The Morning After...

It's not often I feel compelled to post on this blog as I'm not a sports writer or commentator.

After last nights 4-3 extra time win against York City in the FA Cup, sponsored by Budsheister though, I feel the need.

This morning, the BBC reported that AFC Wimbledon will face their 'fierce rivals' M***** K***** should the club stealing bastards win their replay against Cambridge City. Umm....fierce rivals suggests that you want to play that team, that there is a local rivalry, a mutual respect, no matter how slight.

No. Our club was stolen from us, ripped away, Elvis had left the building.

I don't personally know any AFC Wimbledon fan that would want to travel to M***** K***** and back again to watch a football match. My opinion is 'complicated' so bear with me. Whilst I want to support AFC Wimbledon and travel where ever they play, there's a validation issue that needs to be addressed.
The aforementioned 'club stealing bastards' should not have a football league place, they should not be validated or recognised in any way shape or form, any AFC Wimbledon fan planning to go to M***** K***** should remember this and think very carefully about what they are doing and what sort of club they think they support. If you spend money on travelling to the game in M***** K*****, money on the ticket to get into the game, and food or drink bought at the game, you've instantly validated a team that should not exist, a team, in all Wimbledon fans opinions, that is 'not in the wider interests of football' to borrow a phrase from that idiotic three man committee.

I will never to to M***** K*****, should the team have to travel there I hope AFC Wimbledon open their bars on the Saturday or Sunday so that we can all come together and watch the game(which is bound to be on telly, given the interest) at our club, spending our hard earned cash in our club, generating income for our club. I hope, should that game come to fruition, that my Dons can overcome the club stealing bastards and, as we did in May 2011 with our play-off win, start putting some well needed ointment on wounds that will never truly heal(until that is, MK **** hopefully go out of business).

We could all be completely over reacting, after all tonight's replay between the club stealing bastards and Cambridge City could end in a Cambridge City win and we could all have a jolly old jaunt up to Cambridge on the first weekend in December. It is the FA Cup after all and every Dons fan knows exactly what can happen in the FA Cup, even if it is sponsored by ButtCrackBeer!

We Are Wimbledon

I haven't blogged about the dons for a while, I meant to keep it up way more this season but then I opened a brewpub and the Womble blog went the way of the beer blog.

We lost to Swindon today and because we seem to be in a bit of a rut, certain AFC Wimbledon 'fans' think it's acceptable to abuse the players and manager on twitter as if we were some lower form of club, like some sort of (wait for it).....franchise.

We're not.

We are a small club but we are better than the hatred that is currently being vented .

Some of us are real fans, some of us don't leave the ground early, some of us applaud the players off the pitch no matter what the score was. Win, lose or draw we will support our team, our manager and each other.

Let's not forget where this club came from, utter despair and anger. We've been lower than most fans will ever find themselves when supporting their club. If we think about it reasonably we all knew that this season would be hard, after all we have one of the smallest, if not the smallest budget in League Two.

We are however, IN League Two. We have arrived at the promised land and I firmly believe that this group of players can and will keep us there! If we finish 22nd in the table the squad and the manager would have done their job and kept us in the division, don't think for one minute that I want us to finish 22nd, I'd very much like us to finish in mid table and not have a squeaky bum finish but hey, if that's what it takes to stay in the league then so be it, I will be there at the end applauding MY team off the pitch along with all the other real fans at the club.

There's something different about this club, where else can you go in the league where the players drink in the bar with the fans after the game. It's not as if they're getting roaring pissed and acting like assholes either, they act professionally and with respect to the fans. We don't have any John Terrys or Wayne Rooneys in the club who go out on the lash and act as if they are untouchable. Our players are down to earth people, that's right, they're people. They have put on the AFC Wimbledon shirt and we must trust that they can keep us in the league because they can.

So give it a rest all you non believers, stop being fair weather fans and show your support, we have the right players, the right manager and a club run the right way.

I believe and I will be there at the end. Because I'm a Womble, Til I die.

Thank You and Goodnight.

So it's happened, we all knew that it was going to but yesterday saw confirmation that former AFC Wimbledon skipper, Danny Kedwell and midfielder Steven Gregory leave the club for Gilligham and AFC Bournemouth respectively.
Gregs goes to a club with everybodys thanks and best wishes and goes to a League One club that will probably be pushing for promotion.
Kedwell leaves to go to his hometown club and AFC Wimbledon League Two rivals slightly more contentiously, all because he handed in a transfer request. Just that one act alone would have cost him a few fans thanks.
Personally I'll never forget the kick that sent us into League Two and but I'll always remember that it was his last kick for the club. What a difference a month makes, after all a month before handing in his transfer request he was pledging his future to the club.
It does show just how fickle footballers can be though when it comes to money.

Jack and Reece re-sign!

Afternoon all,

good news from Kingsmeadow this afternoon that Goalkeeper Jack Turner(18) and Midfielder Reece Jones(18) have both signed new contracts!

