groups to give us our very own Q&A, and it's not reasonable to demand he engages with this particular forum either. The club has its official channels and events, and communication should really go through them.

 

[Moroccan Sunset]

I'd agree that the comms around the Allen and Gyebi injuries left a lot to be desired, but I completely disagree with the suggestion that the club should feel obliged to engage with this forum more than it does. To be honest, it often feels that people on this forum think they're much more representative of the fanbase than they actually are.

This is just one of many online communities where fans of Dulwich Hamlet gather to natter about the football. That's absolutely fine, but there's no reason Urban 75 should have special status, and everyone should consider themselves very lucky that Ben Clasper, Tom Bale and others choose to engage with this specific community.

I wouldn't demand the Chairman comes into me and my friends' WhatsApp groups to give us our very own Q&A, and it's not reasonable to demand he engages with this particular forum either. The club has its official channels and events, and communication should really go through them.

I dont think they should feel it's an obligation - that's the point. I think it's to the club's benefit to engage more actively on here. I'm not sitting here demanding Ben and co come on here and answer my every whim - thats patently ridiculous and unprofessional. I'm just talking general presence, responding to basic queries.

We shouldnt get hot goss on who the latest trialist is or anything, but for how long were people crying out for terracing behind the goals, largely on the basis that the terracing for the outside bar had been knocked up when we knew a ground rebuilt was a distinct possibility? That all got sorted out though when Ben explained that it was built bc of Covid regulations and that the club wouldnt have been able to sell alcohol without it. Obviously it made sense to prioritise the bar over covering at either end, and that question/issue was resolves as soon as it was revealed on here.

And urban75 was just an example - thrust of my argument is the comms with fans as a whole could do with work and this is just one of the ways they could do it. It's a good way for them to foster a better relationship with fans/new fans - its a good opportunity (as opposed to obligation) for them to unite the place, and get people more engaged, more atuned to the club.

(Liam is right though - this isnt the thread for this and apologies for hijacking. Perhaps it can be moved into a thread of its own editor ?)