Everything about MK Dons disgraces me, they took Wimbledon's history, the kit, the players and even their own nickname but of course the fans came last on the priority list.
maybe that was becuase they WERE Wimbledon - they just moved !
As for PA..............I know I didn't do as much as you, but I did clean up the Valley and posted leaflets thru residents letterboxes on the eve of the Council elections, so i feel I did my bit.
Everything about MK Dons disgraces me, they took Wimbledon's history, the kit, the players and even their own nickname but of course the fans came last on the priority list.
maybe that was becuase they WERE Wimbledon - they just moved !
As for PA..............I know I didn't do as much as you, but I did clean up the Valley and posted leaflets thru residents letterboxes on the eve of the Council elections, so i feel I did my bit.
Golfie
I never doubted that you did. The point is then, why did you do it? Surely because you felt that Charlton comes from the area you know and probably grew up in, and not bloody Croydon. I cannot square your support for Charlton returning home with your stance on Wimbledon.
By the way I recently got confirmation (through an FOI request) of what David Conn wrote in his book. Sam Hammam paid Merton Council £800,000 to lift the covenant protecting Plough Lane from non-sport redevelopment. I find that pretty remarkable. It seems to tell me that if you throw enough wedge at a Council you can change any aspect of their zoning plan. That's pretty corrupt, isn't it?
What makes a Football club so special is the community and the local people that it represents. Once you take it about 80 miles away from that and change the name, there's no way it is still the same club.
What makes a Football club so special is the community and the local people that it represents. Once you take it about 80 miles away from that and change the name, there's no way it is still the same club.
But the Wimbledon fans never supported the club in any numbers either at Selhurst or Plough lane.
So? Doesn't mean its OK to just go and take them somewhere else does it? It's still a club that belongs to that community, regardless of what numbers they have.
By that logic, anyone from League One and below can be moved anywhere.
So? Doesn't mean its OK to just go and take them somewhere else does it? It's still a club that belongs to that community, regardless of what numbers they have.
By that logic, anyone from League One and below can be moved anywhere.
I agree but the club wasn't being supported by the fans and it was haemorrhaging money hence it was going to die anyway. Strangely since AFC Wimbledon was formed the fans started actually go to the games so the What Winkelman did probably did them a massive favour.
How often do clubs in the top divisions 'die'? Not at all really.
Yes they were on a slippery slope, but that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't an alternative. There is no way Winkelman looked at that club and thought "I'll save them". It was purely an entrepreneurial move to make money, nothing to do with fans.
What makes a Football club so special is the community and the local people that it represents. Once you take it about 80 miles away from that and change the name, there's no way it is still the same club.
But the Wimbledon fans never supported the club in any numbers either at Selhurst or Plough lane.
Average attendance 98-99 18235 99-00 17157 Marginally lower than ours in the same period.
What difference does it make whether there were 18235 fans or 1823, it was their team. If Wimbledon did not have enough supporters to sustain their team in the top flight, it does not mean the club had to move, but that the club would eventually get relegated to a level sustainable by their support.
How many fans do you have to have? It makes no difference how many they were, their club was uprooted and moved to another part of the country. Personally, I hope Wimbledon stuff the Mongs (as Dons' fans call them).
As for your point about Woolwich Arsenal, Golfie, yes it is very similar. They were the first franchise football club, moving it away from its traditional support (and the workplace that provided their first players) to somewhere else where they thought they could make more money. My father and grandfather, being from Woolwich never forgave them, nor did a lot of people in the area.
How often do clubs in the top divisions 'die'? Not at all really.
Yes they were on a slippery slope, but that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't an alternative. There is no way Winkelman looked at that club and thought "I'll save them". It was purely an entrepreneurial move to make money, nothing to do with fans.
You may be right but just look at that fantastic stadium at Milton Keynes which is losing money ( for him and the council) every month because he can't fill it ( and he knew he wouldn't). He ain't getting richer because of the move so i happen to think he is in it for the long run and shock horror , the love of the game. I understand your point of view though.
What makes a Football club so special is the community and the local people that it represents. Once you take it about 80 miles away from that and change the name, there's no way it is still the same club.