I've been impressed by both these players when I've seen them, particularly Jones who I think has a really big future in football! You can follow these lads on twitter with Jack Turner being @Jackturner20 and Reece Jones being @reecej100.

On the down side it looks like AFC Bournemouth have finally got their man in Steven Gregory for a reported fee of 50K and Danny Kedwell looks like he's chosen Gilligham over Crawley. Still my thoughts with players that leave are if they don't want to be at our club, we shouldn't really mourn their loss, more say thanks, get as much cash as possible and move on quickly, after all, disruptive influences we do not need.

Until Next time...

Signings!

Not one, not two, not three but five! FIVE players have put pen to paper today for AFC Wimbledon.

Legendary (at 21) 'keeper Seb Brown has signed  a contract extension - was there really any doubt? He is Womble through and through!
You can follow Seb on Twitter too : @Sebbrown1

James Mulley, 22, who put so much energy into so many positions as a non-contract player last season has signed agreed terms and signed a deal today. Top stuff, this young man is a great player, bags of energy, extremely versatile and scores goals too. He was definitely one of my players of last season.
You can follow James on twitter : @JMullz10

Chris Bush is back this time permanently. He was on loan from Brentford last season and did really well for us at Left Back before being recalled to Brentford in January.
Good to see him back, at 19 he's already a quality left back and he'll do really well for us this season.
You can follow Chris on twitter : @chrisbushkin - be warned though, he retweets everything that you mention about him! ;-)

Ryan Jackson is due in to update his contract to a league one and he's a big bonus for us too. He's a tricky, speedy winger who gives full backs all sorts of nightmares, when he's on song. He was one of those players last season that I was thinking was one for the future and at 20 years old, he still is, but I think it's time for him to really step up a gear and deliver that awesome potential on the pitch.

The last player to sign today was Charles Ademeno, 22, from Grimsby Town. You may remember him scoring against us at Broadfield for Creepy back in March 2010 and we're all hoping that he can return the favour and score against Crawley this season.
At 5ft 9ins he's barely taller than me and what I have and he doesn't is a beer gut and what he has that I don't is talent, speed and strength.
AFC have themselves a good striker.
He apparently scored the quickest hat-trick in non-league history, so more of the same please.
You can follow him on twitter : @charley_boy

Dunno about you folks but I'm really starting to think good thoughts about the coming season!

Away News

I go to Wales for 3 days and the fit has hit the shan!
We get the news that Danny Kedwell wants to leave for 'personal reasons' (money probably) and if we should happen to see of Creepy in the Fizzy Piss, sorry Carling Cup we have to play Crystal Feckin Palace in the first round!
Then it was fixture Friday today and I was nowhere near an internet connection to write anything about it!! Bugger!
Let's deal with Kedwell first, citing personal reasons for wanting away from a club usually means the player wants more money or he's fallen out with the manager(Unless you're Wayne Bridge). Now as fans we'll probably never know the real reason for DK wanting to leave but we can assume that he's looking for that one last decent move before being put out to pasture, after all, at 28, he's no spring chicken. Odd though that just a month ago he committed himself to the club for this season. Now I'm an old cynic and it just reminds me what fickle creatures footballers can be. It also shows that tapping up is rife in whatever division you happen to be in. There are two teams that have been mentioned on twitter in the last couple of days, the first one was of course Creepy Crawley, it's public knowledge that them and their handful of fans are big Kedwell admirers and will probably have offered what ever DK asked for. Second team was Gillingham and it's less galling for me because rumour has it DK lives quite close to Gillingham and it would be more convenient for the player.
Should he go to Creepy I don't think even that penalty would be enough to have him forgiven because he would look like just another football mercenary.

The second event this week was the draw for the Fizzy Piss, sorry Carling Cup. Now should we go to Creepy and get a result we'll be facing old rivals Crystal Palace. Bollocks.
I say bollocks because I'm fairly certain that whilst we'll give them a good run for their money, we'll get beat at Selhurst Park and my Deputy Manager is a Palace fan, I'm in for all sorts of abuse.

New bit of news is the Signing of Striker Jack Midson from Oxford Utd, he was in the Oxford side that won promotion to League 2 last summer and by all accounts he did very well for them and their fans have wished him well. Not Kedwell then....

Fixtures coming up...

Preliminary What?

Fizzy Piss sorry Carling Cup winners, Birmingham City are getting a bye to round three apparently even though they've been relegated to the championship because of Europa league commintments.
This means that for the first time in it's recent history(2002/03 was the last time) the Football League Cup will have a preliminary round comprised of the two bottom placed teams in the league.
So this means that we have to go to Crawley on Friday 29th July before the season has even started! Kick off is 19.45.
Bollocks.
Can't Man Utd just pull out or something? They've got previous for that sort of thing! Oh no I forgot, it gives their Mini-me's a chance to play proper football for once!
Anyway, obviously MK Dons should be just be kicked out instead for not being a real club but what ya gonna do? This is the situation and we have to deal with it. Let's just hope we can kick Creepy into touch!
Now, let's see if I can get the night off.....