In 1967, the individuals at ITN travelled to a small, agricultural village in North Buckinghamshire referred to as Milton Keynes. House to 200 residents, the village and its surrounding areas had been designated to deal with a brand new city, a spot to accommodate a post-war overspill of individuals needing new houses and a brand new life. A reporter, taking the opinions of these already dwelling there, discovered a settled neighborhood, suspicious of change. “It’s the Londoners,” one lady mentioned with a smile. “We simply don’t like them.”
Quick ahead over half a century and inside that new city, in a 30,500-capacity multipurpose stadium, you may hear a chant. “No-one likes us, no-one likes us, we don’t care.”
Quite a bit has occurred between ITN’s go to and the current day, from metropolis folks transferring right into a model new city to a south London soccer membership following go well with. Whereas the locals’ mistrust of recent neighbours has lengthy since subsided, there stays loads of scepticism round England’s most resented soccer membership.
MK Dons: Exiting Wimbleon, pursued by a Womble
The ultimate rating was 2-1. In Might 2002, following an FA arbitration assembly, a three-man impartial fee gave their choice. Two of them voted positively, one voted towards. Wimbledon FC can be allowed to maneuver 60 miles north to Milton Keynes.
It was a second that rocked English soccer. Pete Winkelman, a former music government who’d lived in Milton Keynes since 1993, had been searching for a Soccer League membership to search out its place there. The city’s non-league membership had been mooted, however Winkleman noticed that route as too costly a venture. Luton had been approached, QPR, Crystal Palace and Barnet too, nevertheless it was Wimbledon chairman Charles Koppel whose ears had been most pricked by an concept he felt was the one approach to save the membership from monetary oblivion.
Winkelman’s plans included a contemporary new stadium, however whereas an appropriate non permanent house was sought in Milton Keynes, the membership remained at Selhurst Park for 2002/03, having performed there for greater than a decade. They completed tenth within the second tier that season, however indignant Wimbledon followers boycotted and crowds dwindled. Even their mascot Wandle the Womble abandoned them, after the Wombles model refused to increase the licence.
The membership had fallen into administration by the point Milton Keynes’ Nationwide Hockey Stadium was introduced as much as Soccer League commonplace to permit the transfer to occur in 2003, for the fifth house sport of the brand new marketing campaign. Wimbledon had been backside of the desk by then, with simply three factors from eight league matches – just one,054 individuals watched their final sport at Selhurst Park towards Wigan.
With a man-made pitch transformed into grass and non permanent stands erected, the yet-to-be renamed Wimbledon drew 2-2 with Burnley of their first sport in Milton Keynes – a 34-year-old Dean Holdsworth and fellow ahead Patrick Agyemang each discovering the web, in entrance of 5,639 supporters.
That day, the Guardian’s first line of their match protection learn: “English soccer’s first train in franchising couldn’t be much less glamorous.” Amongst these on the sport was Matt Lazenby, a Middlesex-based fan who’d adopted Wimbledon since early childhood, watching the victorious 1988 FA Cup last many times on VHS. Having grown up travelling to Plough Lane after which Selhurst Park, he felt inclined to proceed to comply with the membership after the transfer.
“The expertise was initially very uncomfortable, and I took little or no pleasure from these early seasons,” Lazenby says. “It was a hockey stadium not constructed for soccer, very bizarre, however my group had been taking part in there and I needed to help them. As soon as the whistle blew, it might have been anyplace.
“It was unusual, however what was noticeable pretty shortly was that there have been 6,000 and even 8,000 individuals turning up watching this new factor of their city – you would instantly really feel that there was a marketplace for it, an viewers for it, and that was one thing the membership hadn’t had for 11 years or so.”
Administration nonetheless clouded the skies as Wimbledon completed backside of the second tier, 22 factors wanting security. They received solely two of their 20 video games in Milton Keynes that season.
It could be their final marketing campaign as Wimbledon FC – in June 2004, Winkelman’s Inter MK group purchased the membership and renamed it MK Dons, with a brand new badge and a brand new white equipment.
For Winkelman, what was wanted, if his membership was to be actually recognised, was a brand new stadium. Utilizing monetary help from Asda, who constructed a grocery store on adjoining land, the sector took spectacular form. “Nothing greater than a property deal,” was what number of followers noticed it, however Winkleman was fast to push again. “Individuals suppose it’s simple – you get an Asda and construct a stadium like this,” he mentioned. “We’ve completed one thing extraordinary.”
MK Dons would spend three extra seasons on the Nationwide Hockey Stadium earlier than Stadium MK was able to open – narrowly avoiding relegation to the fourth tier in 2004/05, earlier than succumbing to the drop a 12 months later. In 2006/07, they misplaced within the League Two play-offs.
