Duncan Gardner shares his latest edition of Facts of the Match ahead of this afternoon’s home fixture with Dulwich Hamlet.
The visit of Hamlet to our town will make it just a half dozen of meetings between these two sides. Over the previous five we have 1 win, 2 draws and 2 losses. Our last encounter was obviously in the week before Christmas last year, when we were perhaps overly giddy on a fine yuletide run of form that came crashing down around our ears like so much poorly hung tinsel. The game started on an even keel but turned sour after Bearwish received his marching orders for the Terras on the half hour and, despite a resilient rear guard effort, we finally succumbed to two goals on 66 and 86 minutes to start a run of five losses that was only halted on Tuesday evening with the fine win over Hampton & Richmond.
Looking back through the history books, our next most recent tussles were in the 2019/20 National League South season during our successful playoff and promotion campaign. In the October, we shared four goals and the points in London – an Odubade pen and a fortuitous/genius strike from Lionel Ainsworth depending on your opinion. Three months passed and the return game in Dorset produced the same result although this time just one goal was scored by each side – for us a Jake McCarthy strike just before the break to cancel out a goal for the visitors after a quarter of an hour.
To complete the quintet of games, we have to go way, way back, around 100 years in fact. Our very first meeting was in 1922, a 1-0 friendly win for us in Weymouth, a Mr. Harvey the scorer in the April of that year. Two years later, again in April, Dulwich visited once more but were perhaps by then a more superior outfit as they returned back to the capital (presumably by train in those days?) with a 4-0 friendly win in the bag. It’s intriguing to wonder how these friendlies came about but perhaps a board member from each club were acquaintances.
Some notable names that have played for both clubs include: Lionel Ainsworth, Haydn Hill, Shamir Mullings, Taofiq Olomowewe and Justyn Roberts.
Olomowewe and Mullings have both most recently played for the Terras, although these were brief spells in the last couple of seasons. Ainsworth scored for the Terras in 2019 against Hamlet and must have impressed them that day as he signed for them shortly afterwards! Roberts plied his trade around 1-20 years ago and Hill’s career centered around the 1930’s.
#UpTheTerras
