So it begins, ins and outs

[Moroccan Sunset]

Shows what I know.

 

[Pink Panther]

It looks like we've probably completed our transfer business for the summer now, which leaves us with a squad of 23 officially announced, 20 of whom are new signings, although three of those (Braham-Barrett, Chambers, Wanadio) have played for the club in the past. I guess there may be room for one or two others to be registered on a non-contract basis, possibly on dual registration with a county league club, maybe some of the traillists who were still with us last weekend whose names appeared on the matchday teamsheet?

2023/24 Squad:
Alfie Allen (Millwall)
Jerome Binnom-Williams (Maidstone United)
Craig Braham-Barrett (Tonbridge Angels)
Michael Chambers (Billericay Town)
Adrian Clifton (Maidenhead United)
Ravan Constable (Hanwell Town)
Jerry Gyebi (Hungerford Town)
Kaya Hansson (Bromley)
Momodou Jallow (Tooting & Mitcham United)
Anthony Jeffrey (Billericay Town)
Kreshnic Krasniqi (retained)
Danny Mills (retained)
Sanchez Ming (retained)
Manny Parry (Welling United)
Richard Pingling (Haywards Heath Town)
Mark Ricketts (Borehamwood)
Elliot Romain (Ebbsfleet United)
Jack Ruddy (Cowdenbeath)
Miquel Scarlett (Eastbourne Borough)
Ryley Scott (Dagenham)
Ade Shokunbi (South Shields)
Cem Tumkaya (Cray Valley)
Luke Wanadio (Dover Athletic)

Unconfirmed Triallists:
Finlay Lovatt (Bromley)
Dwight Pascal (Kingstonian)

Departures:
Kristian Campbell (Chatham Town)
Joe Felix (Worthing)
Charlie Grainger (Hastings United)
Nebay Haile (Hanwell Town)
Jack Holland (Cray Wanderers)
Kalvin Kalala (Lewes)
George Porter (Cray Wanderers)
Johl Powell (Tonbridge Angels)
Frankie Raymond (Cray Wanderers)
Dan Smith (Bognor Regis Town)
Quade Taylor (Carshalton Athletic)
Cameron Thompson (Cray Wanderers)
Ronnie Vint (Lewes)
Will Wood (Welling United)
Andre Blackman
Josh Fawole
Omari Hibbert
Aaron Jones
Nana Owusu

Loans Expired:
Gianni Crichlow (now Tonbridge Angels)
Conor Lawless (now Dagenham)
Michael Phillips (now Hastings United)
David Stephens (Borehamwood)
Deon Woodman (Queen's Park Rangers)

 

[Sir Nikolai]

Think Nebay Haile might be at Hanwell Town...

 

[Pink Panther]

I

Think Nebay Haile might be at Hanwell Town...

It looks like it, as the club has retweeted this message from him after completing pre-season training.



He didn't feature in their team for the opening league match, which was abandoned at half time when they were 3-0 down!

 

[Pink Panther]

Here's my collated list of all squads for our division, as announced by each club, for the start of the new season.

Players marked with an asterisk have been identified in pre-season matches but not confirmed as signed, as far as I have seen.

Names struck through were initially confirmed as signed by the club but have subsequently departed.

There are some pretty big squads there, so I imagine some players will be reserve or youth teamers unlikely to feature in the Isthmian League fixtures.

 

[jbjl]

That's insane work. Fair play, and thanks!

 

[lwrs79]

Pitching in’s supporters league prediction table

 

[the pink one]

 

[Pink Panther]

Pitching in’s supporters league prediction table

I'm not quite sure how that table was compiled but I can't see Cray dropping from 5th to 10th under the same manager (Neil Smith) with a similar squad strengthened by the additions of Holland, Raymond, Porter and Mascoll. I'm also fairly sure Chatham will be a lot better than 15th. They've retained the bulk of their promotion winning squad under the same manager with some decent new signings, and were the best supported club in the entire league last season. In fact I fancy both of those two to finish above Lewes, who haven't had the most convincing summer. They lost a few of their best players, including the division's top scorer Joe Taylor to Ramsgate only last week, and plenty of other clubs look to have recruited better.

