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Well it has finally got there after one or two close misses and it seems to have caused a stir.

The AFC fans are saying they won't turn up & some of the staff are of the same opinion. It's going to be interesting to see what happens during the coming days upto the fixture.

Simon Wheeler Chairman of Wimbledon Supporters Association said "I won't be going and I know lots of fans won't be going. Personally I would rather take my girlfriend's mother to the garden centre than go to that game"

Seems the stadium will more empty than usual & it is usually like a morgue most games!

I think there will be quite a few who go, probably mainly younger fans and fans who have only been fans since we were reformed. I certainly will not be going, for a couple of reasons, a major one being just seeing their name makes my blood boil; to see a load of their morons in their half-built ground lording it over us as they revel in their stolen goods will make me more angry than I could take. And if we lost (massively likely) it would be even worse. Moreover, a win, while being fantastic, will not really be any sort of closure or evening things up - they will still have the league position they stole from us and 9 years of my football-league-team-supporting life.

One of the difficulties with fans deciding whether or not to go is the spin the scum will put on it - we take loads of fans and they spin it as showing how great it is that there are now two clubs, we take hardly any and they spin it as showing how right they were to steal our league place.

Positives from it all however are the footballing world is again reminded of the travesty of what happened, and the support we are seeing from fans of clubs all over the country, and indeed the world, does give me a happy feeling inside.

Happy to take a few bullets here but all a bit dramatic no? (the general situation, not the above post)

What happened happened, can't AFC just treat them as the tosser neighbour from down the road you'd love to stick one over by beating them?

BTW I would expect to feel different if I had an emotional attachement to them of course, maybe I'm being naive.

Do you support a football team? How would you feel if you had supported a team all your life but then someone comes along and says you and your fellow supporters do not deserve your team any more, and a town 70 miles ago deserve it more, because they couldn't be bothered to go through non-league and work their way into the league? A route that Wimbledon have now had to do twice.

Then 10 years later they are still trying to re-write history and try to make out that what they did was right.

Some links that may explain the feeling better than I can:

http://widerinterestsoffootball.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/why-i-will-not-be-going-to-milton-keynes/

http://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/sport/10045774.Dons_coach_and_life_long_fan_Bassey_considers_the_emotions_behind_MK_Dons_clash/

http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=21158

http://wise-men-say.com/articles/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go/

http://www.sw19army.com/?p=7287

And another to add: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/nov/14/afc-wimbledon-fa-cup-mk-dons

More should have been done at the time to stop this from happeneing. I tis a travesty that a team can relocate and name change like this.

Has this ever happened before in the English game? There have been nae changed from teams that have gone bust but they haven't relocated a considerable distance away.

Was there nothing at the time that could stop this from happening?

The fans did everything we could to stop it. We campaigned and protested and gave evidence at the FA Commission. Unfortunately money speaks and lies were believed.

this explains it all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relocation_of_Wimbledon_F.C._to_Milton_Keynes

Just read the introduction but this line is just sickening...

"Milton Keynes Dons initially claimed Wimbledon F.C.'s heritage and history as its own, but renounced this in 2007, soon after its new stadium opened."

That's 3 years. Urgh.

Whilst not here, there is the famous case of the Baltimore Colts NFL team, which moved to Indianapolis in the middle of the night so that it was out of the state by the time people woke up in the morning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Indianapolis_Colts#Relocation_to_Indianapolis

Nice article from a former AFC Wimbledon player - http://www.four6zero.com/11/2012/a-fans-club-wimbledon-to-meet-mk-dons-in-fa-cup/

As an aside, Ursell is one of my favourite ever Wimbledon players - his skill was far beyond the level he played at for us. He scored the goal that clinched us the British record for longest unbeaten run, and during a 5-a-side game he did me up like a kipper. He is now a professional futsal player in Cyprus.

well put womble

Jake Robinson, a Northampton Town player and nothing to do with Wimbledon, has just tweeted:

Cheers horsey.

Debate on Talksport now, I agree with Goughie mainly, good points all round though

IF it was a "bigger" club there would have been / still would be uproar

Darren Gough is a franchise apologist.

Where would Wimbledon be today if they hadn't moved to MK?

Wimbledon.

I think its awful, have always hated MK Dons because of it.

I didn't want the match to happen this year, MK Dons will win because they are playing well and Wimbledon are struggling big time  (although granted results have improved with Neil Eardley so far)

I can sit here and appreciate the fact that the fans do not want to go and watch them at MK, but they might draw each other a lot more if the league keep staying the same. They are sat in the same draw for FA, League and LDV (what the hell is it called now?!) cups, it will only happen again.

There are lots to consider what may happen in the future in possible bigger games.

Is the game on TV?

