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From the Dover Express 9 January 2003.
It's not such a bad old Spot after all!
AS I seem to recall telling you all in a recent column, I went to a
Christmas dinner at the Centre Spot a week or two ago.
Nothing special in this, I guess, as I'm sure we all had our share of
seasonal tuck.
But hang on a minute!
This is the much-maligned Centre Spot we're talking about which can't cater for such
events. Well that's been the theory for a fair few years and one I've
been happy to give credence to in these pages. Viz. Dover Athletic can't
raise any serious commercial income until such time as the Centre Spot
has been bulldozed and a new club house
built.
I suppose if you're told anything frequently enough you'll believe it,
but in truth it's nonsense!
When I attended the event, as a guest of 'Striker' promoter Dave
Brazier, I was honestly expecting burger and chips and a couple of
pints with friends.
I'd have happily settled for that. I hadn't reckoned on a four course
Xmas dinner (enjoyed, I would estimate, by around 80 people) mainly
because I'd no idea that the club had the wherewithal to not only host
such a function but to run it like clock-work.
I'm sure we've all been to some fairly ghastly Christmas dinners in
our time - you know the ones, I'm sure, where the turkey turns up an hour after the
sprouts.
By the time you've finished an absolutely average meal it's time to go
home and you're left with the feeling - even if you've avoided food
poisoning - that you'd have been better off staying in with cheese on
toast.
By contrast, I had a smashing evening with Messrs Kemp and Co
notwithstanding the "yum, nice jam" remark of my youngest, prior to
spreading cranberry sauce on a chunk of bread. You have to blame the
parents, I guess.
The rather long-winded point I'm making here is that the meal and
service was first class. Which only goes to show that whilst we've spent
so much time hand-wringing and admiring the facilities enjoyed by our
non-league counterparts, Dover Athletic have never used the Centre Spot
to its full potential.
Happily, that seems about to change.
Thanks to the hard work of a number of volunteers in the summer
months, the Centre-Spot is a much more comfortable place to spend an
evening than it was.
And following Chairman Mick Kemp's pre-season assertion that the
venue "would have to host an event a' week in order to contribute to
club funds," events have been more frequent, better run and generally
better attended than ever they were.
Thanks for this can largely go to Gavin Hughes, who has taken over
the full-time running of the place, and the Supporters Trust for coming
up with ideas that now suite' just about every taste.
That certainly makes for a vast improvement from my days on the
Supporters Club Committee when the monthly Quiz night was just about the
only thing we laid on that was usually well received.
The ever popular quiz nights remain, of course, but far more tastes
are catered for nowadays.
Exotic.
Whether your bag is bingo, heavy rock, horse racing or exotic
dancing (hmmm!) there does seem to be something for everyone, a fact
that Trust treasurer Ashley Forecast was happy to expand upon.
He said: "We've known for a little while that we need to broaden our
appeal and we've been keen to encourage fresh ideas.
"Bingo, for example, might not be every football fan's cup of tea, but
it's something that's become increasingly popular and has become a
regular feature of our monthly calendar.
"One thing we plan to do over the next few weeks is to enter teams in
some of the local competitions, like the 'Beer and Brains' league for
example, as a means to hosting more events and showing more local people
what we have to offer.
We'll always be open to new ideas and anyone who wants to host an event
should get in touch with us, as we know there's so much more that we can
do."
This was an invitation I put to the test a while ago, when I thought
about holding (imaginatively enough) a football quiz night.
"Off you go then!" was the response and I got the impression that
everyone who came along enjoyed themselves.
In the event, I was a little disappointed with the turnout and that
only £150 was raised towards Trust funds.
That wasn't the view of director Steve Cattermole who consoled me by
saying: ''The way you have to look at it is that we've got £150 we
didn't have yesterday and that the bar takings were probably on a par
with a lot of local pubs.
"If you multiply that a few times over you can see how greatly the club
can benefit."
Clearly, the Trust has made massive strides over the course of the past
year, but there's clearly a lot of work still to be done.
Publicising the events it organises is one area in which it seems to
fall down badly.
The list of forthcoming published is something I had to
go digging for and I don't think it's asking too much for this
information to come to me directly as a matter of course.
Tonight (Thursday) it's bingo.
And while that wouldn't normally be my cup of tea, I'm reliably informed
that caller Barbara ("On its own-54!") is a natural born entertainer in
her own right.
Going on the "try anything once" principal, we might just give it a go.
Eves down, looking....
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