The other three in that top five have all changed manager since the end of last season. Gary McCann at Billericay and Paul Barnes at Hastings have been busy recruiting a lot of their own players, with McCann picking up three from last season's champions Bishop's Stortford. By contrast Steve Morison at Hornchurch has retained about three quarters of the squad that finished 2nd and lost the play-off final at home to Aveley in May. He's also added some good new players, including Nathan Green and centre back Ryan Scott, who played in National South against us for East Thurrock and scored Aveley's winner to beat the Urchins in the play-off final. I was surprised they sacked Mark Stimson, a very experienced manager whose teams have always impressed me and performed consistently well. I make them favourites, although I'd actually fancy them more without the change of manager. I'm hoping that change will upset the balance sufficiently to stop them achieving a points tally that might be beyond us.

I expect all three promoted clubs (Chatham, Hashtag, Whitehawk) to hold their own, so its hard to pick four obvious relegation candidates other than those who finished just above the bottom four last time. Concord have changed manager again and, other than veteran Ricky Modeste, have lost the best players from the squad that almost pulled off a great escape last April. I reckon they could be at risk of another relegation if new manager Sammy Collins hasn't got it right with some fairly low key recruitment. There's also Peter Adeniyi's return to Carshalton after a near disastrous season at Merstham, who only survived relegation by winning a play off with a county league team. He needs to rediscover his managerial mojo pretty quickly, otherwise I think they could struggle.

 

[AveryDave]

Has there been any confirmation of whether there will be any youth or reserve teams this year? Or is Hayrettin trying to fill that gap with some younger squad players?

If we are going with just the first team squad again that feels like it could be one of our biggest challenges, when the inevitable suspensions and injuries start coming.

 

[Pink Panther]

Has there been any confirmation of whether there will be any youth or reserve teams this year? Or is Hayrettin trying to fill that gap with some younger squad players?

If we are going with just the first team squad again that feels like it could be one of our biggest challenges, when the inevitable suspensions and injuries start coming.

I assume there will be no men's teams other than the first team, as there's been no news on that front. We've announced 23 players now. I'm guessing we'll rely on the loan market if we need any reinforcements. I thought Hak's loan signings were pretty effective at the end of last season, more so than those of his predecessors.

 

[Paula_G]

Disappointing to hear that we apparently won’t have a youth team in place for the season ahead. Would have thought this is something the club would have been working on since the departure of Gavin Rose, particularly as I believe having an academy was an important piece of the proposal for the new stadium.

 

[Pink Panther]

Confirmation of a couple more "side salads" for the squad:

Youngsters sign deals after period as trialists during the summer. Chalobah and Lovatt Added To Squad

 

[AveryDave]

Confirmation of a couple more "side salads" for the squad:

Youngsters sign deals after period as trialists during the summer. Chalobah and Lovatt Added To Squad

Well spotted - not yet announced on any social media channels despite being posted to the website yesterday morning.

Feels like Hayrettin is having to build a reserve side within the first team squad. Guessing there will be some dual registrations to ensure we haven't got players sitting around for long spells.

 

[Moroccan Sunset]

Confirmation of a couple more "side salads" for the squad:

Youngsters sign deals after period as trialists during the summer. Chalobah and Lovatt Added To Squad

Ooh, that's good. Another full back.

 

[Pink Panther]

Feels like Hayrettin is having to build a reserve side within the first team squad. Guessing there will be some dual registrations to ensure we haven't got players sitting around for long spells.

Yes, the trouble is dual registrations can only be with a club in a different league, so now we're back in the Isthmian League it's got to be with a club at least two levels below us unless we can place them at a club in the lower divisions of the Southern League. I guess there may be some midweek "B team" friendlies, which was the initial intention last season.

 

[the pink one]

from Saturday

 

[Paula_G]

Do we have an update on how big our squad is at the current time?