No, the original Wimbledon would have gone under

A new Wimbledon probably would have reformed, like say Chester, but there was no site in Merton borough for them, the owners spend years trying to find one, so they wouldn't be in Wimbledon thats for sure

I'm afraid this isn't true. The previous owners didn't try very hard at all to find a new ground in the area, which was one of the problems.

We probably wouldn't have gone bust either. The financial reasons given for needing the moves were lies. We may well have been in and out if administration a few times, but many clubs have done that and haven't gone bust.

League-wise we would have dropped due to the admin issues. We may well have gone non-league.

Maybe we would have had to start again. But we have proved that we could've done that, and are now nearer to getting back to Wimbledon than ever before.

Really?

I lived in SW London til 96, went to see Wimbledon in Div 4 as a teenager etc and followed it reasonably closely as my best mate was a Don

My recollection is the owners were thwarted at every move to get somewhere in the Borough, then they wouldn't entertain a redevelopment of the Greyhound stadium as joint tenants and thus had to stay at Selhurst Park (and other grounds would have had them)

Hamman then gave up, sold and the writing was on the wall

It can be argued that once the announcement that the move to MK was on, the act of Wimbledon fans not going to Selhurst Park that last season pushed the club into admin. Can understand why they did it. It did though allow Winkelman to acquire assets cheaper than he would otherwise have been able to



What has happened since, going to Kingston and getting back to the league, is a triumph of football spirit by the way, don't think I am anti AFC

That is what Sam Hammam would have you believe, but he was out for himself. Having sold Plough Lane - which had been donated to the club by the Reed family - he left with all the proceeds, which should have been the club's.

Wimbledon fans didn't stop going when the move was announced - we kept going and protested as much as we could. We stopped going when the Commission made its disgusting decision. The decision was binding so once it was made Wimbledon in its form at the time was dead.

Thanks for the last bit though :)

i tend to agree with super on this

s h hardly tried to hard to find other ways of getting the finances straight to put it politley

OK, but the commission made its decision on the basis that there was no possibility of Wimbledon as was having its own home in its home borough, right? Without that prospect even in the long term, what was the prospect for the club? repeated tenancy agreements and eventually lower and lower support from an already low base?

It was "disgusting" from the point of the existing community of Wimbledon supporters, yes

There was a possibility of moving home. The club didn't want to know. The fans proved Plough Lane could be rebuilt, the council were supportive, the club sent its own lawyers to help the local residents protest against it.

The move was completely unnecessary, unless you believe the club's owners at the time, who were lying to try and sell up, and Wankerman, who was lying to try to get his property deal in place. Wimbledon fans proved it was unnecessary and 2 odious individuals on the Commission chose to ignore us.

I like the idea I read today of AFC Wimbledon refusing an away allocation of tickets and the directors not representing the club at the game, but then putting the game on a screen at home and selling loads of tickets.  It would demonstrate the deep feelings, whilst refusing to officially acknowledge the existence of the fixture (as many fans seem to want).

I lived near MK between 2002 and 2010 and it saddened me to see the fanbase take a hold there over time.  It's no fault of the younger generation growing up that the team they support was stolen from others, but that's why it's important that everyone is reminded of this when the occasion arises.  It was, and always will be, a travesty.

For people who want to read more about the truth behind the franchise lies, there is an excellent blog here: http://truthaboutfranchisefc.blogspot.co.uk/

... I will not be going to any game between the two teams. Many Wimbledon fans differ in their views on this. Some want to go and have a big presence there, some want a total boycott, some would go to a home game but not to Franchise, some want the game to happen and some don't. There are as many different opinions as there are Wimbledon fans.

What happened to Wmbledon was appalling and the success of the club in it's current form is amazing and uplifting for true football fans. But the highlighted sentence did make me smile.

A business was going under, a business owner found and exit strategy that allowed the survival of his business.

This is not what i would call a travesty.

Wimbledon as long as i knew them never played in Wimbledon anyway.

The business was not going under. That was all lies.

Not sure what I'd do about going to the game if I was a Wimbledon fan.

A huge part of me would want to go to the game with massive numbers "just to make as much noise as possible and prove a point"

I get that the fans can't bear to put a penny into that other club by attending, but isn't it about pride in supporting your team?

Personally I'd get more satisfaction by being there shouting all day and by displaying a large flag/banner to show my loyalty.

Its an FAC tie

45% of the net revenue to the home club, 45% to the away club

10% to the FA

AFC fans should go as 45p of every pound they spend, less policing, stewarding costs etc, goes back to their club

Unlike a league game, where they are not on a rev share.

would they still not get 45% from MK but 100% profit from watching it on a big screen at their own ground too. Makes a bigger impact and generates publicity for the club

Arsenal have not played in their original location for the past 99 years - these things are not a new trend.