For 2007/08, the city Winkelman as soon as described as “the largest place within the south east of England, exterior of London” was in a position to boast top-of-the-line stadiums within the nation, which features a lodge and never one however 4 video screens – a determine unmatched anyplace in England, till Tottenham Hotspur’s new area was constructed.
“I bear in mind the take a look at occasion towards Chelsea that summer season,” says Toby Lock, an MK Dons fan who now covers the membership’s matches for the MK Citizen. “It felt like we had a soccer membership right here and there was an enormous change in mindset. All of a sudden it didn’t really feel misplaced or non permanent. We’d been referred to as a plastic membership, a pretend membership. We’d performed for years in a half-built stadium designed for a totally totally different sport, however now right here we had been, in a good looking place, and it was all ours.”
“Your floor’s too huge for you”
The membership loved its first success that season: with Paul Ince as supervisor, MK Dons received the Soccer League Trophy and had been topped League Two champions. Winkleman’s “venture” had legs – the membership’s academy started to bear fruit, most noticeably with the emergence of Dele Alli, bought to Tottenham for £5m in 2015, the 12 months additionally they received their first promotion to the Championship.
Alli had been among the many stars, with Will Grigg scoring twice, as MK Dons thrashed Manchester United 4-0 within the League Cup months earlier, in entrance of just about 27,000.
“Greatest evening of my life, little doubt about it,” says 20-year-old Ollie Charnock, a lifelong MK Dons fan – now, the membership have been in existence for lengthy sufficient for individuals to genuinely say that. “I’ve by no means skilled one thing prefer it, and I don’t suppose I ever will once more.”
The membership averaged greater than 13,000 within the Championship – the stadium additionally turned a favoured location for different matches, internet hosting the 2014 FA Ladies’s Cup last, and 4 matches on the 2022 Ladies’s Euros.
However MK Dons’ keep within the Championship was solely a one-year journey, earlier than they had been relegated again to League One. Since then, momentum has reversed. A drop into League Two lasted only one marketing campaign, adopted by promotion again to the third tier in 2019, however hopes of one other rise to the Championship had been dashed final 12 months once they misplaced within the League One play-offs, then star males like Scott Twine and Harry Darling departed.
With out them, beforehand spectacular boss Liam Manning struggled to get leads to 2022/23, changed by Mark Jackson mid-season, just for the alternative to be sacked himself this Might, when the group had been relegated to League Two once more, the drop confirmed on the final day of the season at Burton Albion. Twenty years since their transfer to Milton Keynes, the membership went into the 2023/24 season two divisions decrease than once they began.
Attendances are wanting what they had been a number of years in the past – their common of 8,462 in 2022/23 was their lowest for any marketing campaign at Stadium MK other than the pandemic season and their League Two season, when crowds weren’t boosted by giant away followings as typically. Ipswich took greater than 6,500 followers there in February 2023.
For matches with fewer away supporters, and the stadium lower than a 3rd full, environment has generally been a wrestle. Early Carabao Cup video games had been watched by lower than 2,500; an EFL Trophy final 32 conflict with Newport by simply 635, which means fewer than one in each 48 seats was occupied.
Environment issues are one thing that fan Ollie Charnock acknowledges, however he insists there’s hope for the years to return. “The good factor is almost all of people that help this membership now are below 25 – that must be an enormous constructive for the longer term,” he explains. “Plenty of the followers earlier than us maybe got here out of curiosity and supported one other membership, and us youthful lot had been virtually outsiders. We got here with new concepts about singing sections and songs – whereas the environment nonetheless wants engaged on, there’s a youthful presence.”
Regardless of the age of those that watch soccer there, they’ve all needed to take heed to a constant stage of hate from supporters of different golf equipment, who proceed to see them as a bastardised model of Frankenstein’s monster. Notions of a franchise merely received’t wash within the English sport. “You possibly can’t change opinions, even after 20 years,” Charnock says. “The hatred towards us is powerful, and we get it from everybody. ‘Your floor’s too huge for you’ and different songs in regards to the ‘franchise’ are at all times there, however we embrace it. ‘Nobody likes us, we don’t care’ is our comeback.”
The outdated Millwall name to arms might sound misplaced in leafy Buckinghamshire, however the followers at MK Dons have created an us towards them mentality that they stand behind. “We’re as hated as Millwall have ever been, however that creates a togetherness,” Lazenby says. “Each MK Dons fan will get into arguments with different followers in regards to the selections they’ve made. There’s a really loyal fanbase, galvanised by the ridicule and the disbelief from different followers, who can’t perceive that we’re real followers of our membership.”
