After another fantastic season, AFC could wrap up the championship tomorrow for the second successive season. Ryman Prem here we come! If there's any football fans in the America's interested in joining, there is now a US Dons supporters club at http://usdons.com
I'm guessing; Ryman Premier then Conference South then Conference Proper then Football League Division 3 (League 2) 3 more years!
And if you want a treat, you can listen to live commentary of tomorrow's game (3/28/05) by going to http://www.wdon.com/ at 9AM Eastern, 6AM Pacific ( that's early!) If the Wombles win and Walton and Hersham don't - that's the championship.
Dons won 3-1 thus guaranteeing promotion to the Ryman Prem. Just need one more point or Walton not to win all their games for the championship. Next game is away to Walton and Hersham! Next Saturday.
Not to sound like an idiot, but what league are they in right now (relative to the Premier League), i.e. how long would it take them to get to the highest level if they were to get promoted every year? I found this league structure breakdown... http://www.thefa.com/Grassroots/Lea...tings/2004/04/LeagueRestructuring_2004-05.htm ...but unfortunately it only goes as high as the "Football Conference" and I have no idea what league that is.
Mattbro, the Football Conference is immediately below the Football League. Currently two teams are promoted each year into League 2, The Champions, (Barnet this year) and the winners of the playoffs, this consists of the teams placing second to fifth. Hope this helps
Mattbro, just reread your question. They have just been promoted into the Ryman Premier They would then go to the Conference South Then the Football Conference Then League 2 Then League 1 Then The Championship Then The Premiership So in theory they could be in the Premiership after 6 more seasons
Thanks very much Warcod. Good luck to AFC Wimbledon. Now this is a team that it is impossible to dislike.
Since the MK Dons have abandoned the crest and colors of Wimbledon, I'd like to see AFC Wimbledon buy them back and take their rightful place as Wimbledon FC. In a couple years, MK will really need the money.
It really is amazing the support they have. Equally amazing that in just a few years they could do what most teams only dream of. I really need to look into getting tickets next time I'm in the UK. Sounds like the matches must have a great atmosphere.
It's not that amazing as it's not as if they are building a fan base from scratch. When Aldershot folded in 1992 they dropped 5 divisions and managed to retain most of their support. I think Telford, who went bust and dropped a similar way, have also retained their support. Sometimes the adversity is a great rallying call for support. In a curious way Doncaster Rovers owe much of their vastly improved support to the bitter battle with the chairman who tried to wipe them out. Wimbledon will hit a few problems in a few years, assuming continued promotions, as I don't think the ground they play at is of football league standard. Who knows, maybe they'll be able to buy back plough lane one day. Good luck to them.
I'm very happy to hear this. At the same time as this promotion, it's kind of ironic that the MK Dons, who were part of this vision their chairman had, are slipping away down the divisions, soon to be relegated from League 1. Only a few seasons ago they had top, top players like Nigel Reo-Coker and Jobi McAnuff and Patrick Ageymang, who are easily championship quality. I'm sure Dons fans must look around at the team they could still have and cry.
I think we should have a Wimbledon thread going, so we can keep up the latest developments. Hopefully some of our Dons fans can update it for us. Go Dons!!!!
Just got back from the Senior Surrey Cup, the Dons beat Walton & Hersham 2-1 in extra time. The league and cup double
Why did the club move to Milton in the first place? Were there financial troubles or just greedy management trying to make more money? The stories I read were pretty vague on that point.
A genuine Wimbledon fan would be able to go into more details, but essentially the problems started when they moved out of their old ground (Plough Lane) and moved in at Crystal Palace. Home support did rise slightly, despite being outside of their natural district, but Selhurst allowed them to let in around 12,000 away fans. The intention was to move back the wimbledon, but that never happened, and the money for the sale of the old ground seemed to disappear too. The chairman then sold the club to some overseas investors. They ran the club for several years, but the club slipped out of the premiership. Depending on which source you believe, either the club was heavily in debt with no chance of balancing the books after relegation, or the money the club recieved in transfer fees and parachute TV payments was siphoned off. Another investor, in Milton Keynes got interested. He had wanted to build a large commercial development in Milton Keynes, but it was likely to fail without something of a 'sweetner' to make the development seem something more than just a commercial development. Bringing football to the town (a new town - it barely existed 40 years ago but now has something like 250,000 people living there) could well be enough to swing it. The board of Wimbledon, keen to either see a profit or a reduced debt (again, depending on which sources you believe) were keen on selling to the guy from Milton Keynes. The football league has rules in place specifically saying that clubs can't be bought and moved, not only because it's totally against the whole fundamental principal of earning you place in the league, but also because there had been a few example lower down the game where clubs were being moved, then folded, in dubious circumstances, with the directors enjoying a windfall from selling the grounds. Despite this ruling, the league allowed the move, probably because they didn't appear to like Wimbledon much anyway. Wimbledon's (long since gone) rather brutal long ball game, gamesmanship, dirty play and paltry crowds rather soured what had been fairytale rise up the divisions. They were quite happy to accept the Wimbledon owners' claims that the club would fold if it didn't move, even though there was a fair bit of evidence to the contrary. The first season after the takeover (with the club still playing in London) saw Wimbledon fans boycott Wimbledon games completely, with only a few hundred still going to games. I think they recorded a 'crowd' of something like 329 for one match. Wimbledon fans then formed their own club, several leagues below, and supported them instead. Work has apparently started on the new stadium in Milton Keynes, and crowds averaged a higher than expected (bearing in mind their crowd base of zero 18 months ago) 4,896 despite a very poor season in which they were 5 minutes from a second successive relegation, so they haven't proved the total disaster everyone was expecting (hoping?).
How could those people let a club keep its place in a division after moving without making them play at a lower division? I wonder who's pocket got fat off that shady deal.
meh! Only club from the Ryman I could ever really love is Yeading... I mean c'mon! They have two bunnies on their crest! ...I don't know if they are moving to conference or not..