But the Wimbledon fans never supported the club in any numbers either at Selhurst or Plough lane.
Average attendance 98-99 18235 99-00 17157 Marginally lower than ours in the same period.
What difference does it make whether there were 18235 fans or 1823, it was their team. If Wimbledon did not have enough supporters to sustain their team in the top flight, it does not mean the club had to move, but that the club would eventually get relegated to a level sustainable by their support.
We both know that the majority of those weren't Wimbledon fans. They were fans who wanted to watch premiership football. Out of curiosity can you tell me what their average crowds were when they dropped into the championship?
What makes a Football club so special is the community and the local people that it represents. Once you take it about 80 miles away from that and change the name, there's no way it is still the same club.
But the Wimbledon fans never supported the club in any numbers either at Selhurst or Plough lane.
Average attendance 98-99 18235 99-00 17157 Marginally lower than ours in the same period.
What difference does it make whether there were 18235 fans or 1823, it was their team. If Wimbledon did not have enough supporters to sustain their team in the top flight, it does not mean the club had to move, but that the club would eventually get relegated to a level sustainable by their support.
We both know that the majority of those weren't Wimbledon fans. They were fans who wanted to watch premiership football. Out of curiosity can you tell me what their average crowds were when they dropped into the championship?
What makes a Football club so special is the community and the local people that it represents. Once you take it about 80 miles away from that and change the name, there's no way it is still the same club.
But the Wimbledon fans never supported the club in any numbers either at Selhurst or Plough lane.
Average attendance 98-99 18235 99-00 17157 Marginally lower than ours in the same period.
What difference does it make whether there were 18235 fans or 1823, it was their team. If Wimbledon did not have enough supporters to sustain their team in the top flight, it does not mean the club had to move, but that the club would eventually get relegated to a level sustainable by their support.
We both know that the majority of those weren't Wimbledon fans. They were fans who wanted to watch premiership football. Out of curiosity can you tell me what their average crowds were when they dropped into the championship?
Sounds a lot like us then.
Nothing like us. We were ( and arguably still are ) getting big crowds out of the premiership. Wimbledon weren't.
~ 8000 Beds, which would back up the argument that the others were there for the PL, although to a lesser degree that was true of some at the Valley in the PL. I suspect that Wimbledon's natural level is third or fourth tier, a bit like Orient.
As a side note, their record attendance (~18000) was against HMS Victory until the PL days.
The journey AFC fans have been on would have been something else. Cheap tickets, several promotions, new teams.
I don't get why Winkleman didn't just plough a load in to existing MK team and get them up through the leagues. That would've avoided the raft of the footballing public and IMO been more enjoyable. MK would probably be in League one at present if they did it the long way round.
How often do clubs in the top divisions 'die'? Not at all really.
Yes they were on a slippery slope, but that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't an alternative. There is no way Winkelman looked at that club and thought "I'll save them". It was purely an entrepreneurial move to make money, nothing to do with fans.
You may be right but just look at that fantastic stadium at Milton Keynes which is losing money ( for him and the council) every month because he can't fill it ( and he knew he wouldn't). He ain't getting richer because of the move so i happen to think he is in it for the long run and shock horror , the love of the game. I understand your point of view though.
Once that yellow toothed prick loses every single penny he's put into that club then I'll be satisfied.
He stole a club from its community and stole the league place of a deserving team that could have taken it should Wimbledon have died.
If the club didn't move and have Winkelman subsidising the still considerable losses, they would have folded anyway. He tried to give the club a chance to survive, but the same fans who let the club die in the first place make him to be the devil. Even dropping to bottom tier they could not sustain the losses, as fan base would have been eroded even further.
Can the AFC cheerleaders on here confirm they should have let the club go bust and withdraw from the league?
Winkelman's purchase of the club was solely based on moving the club to Milton Keynes, he never had any interest in keeping the club of wimbledon going but looked at it as a quicker way of getting a club into the football league.
How can you say the fans let the club die? by not following the club 80 miles they let it die? absolute rubbish.