 

[AveryDave]

Pretty sure this is the squad of 26 players as it stands. Only three have yet to make an appearance - Chalobah, Constable and Lovatt.

2023/24 Squad:

Alfie Allen (Millwall)
Jerome Binnom-Williams (Maidstone United)
Craig Braham-Barrett (Tonbridge Angels)
Paul Chalobah (Leatherhead)
Michael Chambers (Billericay Town)
Adrian Clifton (Maidenhead United)
R'avan Constable (Hanwell Town)
Marvel Ekpiteta (Bishop's Stortford)
Jerry Gyebi (Hungerford Town)
Kaya Hansson (Bromley)
Momodou Jallow (Tooting & Mitcham United)
Anthony Jeffrey (Billericay Town)
Kreshnic Krasniqi (retained)
Finlay Lovatt (Bromley)
Danny Mills (retained)
Sanchez Ming (retained)
Manny Parry (Welling United)
Richard Pingling (Haywards Heath Town)
Mark Ricketts (Boreham Wood)
Elliot Romain (Ebbsfleet United)
Jack Ruddy (Cowdenbeath)
Miquel Scarlett (Eastbourne Borough)
Ryley Scott (Dagenham & Redbridge)
Ade Shokunbi (South Shields)
Cem Tumkaya (Cray Valley PM)
Luke Wanadio (Dover Athletic)

 

[Al Cunningham]

I see Hakan saying there will be a few in and outs. Looking at the list and recent appearances I would imagine Tumkaya and Clifton possibly on their way.

 

[Pink Panther]

Cem Tumkaya on the bench for Cray Valley in their FA Cup tie at Northwood this afternoon, so looks like we've released him. (Might be a loan of course.)

 

[AveryDave]

Communication from the club is going backwards, yet again.

Finding out players have moved from the other club involved. We haven’t heard anything from the manager for two weeks. No sign of a fans forum or similar. The match day programme notes are the only place to hear from the chairman.

I’d love to know what lessons have been learned from recent seasons because it’s hard to see any.

 

[liamdhfc]

AveryDave My thoughts are that the media side still needs work and that the current role of media manager has not delivered what the club needs and this is proved by the very fair observations made. Also, the chairman has far too many things to do and the board needs expanding and reorganisation to deliver the many things the club needs as too much relies on the chairman to do
That small things like programme notes and signings/departures are not being communicated is exactly why I say that the role isn’t working, as even comms around match days has been poor for many months and the output and general messaging is poor.
However, the club has a lack of volunteers in comparison to many clubs a fraction of its size, reflected in the lack of even simple things such as programme and 50/50 sellers.
The very small core employed staff ( secretary, GM) do far more than their core job roles just keeping the stadium operational and the administration going.
On a personal level, I will add your comments to a list of things (far more than you have raised) that I am keeping and hoping are addressed very soon.
If anybody has observations, ideas or offers to help please message me directly liamhickey@dulwichhamletfc.co.uk

 

[RdStrPrisHilton]

Cem Tumkaya on the bench for Cray Valley in their FA Cup tie at Northwood this afternoon, so looks like we've released him. (Might be a loan of course.)

Quote from today’s women’s programme. “Meanwhile, the club has bid farewell to defender Cem Tumkaya, who this week asked to be released from his contract”.

 

[AveryDave]

AveryDave My thoughts are that the media side still needs work and that the current role of media manager has not delivered what the club needs and this is proved by the very fair observations made. Also, the chairman has far too many things to do and the board needs expanding and reorganisation to deliver the many things the club needs as too much relies on the chairman to do
That small things like programme notes and signings/departures are not being communicated is exactly why I say that the role isn’t working, as even comms around match days has been poor for many months and the output and general messaging is poor.
However, the club has a lack of volunteers in comparison to many clubs a fraction of its size, reflected in the lack of even simple things such as programme and 50/50 sellers.
The very small core employed staff ( secretary, GM) do far more than their core job roles just keeping the stadium operational and the administration going.
On a personal level, I will add your comments to a list of things (far more than you have raised) that I am keeping and hoping are addressed very soon.
If anybody has observations, ideas or offers to help please message me directly liamhickey@dulwichhamletfc.co.uk

Thanks for those comments liamdhfc and also for keeping track of a list of things that could be improved on. It's very difficult to know where to pitch those things when there doesn't seem to be any appetite from the club to communicate with the supporters.

