FA Cup - MK Dons

[Royal With Cheese]

Lest we forget.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Whilst everyone takes different viewpoints about AFC Wimbledon/MK Dons, now try to imagine if a similar thing happened to Reading. Imagine there was no Sir JM or the Madejski Stadium. Also imagine completely different owners and a different environment for the past 20 years....

During the 1990s, Reading had been stuck in a rut at Elm Park and in desperate need for a new stadium. There was nowhere to build one nor the money. The club have slipped down the league and a deteriorating stadium meant only the North Stand was safe to use. Languishing in the bottom half of the fourth tier of English football and having suffered heavy home defeats to Swindon, Aldershot and Oxford, the owners suggested the idea of moving Reading to Worcester. Worcester was lacking a league team and there was a good market for supporters in that area.

Hardcore Reading fans broke away and formed a new club AFC Reading.

Meanwhile, the old Reading FC were eventually granted permission to move and did so in 2002. Support completely dried up and Reading FC fell into administration. A Worcester tycoon brought Reading FC out of administration and renamed the club to Worcester Royals. Playing at a nice new stadium with a new local fan base, the years passed. Meanwhile, AFC Reading made it into League Two (current day) and were drawn in the FA Cup to play away to League One Worcester Royals....

Would you feel it was time to move on - after all, if AFC Reading are to progress, they will need to play against anyone? How would you feel?

I'd probably support Man City

[floyd__streete]

I assume TMD is talking about this thread:

http://www.concreteroundabout.co.uk/php ... f=4&t=5655

All a bit embarrassing really.

Christ! Rattled. MK Dons fans = Comical Ali.

[Stuboo]

Pete Winkelman and everyone connected to the club should hold their heads high at what they have achieved in the last eight year

oxf*rd off.

MK Dons are the shittest, most detestable club in the football pyramid.

Agree. It's disgraceful what MK Dons did to Wimbledon. We shouldn't let them forget it. Great achievement yes, but founded on screwing another club of their existence and history and taking a league position they had no right to.

[Wimb]

http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/pete ... -1-4476577

Found the whole bit about why AFC fans didn't buy Wimbledon quite interesting as I'd never really thought about it that way..

Dunno if Dirkers can shed some light on it, but why wouldn't the same trust that set up AFC have just bought the dying old club? Was is some financial consideration or was it a point of principal?

[Alexander Litvinenko]

http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/pete-winkelman-i-m-proud-of-what-we-ve-achieved-1-4476577

Found the whole bit about why AFC fans didn't buy Wimbledon quite interesting as I'd never really thought about it that way..

Dunno if Dirkers can shed some light on it, but why wouldn't the same trust that set up AFC have just bought the dying old club? Was is some financial consideration or was it a point of principal?

It was very early days for the Trust movement, and they weren't really set-up until after the MK thing was well under way. It it happened today they'd undoubtedly be trying to do that, but even then I'm not really sure they'd succeed, because Winkelman wouldn't have wanted to sell.

The football club was an "enabling development" for a shopping centre, so the whole thing is part of a property deal. Planning restrictions say that you can't build a shopping centre without some kind of "enabling development" there, and as MK already had an ice rink, ski slope, lots of leisure centres etc a football club was about the only thing left to perform that role.

[MouldyRoyal]

A Wimbledon fan tells of what this draw means for him and why he intends to avoid the match:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foot ... 17169.html

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/pete-winkelman-i-m-proud-of-what-we-ve-achieved-1-4476577

Found the whole bit about why AFC fans didn't buy Wimbledon quite interesting as I'd never really thought about it that way..

Dunno if Dirkers can shed some light on it, but why wouldn't the same trust that set up AFC have just bought the dying old club? Was is some financial consideration or was it a point of principal?

How much was Wimbledon sold for?

Where would a group of fans have got the money from?

[Compo's Hat]

I see ITV are showing it on the Sunday lunchtime although to be honest there isn't really and stand out ties elsewhere with non league clubs facing each other.

[Stuka]

I see ITV are showing it on the Sunday lunchtime although to be honest there isn't really and stand out ties elsewhere with non league clubs facing each other.

I shall watch like the voyeur I am.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

I am very much in the anti MK camp. I think its the worst thing to happen in the history of the football league, baring stadium disasters.

I certainly will never go to game involving them, but thats an easy decision for me really. I just dont want to line their pockets, or as the guy in the aticle put it, serve to legitimise them. They have absolutely no right to be in the FL. It undermines everything that every club in the footbal pyriamid strives for.

I couldn't really care less about AFCW, but surely it must be a no brainer for their supporters to just not go. Its hardly much of a sacrifice to make to show how they feel about MK. An empty away end on TV will be the perfect statement.

[Wimb]

I am very much in the anti MK camp. I think its the worst thing to happen in the history of the football league, baring stadium disasters.

I certainly will never go to game involving them, but thats an easy decision for me really. I just dont want to line their pockets, or as the guy in the aticle put it, serve to legitimise them. They have absolutely no right to be in the FL. It undermines everything that every club in the footbal pyriamid strives for.

