End of season

[Kairdiff Exile]

Bit surprised no-one's commented on yesterday's win and the close of the season. I thought we were good value for our win yesterday, albeit in a dead rubber against a decidedly average Newport team. A decent goal, a superb away following and maybe just maybe we have reason to feel a glimmer of optimism about next year (however small and qualified with millions of caveats). It could certainly be worse - Newport will be losing all bar a handful of their squad, the money has dried up and they've jusst appointed Terry Butrcher. Next season's basket-case club, for sure.

Only downsideto the weekend was seeing Franchise FC promoted to the second tier and the lack of comment about their pariah status from the big media outlets. #AgainstModernFootball

[Snake]

Saw a couple of cars in the queue for the £6.50 M4 Toll on my way to South Wales yesterday with Yellow and Blue in them. I’m also gutted that Franchise FC made it, and Them from down the A420 in the play-offs. A shame that Oxford City’s season was not extended (one point short in the end) as that would meant the season is not over for Oxford people, but it is. Meanwhile, major domestic football goes on for 3 more weeks for some clubs - it never used to be like that, but a good job as this summer is bereft of footy.

http://www.oddschecker.com/football/eng ... son-winner

[GodalmingYellow]

I agree, we were good value for the win.

Rodney Parade is a horrible ground in a grim location.

Even the motorway services 5 miles from the ground, that the LRC coaches inexplicably stopped at for half an hour, were one of the worst I have ever visited.

The front rows of seats in the covered stand, weren't anything like covered, and were at below pitch level which always makes a poor view.

The open end was shallow terracing converted to seating with no covering.

Despite a couple of enforced changes to the line up, we looked very solid and organised (again). We created plenty of chances, and gave little away.

We are so much better off the ball now than 2 months ago even, like a completely different team in fact. And we retain possession much better too.

It would make me very happy to see Kemar Roofe in an Oxford shirt again next season. Top quality at this level, but sadly he will surely be wanted in a higher division.

The first half of the season had me questioning my sanity. The second half has left me looking forward to next season with genuine hope.

It would be difficult to justify price increases for next season, but a drop for adult prices is not necessary, especially if the creative elements becoming evident at the club can find some no/low cost, but nonetheless real, added value for the long suffering season ticket holders. Reserved parking would be nice. First round of any home cup matches would be welcome too.

So the next important event will be the retained list. I imagine news will begin filtering out this week.

[recordmeister]

And now the table is filed for the year, it's is interesting to see how much better CW has done at N'ton, than Oxford United have achieved this season. 4 extra goals. Well done Chris.

[Jimski]

I really enjoyed that match. We played well in the first half and solidly in the second, when Newport really gave us a going over in search of that equaliser. A party atmosphere - all great fun. I actually liked the ground - had a feel of being twenty years ago, especially as the likes of Billy Ocean were played over and over. A good end to a 'meh' season.

P.S. But yes Franchise sneaking up into the second tier put a real dampener on things. Ugh.

[Kernow Yellow]

I've always been a big critic of MK 'Dons', and more importantly of the way the FA arbitration panel allowed Wimbledon to just up sticks to their chairman's preferred destination. It was wrong, and nothing will make it right. Let's hope it never happens again.

But do you know what? My hatred for the club itself has waned considerably. A lot of water has gone under the bridge in the dozen or so years that have passed. They've built up a local fanbase, handed back Wimbledon's trophies and heritage to AFC (via London Borough of Merton). They've even played AFC a few times.

When they formed I really wanted them to fail - to drop out of the league, to go bust, just to disappear. But that hasn't happened, and it isn't going to happen now. They are here to stay and we might as well get used to it. Most of the fans that go now (and presumably all the players and the vast majority of staff) have come along since the original move. And while it's not right that they should have just been handed a league club on a plate, I don't really begrudge them their success now. I certainly don't feel conflicted when they play Sw*nd*n these days! Sure, I'd have preferred Preston to have gained promotion, but I'm not going to lose any sleep about it. I might even go and watch us if we ever get to play there, which is something I'd never have countenanced before AFC made it back into the league.

[Snake]

Really? Well I haven’t forgotten that easily.

