Play-offs are by their very nature exciting, tense, dramatic and cruel. Sticking a mini-cup competition on the end of a league season to settle what every team has been playing for over the last nine months couldn’t be anything less. Knockout football isn’t necessarily the fairest way to decide promotion but it is invariably brilliant.
The format in the Isthmian League play-offs attempts to favour the team that just misses out on automatic promotion by guaranteeing them home advantage in their semi-final and the right to host the final too. After finishing as runners-up Dulwich benefit from that rule this season and, having squeaked past Leiston on Thursday night, they welcome Hendon to Imperial Fields today. It’s only Hamlet’s temporary home, of course, but still gives them an edge they didn’t have for last year’s final away to Bognor Regis Town.
It is boiling – the hottest early May bank holiday on record in fact. Dehydrated fans emerge from the tube at Morden and squint at the bus timetables outside the station. Some Dulwich supporters, having grown more familiar with the local transport network over the last few weeks, helpfully give some Hendon fans directions. With precious little shelter from the sun on offer inside the ground, there’ll be some pink faces among the 3,300-strong crowd by the end of the afternoon.
Hendon are one of the oldest names on the non-league scene in London. Formed in 1908 as Christchurch Hampstead, they underwent several name changes before settling on the simplicity of their current moniker after the Second World War. Hendon won the FA Amateur Cup three times between 1960 and 1972 and, during their early 70s heyday, took Newcastle to an FA Cup third round replay with Barry Davies commentating.
Finals have an inevitable tendency to produce heroes and villains. After half an hour, Dulwich keeper Amadou Tangara looks like being cast as the latter when he lets Ashley Nathaniel-George’s shot slip through his gloves. There’s a long way to go though and before half-time the number one does well to turn another effort from the same player around his near post.
The ever-dangerous Reise Allassani has a shot blocked as Dulwich surge forward after the break. Moments later, Allassani tees up Gavin Tomlin for a low drive that’s saved but rebounds into the path of Ashley Carew. The thousand or so Dulwich fans behind the goal hold their breath in anticipation of the equaliser but a Hendon defender somehow gets a boot to the ball on the goalline. Dulwich still have possession though and the ball’s worked back to Carew on the right-hand edge of the box. His cross reaches Tomlin, who prods the ball into the net ecstatically at the second attempt.
Dulwich are well in the ascendancy now and after 57 minutes Nyren Clunis leaves the crossbar shaking. Clunis has just been voted Hamlet’s player of the season after a campaign in which the winger reached 100 goals in 400-odd appearances for the club stretching back to 2009.
“Dehydrated fans emerge from the tube at Morden and squint at the bus timetables outside the station”
The heat saps some of the energy from the game in the final stages. The match is scrappier now but the stakes remain the same. Hendon have a couple of hopeful shots from distance, the second from Casey Maclaren requiring Tangara to throw himself across goal. We enter extra time and, in a sweltering extra 30 minutes, Dulwich summon enough energy to hit the woodwork again as Nathan Green’s cross-shot is deflected on to a post.
Penalties follow and Tangara completes his redemption, stopping Hendon’s second and third kicks to put Dulwich in control of the shootout. Hendon’s keeper isn’t happy about how far off his line his opposite number was for both saves but the officials don’t pick Tangara up on it. Dulwich then miss their third penalty too, which keeps Hendon in it. After three further successful efforts for both sides, the score is 3-3 with Dulwich to take the final kick. Dipo Akinyemi steps forward to score the penalty that sees Dulwich promoted to National League South at last.
Dulwich’s defiance towards the property developers trying to make their life as hard as possible has earned the club an awful lot of goodwill over the last few months. Their fans are fashionable but they have some fight in them too. Being locked out of their ground at a crucial point in the season could easily have put paid to another promotion bid. But it didn’t, and the spirit shown by the supporters – who’ve continued to fill Dulwich’s temporary home as well as collection buckets at matches – has only strengthened the bond that very clearly exists between the team and its fans. It’s the kind of connection that doesn’t really exist outside of non-league.
