Franchise FC v AFC Wimbledon

[BobG]

Merton was where the old Wimbledon played. It's where Plough Lane was.

BobG

[hoolahoop]

Does anybody else find football nicknames like "Franchise FC" really childish and boring?

Not at all, you need to do your homework on what happened to the good folk of Merton and how their team, league position, nickname and history was stolen from them. Let's suggest that  our owners saw a better opportunity in say Wakefield..............would you be happy with having to form a new team and starting all over again at the bottom of the League ?
I can think of many other titles that I could add to ''Franchise'' but I'm sure I would serve a ban on here if I used them.

To my knowledge Merton has nothing to do with Wimbledon ! AFC Wimbledon kept the name but heritage belongs to MKDons as the upt sticks and chose to change their name . Homework ! I think I did mine 

Nope you didn't .................

[hoolahoop]

Merton was where the old Wimbledon played. It's where Plough Lane was.

BobG

Thank you Bob so it was

[DonnyBazR0ver]

It was wrong for the league to allow it to happen in the first place.  The football pyramid is there for a reason.

Fans should ultimately influence one way or another on the success of a club. Wimbledon did not have the same fanbase as Charlton, and both of whom played in exile at Selhurst Park. 

Charlton worked wonders to re-open The Valley and worked their way back up to the Premiership but Wimbledon didn't seem to have a sound recovery plan. Sam Hamman disappeared and found himself backing Cardiff. Norwegians came on the scene and vanished again leaving the club very vulnerable.

Whether they would have been wound up, who knows but if they did, it was up to the fans of Wimbledon to do what they have done however, their place should have been taken by promoting an extra club from somewhere down the pyramid.

[River Don]

Does anybody else find football nicknames like "Franchise FC" really childish and boring?

Not at all, you need to do your homework on what happened to the good folk of Merton and how their team, league position, nickname and history was stolen from them. Let's suggest that  our owners saw a better opportunity in say Wakefield..............would you be happy with having to form a new team and starting all over again at the bottom of the League ?
I can think of many other titles that I could add to ''Franchise'' but I'm sure I would serve a ban on here if I used them.

To my knowledge Merton has nothing to do with Wimbledon ! AFC Wimbledon kept the name but heritage belongs to MKDons as the upt sticks and chose to change their name . Homework ! I think I did mine 

Didn't they hand the Wimbledon FC trophies back to Merton borough council?

[Bristol Red Rover]

Didn't they hand the Wimbledon FC trophies back to Merton borough council?

Yep, 5 years back the trophies and other club stuff was given to the council and exhibited in Morden library.

MK renounced rights to the history of Wimbledon before 2004 though still insist on keeping the name Dons, which AFC fans want them to drop. "We are the Dons" is a song Rovers fans can join in with whole heartedly if they go to the match at MK.

[ravenrover]

WTF has this got do with Rovers, started by a mod Filo!!!!!, on the wrong board!!!!

[Filo]

WTF has this got do with Rovers, started by a mod Filo!!!!!, on the wrong board!!!!

Wind your neck in!

Don`t read it if you`re not interested!

[ravenrover]

I read things on this section of the forum because I expect it to involve all things Rovers there are other sections for things that don't.
Why bother having seperate sections otherwise?

[Filo]

I read things on this section of the forum because I expect it to involve all things Rovers there are other sections for things that don't.
Why bother having seperate sections otherwise?

So which section should it be in?

[River Don]

It is to do with FA Cup football, a competition Rovers are still in.

It's not very far off topic really.

[Filo]

It is to do with FA Cup football, a competition Rovers are still in.

It's not very far off topic really.

Going on ravenrover logic the off topic description is

"For all non-football related chat..."



So that`s why I asked him where a Football related topic should be posted, conveniently he`s logged off rather than answer the question!


After having his moan

[ravenrover]

Sorry I don't spend all night logged into the one forum Filo I have other things to do.
As usual when it is something you don't like or agree with you go on the attack " wind your neck in" "having his moan"
Answer the question Filo what has this got to do with "all things red and white....." the title of this section?
If you and many others feel the need to pontificate about other footballing matters start a seperate section, to save me and possibly others wasting time reading them when I/we think it is Rovers related
I'm sure you will find the need to respond in some way other than to answer the question, carry on the insults  but thats me done with this topic, say what you want if it doesn't suit.......as you usually do.

[ravenrover]

Sorry Filo, seems you have logged off rather than answer the question.





After having your pop at me

[pubteam]

Sorry Filo, seems you have logged off rather than answer the question.





After having your pop at me

Well he doesn't spend all night logged into the forum. He has other things to do.

[Filo]

Sorry Filo, seems you have logged off rather than answer the question.





After having your pop at me

Sorry, had to go for a shite

Maybe the Thread title Franchise FC v AFC Wimbledon, gave a tiny clue that the thread is not red and white hooped related, from that you could decide not to read the thread if you were n`t interested, but you chose to read it

[Spud]

Another thread, another bitch fight. What's wrong with everyone these days?

