Dulwich Hamlet will bank £15K if they win in FA Cup – vital funds which will go back into  Gavin Rose’s squad

richard@slpmedia.co.uk

Dulwich Hamlet will be £15,000 better off if they beat Eastbourne Borough in the FA Cup tomorrow – with Gavin Rose admitting any funds from a run in the competition will be ploughed back into his team.

The National League South side received £9,000 in prize money after seeing off Tonbridge Angels in the second qualifying round. And that figure jumps by £6,000 for the victorious clubs in the next stage of the world-famous tournament.

Dulwich reached the FA Trophy last eight in the 2016-17 season before being knocked out by Macclesfield Town.

And long-serving boss Rose says that income is never budgeted for. “It will make a massive difference if we do go through, but over the years we have learned not to count our chickens.

“If we do win the game it will be great in terms of finding money to pay players and keep the club going. But it is not something we can bank on before the start of the season in terms of budget.

“In an ideal world we would probably bring in one or two more players now but our budget doesn’t allow for that – we have players out on loan and have to be mindful that they could also be coming back. We need to make the best of the situation.

We have got players who, if we get everything out of them, are capable of producing good results and performances.

“We are still getting outside investment to come in and help supplement the budget anyway – an FA Cup run can help to fill that gap.”

Dulwich have also got a friendly against Crystal Palace on Thursday October 11 (7pm). Eagles manager Roy Hodgson will bring a strong squad – with the ex-England head coach admitting recently that he wanted to give game time to long-term injured duo Scott Dann and Connor Wickham.

All proceeds from the game at Imperial Fields in Tooting will go to the  non-league outfit.

“Steve [Parish, Palace chairman] and Dougie [Freedman, sporting director] have shown a lot of support for our football club,” said Rose.

“Everyone talks about big clubs not showing enough attention to smaller clubs in the area but they have done really well by us and we’re very grateful.

“We’ll try and do our best against them but we have a game the weekend after – so my lads probably won’t be playing 90 minutes. We’ll try and give as good an account of ourselves as possible.”

Eastbourne play on an artificial 3G pitch, which makes tomorrow’s tie at Priory Lane a trickier proposition.

“We are training now on a 3G anyway but the standard of them all vary,” explained Rose. “Some are really quick and some are really slow. We’ll just have to adjust to Eastbourne’s when we get down there.

“It’s a tough tie. They have started well in the league and I know Jamie Howell [Eastbourne manager] quite well. We’ve come up against each other when he was at Bognor Regis. It is his second season there now and he has a settled ship.

“The 3G will be a little different because we don’t play on that every week but we’ll go there looking to assert ourselves on the game and get a positive result.”