Wimbledon one - MK didn't. Savoir-Faire for AFC Wimbledon against the team from Milton Keynes.

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Sam Wainwright

Supporting images: Tom Reed

12.30pm kick-offs mean 10.30am tube cans, and rattling sips of Kronenbourg on the way to Tooting Broadway.

The French lager has “Savoir-Faire” on the tins, which translates as a polished sureness in social behaviour and that’s what AFC Wimbledon have in their relationship with English football.

Milton Keynes on the other hand don’t, because of the way they were formed and some of their fans cover up their colours as soon as they get to Euston.

Wimbledon’s website sums it up succinctly that in 2002, the club was” shamefully allowed by an FA commission to be airlifted to another town 70 miles away, where it carried on under a different owner and different supporters”.

That town was Milton Keynes and so the Wimbledon lads are cocksure and out on the pavement in the drizzle at JJ Moons near the underground station in Tooting.

©Sam Wainwright/ Terrace Edition. AFC Wimbledon.

It’s a nothing match for Wimbledon because they’d rather MK didn’t exist in this form but there is a looming history there as tall as the apartment blocks which frame the compact stadium.

Despite the high prices for a gaff, the apartment blocks are integral part of the Wimbledon story about how they had to be built, to help finance the new Plough Lane stadium, completed in 2021.

The fans chipped in too of course, a staggering figure of £8 million via crowdfunding and a bond scheme meaning the structure being there is a huge achievement in itself.

It’s plush and the flats hold the stadium reassuringly as if to say, you’re going nowhere, so just chill and enjoy the football. Even the mounted police, six abreast outside the stadium’s main entrance hold their ground nonchalantly.

The MK contingent don’t seem that relaxed as they are bottle-necked as they come into the away end and some try to goad the smattering of Wimbledon fans that aren’t still in the bars.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Milton Keynes at AFC Wimbledon.

Wimbledon fans laugh at the MK lot, which is a problem for a those away fans giving it the biggun because it seems they will only be seen as an amorphous blob in this neck of the woods.

Some Wimbledon fans will stay away entirely, choosing to find something else to do when MK come down like Ray Armfield, long time Don and stadium tour guide who describes his distaste eloquently.

“I can’t bear the thought of that club - and the whooping wind-up merchants who follow them - soiling Plough Lane with their presence. So on their first visit, I had a prior and genuine family commitment long before the fixtures were published. This Saturday I won’t be there either - but this time it’s planned and deliberate. I’ll actually be in Manchester, making a long overdue first visit to Broadhurst Park to watch FC United play Workington. Will I be keeping an eye on events in South London? Yes of course I will. But I’d rather we didn’t have to play them at all.”

While some Wimbledon fans stay away, many do turn up, with the gate a healthy 8,182 for a League 2 match.

Joe Blair sums up a feeling within the Wimbledon fanbase towards Milton Keynes that is more perplexity rather than hatred, saying “It’s always a bigger occasion for them than it is for us and I allow myself a chuckle at the thought that, barring a few different businesses decisions in 2001/2, they could be following a Queens Park Rangers themed franchise.”

Indeed, an attempt by MK chairman Pete Winkelman to get QPR to move to Milton Keynes in 2001 was politely rejected by fans of the West London club, throwing up the infamous line that it was “a Mickey Mouse bid, from a Mickey Mouse consortium with Mickey Mouse ideas”.

The game is close and nervy but John-Joe O’Toole is back for Wimbledon, with the reliability of a player who’s fallen back from attacking midfielder to centre-half. He was once at Milton Keynes’ neighbours Northampton Town so will know all about putting in a shift against this outfit.

Whenever the Milton Keynes fans are heard, the chant goes round of “You franchise bastards, you know what you are” showing that the experiment in sports franchising will never be forgiven or, indeed, forgotten.

Both sides had opportunities to take it late with a Wimbledon header from Jack Currie bouncing off the bar and then Stephen Wearne of Milton Keynes sending the ball across an open goal on the angle when it seemed easier to score.

Wimbledon forward Omar Bugiel’s diving header went agonisingly wide after Currie’s header hit the woodwork, and the limping Lebanese frontman exemplified the endeavour of a Dons side that were all in.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. AFC Wimbledon.

Anyone giving in to temptation for an early exit and an afternoon in the pub would have missed one of the purest moments in lower league football of recent years when a slow-motion attack on 94 minutes saw the ball pea-roll across the Milton Keynes box.

On another day, the tired MK leg would have knocked the ball away from Ronan Curtis’ stride but with the footballing gods smiling, it fell plum for the Irish International to slot home with his left foot.

The goal was cheered almost as loudly by fans of teams all over the country as it was the Wimbledon fans at Plough Lane, which speaks volumes of the regard this team holds.

The scenes were beautiful as Curtis celebrated and the post-match pints in the Phoenix Pub in the stadium went down a treat.

There was no sign of Milton Keynes chairman Winkelman as the DJ span the Specials’ song Monkey Man and the Dons danced.

Enjoying a beer was former Wimbledon defender Ben Judge, who played for the Dons when they were non-League and embarking on that journey back.

He was content, enjoying the Savoir-Faire that sets this club apart.