Some personal thoughts on a couple of the subjects you raise - to use the most straightforward example on the media side it doesn't feel like it should be too difficult to use the club's various social channels to keep supporters up to date on news like player moves - I could be underestimating that dramatically but clubs in levels below us don't struggle with that. It's clearly doable. The sole method of communicating with supporters shouldn't be a match day programme which you have to pay for.

Is the reason it's not happening bureaucratic? Like the media team can't post anything without Board approval which takes time to get done? That's a total guess on my part, but is there unnecessary process slowing things down? Or is there an obstruction in communication from the management of the playing side to the media team - so they don't actually know what's going on because they aren't told? For an area that should be very straightforward with paid staff involved it's hard to work out why it's so problematic - whilst there's always more to things that meet the public eye we're never going to know what those things are if the club doesn't tell us.

And on volunteers - that does seem to be a community which is shrinking when you'd have thought it should be increasing alongside the number of people coming to watch games. It plays into something that's been mentioned on these boards before but could that be because the club has failed to stay engaged with (and I realise I'm straying onto tricky ground here but I can't think of a better way to put it) longer term supporters in order to focus on getting 2,000+ to every home game without really caring if they are invested in the long term of the club or not? And as a result those supporters who have been going to games prior to the boom in popularity don't feel like it's worth their while to give their time when it appears there's very little coming back from the club in return?

I'm also aware it could be those longer term supporters have moved away or aren't able to go to games anymore for plenty of other reasons, but why aren't they being replaced with newer, willing supporters? Why don't people want to give their time to the club?

For my part - I've been going for over ten years, I've never volunteered my time and I feel no real compulsion to do so now. I care greatly about the club but it's hard to see what's there to care about at the moment, both on and off the pitch. I've thought about getting in touch with the club in the past to see what I could do to help, and did put some tentative feelers out at one stage which never came to anything, but it's a bit intimidating to shout into the void without knowing what it might entail. After a decade in East Dulwich I now live in North London, and just getting to and from games and dealing with the crowds means it takes up a big chunk of the day and I've got life stuff to do around it. And ultimately nothing I can see from the club makes it feel worth my while to do more than that. If my personal circumstances were different I might have a different view, but they're not planned to change any time soon.

And a final thought - for the first time since I started going I'm considering drifting away to another club. I live within walking distance of Haringey Borough, going to watch a game there takes less than three hours of my Saturday rather than double that, and it seems like a nice place to go. No idea what the tipping point might be, but it feels like it's getting closer and closer with every week that goes by. I do look terrible in yellow, though.

 

[liamdhfc]

AveryDave

I will respond as much as I can below in line

Some personal thoughts on a couple of the subjects you raise - to use the most straightforward example on the media side it doesn't feel like it should be too difficult to use the club's various social channels to keep supporters up to date on news like player moves - I could be underestimating that dramatically but clubs in levels below us don't struggle with that. It's clearly doable. The sole method of communicating with supporters shouldn't be a match day programme which you have to pay for.

It is very easy to do and there is a set formula for doing it, it just has not been done well enough. I anticipate some restructuring to address it. I will make sure all articles are brought up to date on the website and socials in the next few days.
I am also on setting a series of regular Fans Forums to allow everybody to plan in advance which we will get out across the channels.

Is the reason it's not happening bureaucratic? Like the media team can't post anything without Board approval which takes time to get done? That's a total guess on my part, but is there unnecessary process slowing things down? Or is there an obstruction in communication from the management of the playing side to the media team - so they don't actually know what's going on because they aren't told? For an area that should be very straightforward with paid staff involved it's hard to work out why it's so problematic - whilst there's always more to things that meet the public eye we're never going to know what those things are if the club doesn't tell us.

