I went to Dulwich Hamlet v Canvey Island yesterday on a fact finding mission. In the last few years they've gone from a struggling side with a couple of hundred fans to a decent Ryman Premier side with gates of one thousand for home games. This can't just be explained by a promotion and decent league form, most clubs doing this get a modest home gate increase, so they must be doing things other clubs aren't.

This was yet another 1000 plus crowd and I spoke to as many as possible to get a general idea of was is going on here. There was lots of talk about "Reaching out to the local community", which seemed to involve a few things, going round schools and giving free tickets out to kids, which, interestingly allowed up to 4 adults in free as well for specific games. Charity events, food bank activities all combined with free ticket offers for kids and adults. A pay what you like game was a huge success, ( £5 on average), which also generates a lot of publicity.

The bar was heaving, 4 local ales were on offer and was a massive draw, with a constant queue of about 15/20 people throughout the game which didn't disappear untill the beer ran out about 6pm.
At Tooting, you might get half a dozen fans take their pint out to watch the game, here its hundreds.

A mention must be made of the type of people attracted to Dulwich at this time. Most seemed to be middle class and lots of student types, the crowd seemed  almost like a Rugby Union crowd. People talked of a large influx of young proffessionals into the area and a corresponding increase in property prices, maybe forcing out local people, the many regional accents I heard seemed to bear this out. Theres no non league competition for fans in this area and Dulwich have tapped into this market fantastically well.

All this has been acheived with very little interference from the owners, who by all accounts want to build on the site. The long term future of the club is uncertain, but short term they're happy with things as they are.
Vitally, a football committee make all off field decisions, and can do virtually what they like  without having to go to  the owners for permission. Equally as vital, is the absence of the "old guard" in the committee, with new faces and fresh ideas. Can you imagine Steve Adkins giving control away like this? No, nor can I.  But if he visited Dulwich for a home game and saw for himself what can be acheived he might change his mind.

People in the non league world should check this out, maybe they have, its an extraordinary story, None of the ideas are new, but they have been allowed to be implemented by fresh thinking new blood.
This certainly wouldn't work for all clubs, but theres lessons to be learnt here for sure.

These are just my impressions of Dulwich from talking to various people at the game.

By the way Dulwich lost 3 nil to a very confident looking Canvey side.