I hope they get stuffed in every game next season, and in doing so overspend to the point of going bust. The only reason I would ever contemplate going there is if that were to happen and their supporters were doing collections to save their club, in which case I’d happily drive up there to deposit the content of my cat’s litter tray into their collection buckets (and would probably have to join a long queue of people waiting to do a similar kind of thing).

[Jimski]

What Snake said. What they hoped at the time was that we'd eventually forget and/or forgive. That time would see them accepted by all as legitimate. Well, eventually we'll all be dead and that will probably happen. But not while I'm alive, it won't...

[Kernow Yellow]

That's fair enough, and I certainly wouldn't try and persuade you otherwise. I won't forgive or forget what the FA arbitration panel did (against the wishes of the Football League). Nor what Sam Hamman and Charles Koppel did in trying to move Wimbledon to pastures new. I would like to think that the reaction to their decision has ensured it won't happen again for a while.

But it is inevitable that they will become just another football club - indeed to many football fans, especially the younger generation, they already have. I don't wish them well, and would certainly be happier if they were failing, but I can't be bothered to keep hating them like I used to. When I look around at the way clubs like Leeds and Blackpool are run, and most PL clubs, that makes me much more sick than how MK Dons go about their business these days.

[GodalmingYellow]

I've always been a big critic of MK 'Dons', and more importantly of the way the FA arbitration panel allowed Wimbledon to just up sticks to their chairman's preferred destination. It was wrong, and nothing will make it right. Let's hope it never happens again.

But do you know what? My hatred for the club itself has waned considerably. A lot of water has gone under the bridge in the dozen or so years that have passed. They've built up a local fanbase, handed back Wimbledon's trophies and heritage to AFC (via London Borough of Merton). They've even played AFC a few times.

When they formed I really wanted them to fail - to drop out of the league, to go bust, just to disappear. But that hasn't happened, and it isn't going to happen now. They are here to stay and we might as well get used to it. Most of the fans that go now (and presumably all the players and the vast majority of staff) have come along since the original move. And while it's not right that they should have just been handed a league club on a plate, I don't really begrudge them their success now. I certainly don't feel conflicted when they play Sw*nd*n these days! Sure, I'd have preferred Preston to have gained promotion, but I'm not going to lose any sleep about it. I might even go and watch us if we ever get to play there, which is something I'd never have countenanced before AFC made it back into the league.

I tend to agree. I never thought I would come to accept MKD in any form, but given that AFC accept the position and now have a great chance of moving back to Plough Lane (if Labour MP Sadiq Khan keeps his nose out anyway), and have their league status back (by and large), I think I would now go to an OUFC v MKD game. I still want MKD to lose every game and go out of the league and go bust, but I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face by missing an OUFC match.

[Jimski]

but given that AFC accept the position

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this? Certainly the two AFC Wimbledon fans I know (one of whom is their original chairperson) do not accept Franchise on any terms. They are proud of what they themselves have achieved (naturally) but are still filled with rage at the way their club was allowed to be destroyed, and not just - as at some other clubs - by unscrupulous owners, but by the very guardians of the game itself. Wouldn't you be if it had been Oxford?

It was actually interesting to see their attitudes in the run-up to the cup matches in which they recently played Franchise. There was a feeling of sickness at the matches taking place at all, rather than any sense of wanting to beat them as some sort of "revenge". The matches as contests somehow felt irrelevant in comparison to the fact that that they were happening at all.

[Kairdiff Exile]

Like Jimski, I have friends who are AFCW fans who were appalled by the way the media reported the games between their side and Franchise. It wasn't a "chance for revenge", it didn't "add a bit of extra spice" and it was not "the ultimate grudge match". All of those lines, peddled by the media, suggested that this was still at its heart a game like any other but with some added history. But it wasn't; it couldn't be. One set of fans fundamentally does not accept the other club's right to exist.

Much as I might enjoy our rivalry with Sw*ndon, I don't believe they shouldn't exist (and nor, secretly, would I want them to be wiped off the face of the earth; if they were, we would soon have to invent another 'local rival' to hate in the same way). What AFCW fans feel towards Franchise is something altogether different, and they have every right to feel it.

