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Languishing
at the bottom of the third tier of the English footballing pyramid
– League One as we know it now – is a team called Milton
Keynes Dons. If you only take a passing interest in English football,
that might be a name that means nothing to you.
But then that’s the danger of paying no respect to your history
and simply changing your name in the hunt for money isn’t it?
Just 18 years ago, the Milton Keynes Dons were, for a few weeks,
the most celebrated team in England, because having made it from
the non-leagues to the top division in just an handful of seasons,
they topped off the fairy story by winning the FA Cup, beating the
all-conquering Liverpool, Barnes, Beardsley, Hansen, Grobbelaar
et al, in the Final.
Back then, they were known as Wimbledon – something to do with
taking the name of the town they were formed and played their football
– a quaint idea, but one which seems oddly outmoded these days.
Wimbledon did not join the Football League until the 1977/78 season.
By the end of the 1985/86 season, they were 6th in the top flight
of English football, an unprecedented rise that will surely never
be repeated unless some Abramovich figure buys himself a non-league
club for no particular reason.
The Dons, as they were nicknamed, were not the most stylish of footballers.
With little financial muscle, they survived on a heady elixir concocted
from team spirit, desire, pure astonishment at the success they’d
achieved for themselves and an unwillingness to let that go.
They were a side without stars, a side that at times looked as if
it had crawled off a parks pitch on a Sunday morning, still suffering
from the hangover from the night before.
But they were the team that handed out the headaches to the others
with their route one, physical approach to the game, utilising the
strength of John Fashanu up front, and the in your face fury of
Dennis Wise.
And then there was Vinnie Jones, East End gangster turned footballer
who’d be only to pleased to separate you from your kneecaps
if that would help his cause.
Wimbledon were hard, they had little time for the beautiful game,
they were the Crazy gang. Yet even purists gave them a grudging
respect, certainly for a few years when they were on the up and
up, because for all their faults, they represented the dream, the
ideal that a team could come from nowhere and, given hard work and
a little luck, they could take on the best and win.
They were the FA Cup comic book story writ as large as it gets and
people warmed to it.
Nearly twenty years on, there are few shedding any tears for them
as they tumble back down the divisions and, perhaps, back into the
non-league oblivion from which they sprang. Having embodied the
footballing dream, they now represent the nightmare that football
has become, where identifying with a club, with your roots, counts
for nothing if there’s a quick buck to be turned.
In fairness to the club, they were hamstrung to a degree by a local
government that offered little help – once their Plough Lane
ground became unsuitable for Premiership football, the local establishment
did little to help find a new ground, but ultimately a ground-share
with nearby Crystal Palace, if not perfect, wasn’t the end
of the world.
Every now and again, club chairman Sam Hammam suggested that the
club should move to Dublin or Cardiff, but people laughed so heartily
that he gave up and bought Cardiff City instead.
When the golden goose of Premiership football was lost, Wimbledon,
always a poorly supported club, the more so after moving to Palace,
struggled still further. Which made them the ideal club for some
egomaniac to hijack.
After negotiations, the Football League was sufficiently spineless
to allow the club to up sticks and leave Wimbledon, twenty or so
miles south of London, and move, lock, stock and two smoking barrels,
to Milton Keynes, fifty or so miles the other side of London –
a nightmare journey for the poor beleaguered souls who still tried
to follow the club.
To make it worse, they still had to ground-share because they relocated
to the National Hockey Stadium – how embarrassing is that?
And then, after a suitable pause, the name got changed, to Milton
Keynes Dons, just because the funders thought that was more snappy.
They became the first FA Cup winners since the 19th century days
of public school sides such as The Old Etonians to simply disappear.
You have to feel sorry for the supporters who stood by their team
through thin and thinner and eventually had it stolen from under
them by big business.
The fact that they are plummeting down the table is a source of
open delight for most true supporters, a reminder that for all the
power the money men think they have, they can’t make us watch
a team that has sold its soul. Because if you do that, what do you
have left?
A lot of bull…
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