The silly little 'firms' attached to AFC will turn up for a rumble and find there is no one to fight other than a group of middle aged dads and kids (although that has not stopped them in the past)... might be interesting to see if fans of any of the other non-league clubs that AFC bullied will turn to support MK Dons??
I have never said it was acceptable and If I had been a Wimbledon fan at that time I would have been livid.
what I said, and have always said, is that to me MK Dons ARE Wimbledon - they simply moved grounds (and then changed their name a little while later)
if some one bought charlton, moved them to say, Kings Lynn, called them the Kings Lynn Addicks, would you still support that club? Would you move to make an AFC Charlton? I'm interested in your reply.
Winkelman's purchase of the club was solely based on moving the club to Milton Keynes, he never had any interest in keeping the club of wimbledon going but looked at it as a quicker way of getting a club into the football league.
How can you say the fans let the club die? by not following the club 80 miles they let it die?</</b>b> absolute rubbish.
No, by not going 7 miles to Selhurst Park. It was not the move to Milton Keynes that killed them, they were already dead.
Winkelman's purchase of the club was solely based on moving the club to Milton Keynes, he never had any interest in keeping the club of wimbledon going but looked at it as a quicker way of getting a club into the football league.
How can you say the fans let the club die? by not following the club 80 miles they let it die?</</b>b> absolute rubbish.
No, by not going 7 miles to Selhurst Park. It was not the move to Milton Keynes that killed them, they were already dead.
Then if that's the case the league should not have allowed the move and instead promoted an extra team from the conference a year later.
We hardly attended matches in our droves at selhurst so would it have been fair for the same to happen to us?
Comments
As for PA..............I know I didn't do as much as you, but I did clean up the Valley and posted leaflets thru residents letterboxes on the eve of the Council elections, so i feel I did my bit.
I never doubted that you did. The point is then, why did you do it? Surely because you felt that Charlton comes from the area you know and probably grew up in, and not bloody Croydon. I cannot square your support for Charlton returning home with your stance on Wimbledon.
By the way I recently got confirmation (through an FOI request) of what David Conn wrote in his book. Sam Hammam paid Merton Council £800,000 to lift the covenant protecting Plough Lane from non-sport redevelopment. I find that pretty remarkable. It seems to tell me that if you throw enough wedge at a Council you can change any aspect of their zoning plan. That's pretty corrupt, isn't it?
Pr!ck
By that logic, anyone from League One and below can be moved anywhere.
Yes they were on a slippery slope, but that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't an alternative. There is no way Winkelman looked at that club and thought "I'll save them". It was purely an entrepreneurial move to make money, nothing to do with fans.
99-00 17157
Marginally lower than ours in the same period.
What difference does it make whether there were 18235 fans or 1823, it was their team. If Wimbledon did not have enough supporters to sustain their team in the top flight, it does not mean the club had to move, but that the club would eventually get relegated to a level sustainable by their support.
As for your point about Woolwich Arsenal, Golfie, yes it is very similar. They were the first franchise football club, moving it away from its traditional support (and the workplace that provided their first players) to somewhere else where they thought they could make more money. My father and grandfather, being from Woolwich never forgave them, nor did a lot of people in the area.
I understand your point of view though.
Nothing like us. We were ( and arguably still are ) getting big crowds out of the premiership. Wimbledon weren't.
As a side note, their record attendance (~18000) was against HMS Victory until the PL days.
I don't get why Winkleman didn't just plough a load in to existing MK team and get them up through the leagues. That would've avoided the raft of the footballing public and IMO been more enjoyable. MK would probably be in League one at present if they did it the long way round.
He stole a club from its community and stole the league place of a deserving team that could have taken it should Wimbledon have died.
Especially after all we have been through.
Can the AFC cheerleaders on here confirm they should have let the club go bust and withdraw from the league?
How can you say the fans let the club die? by not following the club 80 miles they let it die? absolute rubbish.
what I said, and have always said, is that to me MK Dons ARE Wimbledon - they simply moved grounds (and then changed their name a little while later)
We hardly attended matches in our droves at selhurst so would it have been fair for the same to happen to us?