The look ahead to the frenzy
To at the present time, followers at AFC Wimbledon, the membership that rose from the ashes of Winkelman’s fireplace, would take subject with “real” and “our membership” – there’s a enmity that is still uniquely bitter. Simply making an attempt to get an AFC Wimbledon supporter to speak to FourFourTwo for this characteristic was laborious – many nonetheless refuse to acknowledge MK Dons’ presence in any respect. “I attempt to keep away from the phrase rivalry,” says Gary Jordan, supporter and creator of Present Me The Method to Plough Lane: The Outstanding Story of Wimbledon FC’s Return House. “It’s a membership we don’t recognise. It shouldn’t be in existence.”
The 2 groups had been again in the identical league in 2023/24, after AFC Wimbledon’s relegation in 2022, then a disappointing Twenty first-placed end within the fourth tier. Lazenby, having skilled the ultimate seasons of Wimbledon earlier than making the transition to help a group in Milton Keynes, nonetheless takes agency subject with the notion that MK Dons are the dangerous guys. “The transfer to Selhurst Park was the loss of life knell,” he says. “Wimbledon had no capacity to make income aside from promoting gamers. What adopted was relegation and crowds stopped coming.
“I bear in mind going to Sheffield United away in 2002. There have been so few away followers that they closed the away finish and put us in a field. An government field. That claims all of it. It was me, a number of others, and our goalkeeper Kelvin Davis’ mum. We had no fanbase.
“I 100 per cent get that if I’d been an area south west Londoner, used to strolling by Wimbledon to Plough Lane, I’d have been severely disgruntled. Ever because the transfer although, there’s been a one-sided media agenda in favour of AFC over MK Dons. Have a look at the FA Cup. Yearly, AFC are talked about as having received it in 1988. Effectively, they didn’t. MK Dons did. I resent that we needed to resign these titles.
“Don’t get me mistaken, I don’t wish to see what occurred to Wimbledon occur once more. It should not be a precedent, however the way in which it’s been considered, the angels and demons created off the again of it, it’s all mistaken.”
Wimbledon followers argue that they solely stopped attending matches after the FA panel confirmed the transfer in 2002 – followers like Gary Jordan imagine that, with regards to MK Dons, time has confirmed them proper. “It’s an amazing stadium up there, however they received it mistaken,” he says. “You solely have to take a look at their attendances now and the way a lot of a giant catchment space they’ve, and you’ll see it hasn’t labored. Winkelman referred to as it a ‘Frenzy of soccer ready to occur’, however they had been bought a dream that simply isn’t going to occur.”
Solutions that the relocation hasn’t labored don’t sit nicely with those that attend Stadium MK week in, week out. “The largest disappointment in my soccer life is watching this group fail to stay as much as the infrastructure constructed round it,” Lazenby says. “It’s removed from a failure, although. We’ve been informed for 20 years by different followers that soccer is all about historical past – that we’ve no historical past, so how might I help them? Twenty years is just too brief a time to attempt to declare a historical past, too brief a time to deem this venture a failure.”
Like most golf equipment, fortunes on the pitch fluctuate. In loads of different means although, MK Dons aren’t like most membership – they proceed to try to pour cement round their unsteady foundations. Is it working? “Sure, the membership are very a lot part of the city now,” says Toby Lock. “They do work in faculties and the neighborhood. There’s a leisure advanced too, which makes it a focus for that a part of city. It’s taken time and loads of infrastructure however there’s a cinema, purchasing, a McDonald’s and a KFC. Whereas some would possibly chortle at that, it’s necessary to how the city sees the membership – it’s how trendy golf equipment must get alongside. Golf equipment down the pyramid must look into new income streams to assist construct the soccer facet of issues.”
Twenty years on, MK Dons stay a membership striving to be one thing. They face ridicule wherever they go, however for younger followers reminiscent of Ollie Charnock, who solely know them as their group, supporting them is identical as some other. “It’s an amazing membership, it’s my membership,” he says. “I’m so grateful that there’s a membership close to my house that I can go and watch – like loads of my era, I didn’t wish to be merely an armchair fan. We have now plenty of downs, however who is aware of what’s across the nook. Make my goals come true.”
To this point, that hasn’t fully occurred, at the very least not in the way in which that Winkelman in all probability hoped again in 2003. The plan was by no means for MK Dons to be in League Two in 2023 – the place they’re one other 20 years from now will do a lot to outline the success or failure of the franchise. As we speak, similar to that FA panel again in 2002, opinion stays divided.