[Mr1Croft]

Tbf there is no place for football chat that isnt Rovers related, and in the past main talking points not Rovers related end up here (Recent examples include John Terry, Euros, Olympics, Chelsea champions league, Man City Premier league etc.,) but then again how many users regularly check the other sections?

[The Red Baron]

Found a couple of articles on the MK/ Wimbledon game which perhaps explain the background for the uninitiated:

CONFIRMED: AFC WIMBLEDON & THE FA CUP MATCH THEY EMPHATICALLY DIDN'T WANT
From www.twohundredpercent.net

In the end, it came about in the most perfunctory way possible. Cambridge
City, part-time players from the Premier Division of the Southern Football
League, couldn't live with their full-time opposition and the resounding 6-1
win for the home side was proof, as if it were needed, that for all that we
like to talk about the romance of football, the pitch is no place for
sentiment and money talks louder than anything else. This was in sharp
contrast to the events of Monday evening at Kingsmeadow, of course. York
City should have been home and dry by half-time in their FA Cup First Round
Replay against Wimbledon, but a red card and an equalising goal from out of
nowhere changed the complexion of the match towards the end of the first
half, although a last-minute York equaliser was enough to send this match
into thirty minutes of extra time with the home side eventually coming
through by the odd goal in seven.

Most of those that didn't want Wimbledon to play their arch nemesis at this
time probably knew that the game was up by the time that the full-time
whistle blew on Monday night, and now supporters of the club have to reach
into their consciences and try to make a decision over whether to make the
trip north to Buckinghamshire, to survey the estate of the company that took
their League place, the weekend after next. Over the next two and a half
weeks or so, familiar arguments will raise their heads as the lords of the
Buckinghamshire manor seek to astroturf this particular "occasion." It seems
inconceivable that those behind this particular land grab will not seek to
maximise the PR opportunities that this period in the media spotlight will
afford them, so it's probably appropriate to take a few moments to dispel a
few of the myths that will be thrown around over the next eleven or twelve
days or so:

This isn't the "tie" that all Wimbledon supporters wanted, by any stretch of
the imagination.

If there are swathes of empty seats in the away end for this match, this
will not be because Wimbledon have "no fans" or because they "don't care
enough" - a more likely explanation will be that a large number of Wimbledon
supporters will not travel there under any circumstances.

The fact that Wimbledon won their place in the Football League back does not
mitigate the events of ten years ago. Their opposition next weekend remain
the nearest thing that English football has to an absolute pariah club
amongst the supporters of many other clubs to this day, and deservedly so.

The argument that "Wimbledon didn't deserve a club in 2002? is not only
morally repugnant, but also factually incorrect.

And finally (because this specious and tedious argument always comes up on
this sort of occasion), Wimbledon didn't kill Kingstonian, they had nothing
to do with the financial ruin in which that club found itself and they
didn't "steal their ground."

Their opponents have already shown a degree of disrespect in the comments of
their manager Karl Robinson immediately after the draw was made: "I was made
up. I did a dance around the living room in excitement. I'd love it to
happen. It's one I want. It needs to happen".


And therein, perhaps, lays the rub when it comes to this fixture. This isn't
"just another match" for the supporters of Wimbledon. It isn't just a match
for their supporters to enjoy a couple of weeks of "banter" over and treat
as the mother of all local derbies. Some supporters will travel - all clubs
have a number who will support their team no matter what - but it seems
unlikely that there will be many who don't feel a little dirty at entering
the stadium built on the theft of their club's Football League place and the
risk of disorder is sufficiently high for it to be likely that the match
will have go ahead in the face of onerous policing conditions. Everything
about this game shouts ugliness as loudly as it can be shouted.

The positives that can be taken from this match taking place have the hint
of a pyrrhic victory about them. It seems likely that the prevailing
consensus amongst football supporters seems to remain that what happened to
the supporters of this club was an abomination, although comments from the
Brighton & Hove Albion - a club who, of course, lost their ground and, for a
couple of years, a place in their home town as the result of the
carpet-bagging of others - forum North Stand Chat demonstrates that
agreement on the subject isn't necessarily universal. Perhaps there is a
boil there which needs to be lanced. Perhaps Wimbledon will do very nicely
financially from those that opt not to go and give the money that they would
have spent on tickets to the club instead. More importantly than anything
else, though, no amount of astro-turfing from the PR men from
Buckinghamshire can take away what Wimbledon supporters have, and when this
FA Cup tie is over and done with, that fundamental truth will remain.

AFC WIMBLEDON FANS FIND FA CUP TIE AT MK DONS TOO HARD TO STOMACH
In south London fierce resentment remains over the move to Milton Keynes and
many are unwilling to travel to the club they call 'the franchise', by David
Conn, from The Guardian

So finally, fatefully, AFC Wimbledon, formed in 2002 by supporters who
abhorred their club's removal to a town far away, will play League One
Milton Keynes Dons, which the old Wimbledon so controversially became.

