The Away Shirts Dilemma

What happened with the away shirts demonstrated that I wasn't the only one with dilemmas in supporting two football teams.  Non-league clubs are always looking for volunteers - fundraising, cleaning the stadium, fetching balls when the centre-half kicks them out of the ground, etc.  I volunteered to take on a position with the Dulwich Hamlet Supporters Trust.  

Aside from retrieving footballs, the Trust was asked by the football club if they were able to buy new away shirts for the first team.  The old ones were rags.  It was agreed that the Trust had sufficient funds and it was a good idea.  A short-list of three different kits was agreed with the football club.  The idea being that the supporters would choose the kit in a ballot organised by the members of the Trust.  

Ballot papers were printed and votes were gathered at the next home game.  There was quite a lot of enthusiasm amongst the supporters with a lot of talk about why particular shirts might or might not be appropriate.  Some supporters didn't like green because it was worn by other teams in the league, others just didn't like yellow and red, while some preferred anything but light blue. If you've read the previous blog you'll know where my vote went.

Anyway after the Chairman of the Trust had counted up all of the votes, the light blue kit had won by a slim majority.  A result; both my teams would regularly now be playing in similar colours with no red in sight.  

Alas, this was precisely not the result wanted by some of Dulwich's supporters.  Perhaps like many football clubs, Dulwich has a number of supporters who followed another team with Manchester in its name.  A number of these supporters, knowing my other team affiliation, even suggested that there might have been some sort of vote rigging involved.  Some people find democratic decisions a little hard to accept, especially .

"Come on you blues".