MK Dons Pre-Season Friendly...

[Fantastic Mr Ox]

OK, so it's been mentioned on another thread in passing, so who is actually going to boycott this one then?

I remember hearing a few people say a few years ago that if we ever played MK Dons, they would not go to the game due to the circumstances with how the club came into being.

Does anyone still stand by that view and will never watch us play them, home or away?

[Joey's Toe]

I'll be boycotting it. Would also be up for picketing the ground if others felt sufficiently motivated. I think there are too many fans (particularly younger ones) who simply don't understand what the issue is with Franchise.

[slappy]

Seems to me that because we've never had a chance to boycott a game against the MK Dons, it has led to an inordinate built up bitterness a decade or more in the making, just to make a point. I surmise that most clubs who have played them a couple of times have now gotten over this. The MK's know their history and trophies have been given back to AFC Kingston and I wonder just how many fans of the original Wimbledon are still there.

Should we also boycott every club which has cheated its way to success through overspending and going into administration and paying creditors just pennies in the pound?

[Kernow Yellow]

Boycotting a home game is perverse. Boycotting a home league game against a team your team were obliged to play, thus depriving your own club of revenue, would be rank stupidity.

I would still feel uncomfortable attending a game in MK. Living in Cornwall and working most Saturdays means I have to pick and choose games carefully, so in the normal run of things a game away at MK Dons certainly wouldn't be one of them. But I dare say if it were a particularly crucial fixture I could put my reservations to one side...

[Joey's Toe]

The Franchise case is completely different from any 'normal' example of wrongdoing such as those you suggest, Slappy.

In Franchise's case, a new 'club' with no history of success or achievement of their own STOLE the league place of another club from a completely different part of the country. That action was unprecedented and the FA have since changed the rules in a way which acknowledge that this is incompatible with the British football ethos whereby league position is dictated by merit.

If the people of MK wanted a football team, they had non-league clubs who they could have supported and helped to climb the ladder in the traditional way. But they didn't.

As for this point: &quotI surmise that most clubs who have played them a couple of times have now gotten (sic) over this&quot, that's entirely a matter for them. But as long as I have breath in my body, I will refuse to in any way acknowledge or legitimise Franchise as a proper football club when they are demonstrably anything but.

A protest or boycott probably won't change anything, it's true. But it's a crying shame that people on this board and others don't seem able to understand the idea of doing something (or, in this case, NOT doing something) because of a matter of principle.

[JoeyBeauchamp]

The Franchise case is completely different from any 'normal' example of wrongdoing such as those you suggest, Slappy.

In Franchise's case, a new 'club' with no history of success or achievement of their own STOLE the league place of another club from a completely different part of the country.

Stole is a very strong word. Did they not simply relocate the club to a different location? Effectively it is the same club, however distasteful the move was.

[Joey's Toe]

Depends on what you consider the be the heart of a club. If &quota club&quot is its community, its fans and its history - then yes, they stole it.

I'm amazed (and slightly disappointed) by the attitude of some RO posters on this subject. I thought I'd be preaching to the choir on this one.

[BigCrompy]

The Franchise case is completely different from any 'normal' example of wrongdoing such as those you suggest, Slappy.

In Franchise's case, a new 'club' with no history of success or achievement of their own STOLE the league place of another club from a completely different part of the country.

Stole is a very strong word. Did they not simply relocate the club to a different location? Effectively it is the same club, however distasteful the move was.

They've actually officially handed their history back to AFC Wimbledon, including all their amateur and non-league honours, the giant-killings, the FA Cup.

So effectively, an entirely new club was born yet was allowed to begin life in Tier 3 of the pyramid, entirely (I'd be fairly sure) without precendent.

[SmileyMan]

The Franchise case is completely different from any 'normal' example of wrongdoing such as those you suggest, Slappy.

In Franchise's case, a new 'club' with no history of success or achievement of their own STOLE the league place of another club from a completely different part of the country.

Stole is a very strong word. Did they not simply relocate the club to a different location? Effectively it is the same club, however distasteful the move was.

Just to warn you, you're on a hiding to nothing with this - there's some pretty well encrusted viewpoints around here.

[JoeyBeauchamp]

The Franchise case is completely different from any 'normal' example of wrongdoing such as those you suggest, Slappy.

In Franchise's case, a new 'club' with no history of success or achievement of their own STOLE the league place of another club from a completely different part of the country.

Stole is a very strong word. Did they not simply relocate the club to a different location? Effectively it is the same club, however distasteful the move was.

Just to warn you, you're on a hiding to nothing with this - there's some pretty well encrusted viewpoints around here.

Yeah I can't be arsed really - I don't care as much as some do clearly. I've never seen a football club compared to Mugabe before! (the other thread on this). Seems the morally-outraged will say anything to try to convince others

[Joey's Toe]

Ahem, yes. May have got a bit carried away there.

Still think the argument (just about) holds though.

[Werthers Original]

The moral arguments are fairly clear but I'd feel more strongly about this if Wimbledon had had any fans to start with. Didnt they once get 3,000 against Everton, before all the boycotting started?

[theox]

The Franchise case is completely different from any 'normal' example of wrongdoing such as those you suggest, Slappy.

In Franchise's case, a new 'club' with no history of success or achievement of their own STOLE the league place of another club from a completely different part of the country.

Stole is a very strong word. Did they not simply relocate the club to a different location? Effectively it is the same club, however distasteful the move was.

In fact, you could say that they gave a homeless club a home. It's actually rather charitable.....

[BigCrompy]

The moral arguments are fairly clear but I'd feel more strongly about this if Wimbledon had had any fans to start with. Didnt they once get 3,000 against Everton, before all the boycotting started?

IMHO that's even part of the problem. The notion that since they were small and inoffensive, they wouldn't be missed and so could be pimped off to the highest bidder without so much of a slur upon anyone's conscience.

To those 3000 people, Wimbledon FC would have been the world.

It could so easily have been us and our club, were history just slightly different!

[slappy]

So when our club almost died in the Conference yet Portsmouth and Plymouth stuffed the St John's Ambulance and the people who laid their pitch is not as bad? Cheating fans is bad but leaving creditors out of pocket is ok? I don't think OUFC can claim much grace from this, but perhaps our four years count as some form of penance.