Those describing the FA Cup Second-Round tie, to be played in Milton Keynes
the weekend of 1 December, as a grudge match or - cringingly - "the Dons
derby", have been quickly put right by AFC Wimbledon fans. Many have said
they will not go to the club they call "the franchise"; others will travel
to support their team, but few wanted this game to come.

"We will be professional, maintain our reputation; this is something we have
to get done, while knowing many of us probably will not enjoy it very much,"
said Erik Samuelson, AFC Wimbledon's chief executive.

In south London, feelings about one of football's most extraordinary and
bitter episodes still run deep and have been rawly scratched with the FA Cup
draw. Fierce resentment remains among AFC Wimbledon supporters that their
club was taken away. There is also profound pride at the Football League
club they have built from scratch in the ten years since.

They say the term grudge match is too superficial and misunderstands the
depth of AFC Wimbledon emotion, because this is not a game between two
roughly equal clubs with a mutual history of football rivalry. The old
Wimbledon, bust and homeless, was sanctioned to be transplanted to Milton
Keynes by an independent three-person panel convened under Football
Association procedures. But AFC Wimbledon fans still talk of their club
having been stolen.

The supporters have etched in their memories the 2-1 decision of that panel
and its rejection of the fans' vow that if Peter Winkelman's Milton Keynes
project was given Wimbledon and a Football League place, the fans would turn
away and form their own club.

The two panel members known to have voted for the move, Raj Parker, a
commercial solicitor at the FA's lawyers, Freshfields, and Steve Stride,
then operations director at Aston Villa, said of the move: "Resurrecting the
club from its ashes as, say, 'Wimbledon Town' is, with respect to those
supporters who would rather that happened so they could go back to the
position the club started in 113 years ago, not in the wider interests of
football."

In response AFC Wimbledon fans had the phrase "not in the wider interests of
football" printed on T-shirts once they began determinedly and joyously
working their new, fan-owned club up the football pyramid from a start in
the Combined Counties League.

Rather than depicting the FA Cup tie as a grudge match, it can be read as a
confrontation between two opposed incarnations of modern football.
Winkelman, a tireless and gifted salesman for Milton Keynes, argued they
could not take the local non-League club, Milton Keynes City, and
painstakingly build it up into the Football League. Once the panel
sanctioned the move, which the Football League had rejected and the FA
disapproved, Asda enabled the stadium to be built as it secured a superstore
on the site. The club did originally play in Milton Keynes as Wimbledon,
only to drop the name in 2004, but kept Dons, Wimbledon's nickname, which
Samuelson and the AFC Wimbledon fans want Winkelman now to formally hand
back.

While MK Dons have become a Football League fixture, relegated in 2006 then
promoted back to League One two years later, AFC Wimbledon fans formed a new
club, which their democratic, mutual supporters trust still owns. They
consider themselves the old Wimbledon, founded in 1889 and the "Crazy Gang"
FA Cup winners of 1988, and in their new guise they won promotions up the
formidable non-Leagues, including the Ryman League whose chairman, Alan
Turvey, was the dissenting member on that independent panel.

When they gained Football League status last year with victory in the
Conference play-off Final against Luton Town, it was vindication for loyalty
and stubborn determination, a triumph for Supporters Direct, which promotes
the values of fan ownership, and its then chief executive, Dave Boyle.

That history explains why meeting MK Dons is not a football match the AFC
Wimbledon supporters ever wanted, and one to which many will not go.

[Bristol Red Rover]

I read things on this section of the forum because I expect it to involve all things Rovers there are other sections for things that don't.
Why bother having seperate sections otherwise?

For me, anything that relates to the demise of clubs via situations off the pitch, is very much Red and White and on topic. Its been a feature of our furums for many years. The MK v Wimbledon fixture is one highlight of the crime of clubs being ripped from their supporters. It should be a Fans United event.

TRB - thanks for the articles you posted

[IDM]

Does anybody else find football nicknames like "Franchise FC" really childish and boring?

Not in this game, it's been along time coming but it had to happen! I just hope the real wombles win.

They can't - the real "wombles" went out of business in 2004 - after AFC were formed - and MK Dons were created and took Wimbledon's share in the football league.

[The Red Baron]

Does anybody else find football nicknames like "Franchise FC" really childish and boring?

Not in this game, it's been along time coming but it had to happen! I just hope the real wombles win.

They can't - the real "wombles" went out of business in 2004 - after AFC were formed - and MK Dons were created and took Wimbledon's share in the football league.

Was the old company actually wound up, or did Winkleman just transfer it to Milton Keynes?

Anyway, AFC claim the "apostolic succession," a point which seems to have been largely accepted by MK, apart from the "Dons" tag.

On the issue of the relevance of this thread, I suppose it is a lot more relevant now that one of our current first team squad could be playing in the match.