Well if you listen to the lazy Journo's at the Guardian, they would have you believe that this is the match that AFC fans have been craving.
I think not. This is possibly the biggest grudge match ever played. This game is about right and wrong, light and dark, Yin and Yang, Morcambe and wis.....wait, not that. Anyway, getting back to the point, when the Football Association agreed that the old Wimbledon could find a permanent home in Buckinghamshire it started a reaction that was nothing short of vehement hate and I'm afraid to say I am one of those people that still feels just as strongly today as I did then.
AFC Wimbledon put the following dignified statement out on their website. Pure class.
I was watching when Wimbledon were relegated from the top flight, I was devastated, I felt lost. What then? we had already been turfed out of *Plough lane by Merton council and the developers and all I could see ahead for the club was a catastrophic fall through the leagues putting out a team of kids every week, maybe even a club going out of business.
Now I go to Kingsmeadow(not as often as I'd like admittedly) and I see the same sort of family friendly club that Wimbledon FC used to be. I see the hopes and dreams of Junior Dons, hoping that they might someday get as lucky as me and see their team in an FA Cup final. I don't see a 'breakaway' club as ESPN lazily described us, we were never a 'breakaway' club we were a murdered club. A club that was sold out by the Football Association and those in charge at the time who had their own agendas.
So which side of the fence to sit on? On one side there is the dignified, professional manner that teaches us to hold our heads up high and support our club in either muted, well behaved silence or go and vent your anger against 'they who shall no longer be named'.
The other way is to stay away from the game believing that if you do go you will be validating a club that should never have come into existence in the first place.
Now some people have mentioned that if you refuse to turn up you run the risk of dividing the support and therefore success that has built up in the last 8 years since the rebirth in 2002.
Well, I don't want the fixture to happen so I guess I'll be rooting for AFC Wimbledon and Stevenage on the 16th November for the respective replays hoping that they meet each other in the 2nd round proper.
If it does happen, I can honestly say I'm torn as to whether to go or not.
Still, to be in 2nd position in the Conference Premier and 1st round proper of the FA Cup isn't bad for an eight year old club the sports ruling body had deemed 'not in the wider interests of football'.
The When Saturday Comes Website has a great piece by Aled Thomas which inspired this one, another AFC Wimbledon fan that writes better than I do.
*The site is now a housing estate.
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