I couldn't really care less about AFCW, but surely it must be a no brainer for their supporters to just not go. Its hardly much of a sacrifice to make to show how they feel about MK. An empty away end on TV will be the perfect statement.

A perfect statement of what though?

Think the AFC fans have made it clear what their point is and already have the moral high ground. It's not as if the FA will suddenly kick the MK Dons out of the league or can erase what's gone before it.

I'd rather be there helping my new team get a win over the 'franchise', helping put some more money in the AFC coffers (split gate money remember) and also earn a chance for a money spinning third round tie.

Can understand why some fans don't want to give any legitimacy to the MK mob but 10 years later the dust has surely settled?

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Exactly. Many of the entrenched AFCW people just want MKD to be obliterated off the face of the earth.

That's never going to happen, so they can either move on and come to terms with it or carry on trying to pretend they don't exist.

[Vision]

Lets be honest. If there was a good chance of them winning then they'd be there.

As it stands they're quite likely to be handed their arse live on terrestrial TV so I'm not surprised they don't want to turn up and witness that spectacle in the flesh.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

A perfect statement of what though?

Failing to recognise a club that stole their identity? Personally I wouldn't give such a club the satisfaction of my gate receipt. I guess the actual AFCW turn out on the day will show how they all feel, but the entire existence of their new club is founded on what MK took away from them. To turn up would be hypocitical in the extreme.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

carry on trying to pretend they don't exist.

MK have no legitimate right to be in the football league, the league broke their own rules to allow it. There is no pretending about that.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

carry on trying to pretend they don't exist.

MK have no legitimate right to be in the football league, the league broke their own rules to allow it. There is no pretending about that.

Agreed, on the last but they are in the football league. And that's not going to change.

But I'd argue that "league broke their own rules to allow it". Everyone at the league hated it, no-one wanted it to happen but right at the start they cocked up the process, which left the door open for an appeal to an independent commission. It was that independent commission that allowed the move to happen - and everyone at the league was aghast!

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

But I'd argue that "league broke their own rules to allow it". Everyone at the league hated it, no-one wanted it to happen but right at the start they cocked up the process, which left the door open for an appeal to an independent commission. It was that independent commission that allowed the move to happen - and everyone at the league was aghast!

That's what I heard too.

It wasn't that they allowed it, but that legally they were powerless to stop it. They had no rules in place to prevent it.

I don't buy into the "people should just get over it" line, but I don't go along with the "every fan has to hate MK" that the more fundamentalist types preach. Everyone can make up their own mind, and if there are Wimbledon fans out there prepared to go, nobody should knock them for their choice (nor those who stay away).

WSC might still refuse to acknowledge MK in their pre-season previews etc, but I don't recall them taking a similar stance over Livingston, Airdrie United and Clydebank, who are all identical examples.


The big battle, in terms of protests, is to make sure something like MK can never happen again, but that battle has already been won. It can't happen again, at least not in the football league.

Nobody at MK is ever going to just say "Sorry, we've realised we did wrong, so we are going to fold the club and cease to exist", so about the only olive branch they can offer is to drop the Dons from their name.

[Franchise FC]

The Dons are a wart of the face of football ............ but, if they hadn't been bought and moved, does anyone really think that they would still exist. AFC Wimbledon would still have been required to de-Rangerisfy the situation. They have very few fans.

Now the truth is, they should've been allowed to die and someone that deserved it be promoted in their place. But not for one minute do I think that the current Dons cost Wimbledon their place in the league.

And just to be clear, living amongst them makes me feel no better about the fact that they should've come through the league ranks in the proper way.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

But I'd argue that "league broke their own rules to allow it". Everyone at the league hated it, no-one wanted it to happen but right at the start they cocked up the process, which left the door open for an appeal to an independent commission. It was that independent commission that allowed the move to happen - and everyone at the league was aghast!

That's what I heard too.

It wasn't that they allowed it, but that legally they were powerless to stop it. They had no rules in place to prevent it.

They did, but the rules were quite vague, and the biggest problem was that when the story came out the press interviews the the FL Chairman about it (at an airport, as it happens) and he said words to the effect of "never going to happen, not on my watch." The FL clubs then massively voted overwhelmingly against it, but Winkleman got a lawyer to show that the FL Chairman's pre-emptive statement at the airport had pre-judged the issue and so the FL vote was invalid and it had to go to a 3-man independent commission. They then lied to the commission about the financial viability in Merton in order to get the move.

But now if you ask anyone at the FL or any other body for their opinion on anything like this they'll make no comment until they've consulted their member clubs. They've definitely learnt their lesson.

Nobody at MK is ever going to just say "Sorry, we've realised we did wrong, so we are going to fold the club and cease to exist", so about the only olive branch they can offer is to drop the Dons from their name.

They've more or less said that they recognise that how they came to move was wrong and shouldn't have been allowed - when they gave back the honours and history. But, as you say, they're never going to voluntarily cease to be - which is the only think that would appease some AFCW supporters.