Agreed, but there is no obstruction to it happening and the board will address it. I can assure you the media team are aware of signings, outgoings and incomings in plenty of time. Club policy on new signings will always be to announce once paperwork is registered as we don't want to "do a Dover" but that is all the restrictions in place.

For my part - I've been going for over ten years, I've never volunteered my time and I feel no real compulsion to do so now. I care greatly about the club but it's hard to see what's there to care about at the moment, both on and off the pitch. I've thought about getting in touch with the club in the past to see what I could do to help, and did put some tentative feelers out at one stage which never came to anything, but it's a bit intimidating to shout into the void without knowing what it might entail. After a decade in East Dulwich I now live in North London, and just getting to and from games and dealing with the crowds means it takes up a big chunk of the day and I've got life stuff to do around it. And ultimately nothing I can see from the club makes it feel worth my while to do more than that. If my personal circumstances were different I might have a different view, but they're not planned to change any time soon.

Absolutely understand about time commitments and understanding what roles involve. I learned the hard way by doing it but that's not ideal. I think it's more about knowing what skills people have and using them to enhance what we do.

And a final thought - for the first time since I started going I'm considering drifting away to another club. I live within walking distance of Haringey Borough, going to watch a game there takes less than three hours of my Saturday rather than double that, and it seems like a nice place to go. No idea what the tipping point might be, but it feels like it's getting closer and closer with every week that goes by. I do look terrible in yellow, though.

As somebody who equally travels to still attend, I understand that sometimes it feels like you are not appreciated. That is not the case at all and I think we should work on making sure we address the concerns you and others have, plus the suggestions for improvement. My email address is open to all of you to put forward your comments and suggestions. What would make you feel engaged again?

And on volunteers - that does seem to be a community which is shrinking when you'd have thought it should be increasing alongside the number of people coming to watch games. It plays into something that's been mentioned on these boards before but could that be because the club has failed to stay engaged with (and I realise I'm straying onto tricky ground here but I can't think of a better way to put it) longer term supporters in order to focus on getting 2,000+ to every home game without really caring if they are invested in the long term of the club or not? And as a result those supporters who have been going to games prior to the boom in popularity don't feel like it's worth their while to give their time when it appears there's very little coming back from the club in return?

Genuinely, I believe the club does care about its long term supporters but identifying and communicating directly becomes more difficult with the crowd increase. Learning to manage the crowd levels was a big education and the fire fighting just to keep going has been immense over a non stop period of some 6 years, which has culminated in the new stadium receiving permission. However, that has brought its own set of challenges that are receiving attention . The fact the club is still here is a minor miracle and much against the odds. Again, let me know in an email what you would like to see.

I'm also aware it could be those longer term supporters have moved away or aren't able to go to games anymore for plenty of other reasons, but why aren't they being replaced with newer, willing supporters? Why don't people want to give their time to the club?
I believe that the engagement part has primarily been left to the Trust as the supporters representative group and second largest shareholder. I believe it also needs some fresh impetus from the board and I hope to be able to give it some shortly (although I don't currently sit on the board).

 

[pompeydunc]

I am also on setting a series of regular Fans Forums to allow everybody to plan in advance which we will get out across the channels.

Thank you. I've asked for this in writing to last two forums, when I've not been able to attend due to late date setting! The answer at the last one was that better to arrange when there is a topic to discuss. Given I've never known a time that there wasn't an issue to discuss at great length, then it seemed a bit odd. Looking forward to putting in diary now, when published. Will also add to the unofficial Google calendar.

 

[Bugpowder Dust]

Four new signings just confirmed

 

[jbjl]

Credit where it's due - at least we're not just relying on the current team improving in certain areas. Assuming there'll be some more out?

 

[the pink one]

The spirit of Gavin lives on