The parallel would be if next week Mark Ashton decided to wind up OUFC and move us to Ross On Wye (the distance is about 65 miles and the drive about 1hr 40m, both similar to that between Wimbledon and Milton Keynes). He then decides to change the colours and the name of the team. How would you feel about that? He wouldn't care, of course - he doesn't expect you to follow the new team. Your feelings are irrelevant. Except they're not, are they, because we all understand that people feel an affinity to their football teams and this isn't a normal business (hence fora like this one).

As for the 'fans' who follow the new club, the argument is often made that they're just supporting their local team. But that's bollocks. Milton Keynes had a perfectly decent non-league team, but they were put out of business by the arrival of Franchise. If some of those new fans had supported their local team earlier and with a bit more gusto, maybe the town would have a proper, organic league side of its own by now and the world would admire them for having earned it the hard way. But instead they chose to support a Pariah Club and shouldn't be allowed to forget it.

As Jimski said, everyone involved in that shameful episode hoped enough time would pass that the world would forget. That only happens if we let it. Don't let it.

[Snake]

I've always been a big critic of MK 'Dons', and more importantly of the way the FA arbitration panel allowed Wimbledon to just up sticks to their chairman's preferred destination. It was wrong, and nothing will make it right. Let's hope it never happens again.

But do you know what? My hatred for the club itself has waned considerably. A lot of water has gone under the bridge in the dozen or so years that have passed. They've built up a local fanbase, handed back Wimbledon's trophies and heritage to AFC (via London Borough of Merton). They've even played AFC a few times.

When they formed I really wanted them to fail - to drop out of the league, to go bust, just to disappear. But that hasn't happened, and it isn't going to happen now. They are here to stay and we might as well get used to it. Most of the fans that go now (and presumably all the players and the vast majority of staff) have come along since the original move. And while it's not right that they should have just been handed a league club on a plate, I don't really begrudge them their success now. I certainly don't feel conflicted when they play Sw*nd*n these days! Sure, I'd have preferred Preston to have gained promotion, but I'm not going to lose any sleep about it. I might even go and watch us if we ever get to play there, which is something I'd never have countenanced before AFC made it back into the league.

I tend to agree. I never thought I would come to accept MKD in any form, but given that AFC accept the position and now have a great chance of moving back to Plough Lane (if Labour MP Sadiq Khan keeps his nose out anyway), and have their league status back (by and large), I think I would now go to an OUFC v MKD game. I still want MKD to lose every game and go out of the league and go bust, but I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face by missing an OUFC match.

If you go to such a game can we agree that I financially contribute towards your matchday expenses, so long as you dump some of my cat’s crap just outside the away turnstiles?

[Kernow Yellow]

As for the 'fans' who follow the new club, the argument is often made that they're just supporting their local team. [...] they chose to support a Pariah Club and shouldn't be allowed to forget it.

Very little of what you say contradicts anything I wrote, and I agree with most of your first few paragraphs. No-one (on here at least) is trying to justify the original travesty.

It's the bit I've highlighted that I take issue with. So a teenager who recently started following MK Dons after some community outreach work by the club should be made to feel guilty for doing so? A family newly moved to the area who want to encourage their kids to support their local team should not do so and instead continue paying a Sky subscription so they can call themselves Chelsea or Man City fans instead? Sorry, but I disagree.

[GodalmingYellow]

but given that AFC accept the position

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this? Certainly the two AFC Wimbledon fans I know (one of whom is their original chairperson) do not accept Franchise on any terms. They are proud of what they themselves have achieved (naturally) but are still filled with rage at the way their club was allowed to be destroyed, and not just - as at some other clubs - by unscrupulous owners, but by the very guardians of the game itself. Wouldn't you be if it had been Oxford?

It was actually interesting to see their attitudes in the run-up to the cup matches in which they recently played Franchise. There was a feeling of sickness at the matches taking place at all, rather than any sense of wanting to beat them as some sort of "revenge". The matches as contests somehow felt irrelevant in comparison to the fact that that they were happening at all.

I know someone involved in the running of AFC, and they accept the present position. They have no wish to fight the dispute any longer. They accept that MKD exist and that their league status will be upheld by the authorities to the same extent as any other club. That doesn't mean they like it of course, but they accept it and acknowledge that it isn't going to change.