Once upon a time, a little club called AFC Wimbledon.....

A mere mention of the word 'Wimbledon' at this time of year,

might make you dream about sharing your bowl of

strawberries and cream

(all washed down with Champagne, of course)

with a certain Roger Federer, maybe?

Or failing that, a rushing to the tennis court with your newly

restrung racquet and very gleaming 'whiter than white' pumps!

But, (sorry to disappoint you!) this is not tennis...

this is a blog post far more serious than that!!

This is football!!

(This is where I lose most of my readers!!LOL)

******

People often think I am mad and they are probably right ;-)

Next to my love for all things vintage, crafting, history, good books

and the theatre, is... my love of the game of footy!

Few of my friends love the game...many hate it and don't understand me!

But I love it and that's that...which is why, back in 2002,

I felt incensed, along with thousands of others,

when the 'powers that be' gave the go ahead for Wimbledon FC

to re- locate to a place some 50 miles away...

Milton Keynes.

Without going into too much detail, this meant that a town,

which had little history itself, suddenly found themselves with

a ready made football league club.

It also meant that the supporters of Wimbledon FC suddenly found

themselves with no football club on their doorstep.

Now, those of you who are not football lovers probably can't

understand what all the fuss was about....

but where football is your life and your club

is your meeting place every other Saturday...it hardly bears thinking about.

At the time, I remember thinking that this would be like

Torquay United relocating to some town in Cornwall

or Somerset or Dorset etc...

I mean how crazy is that?

So...that's what happened and MK Dons was born.

Boo Hiss!! ;-)

******

Incensed at this, true Wimbledon supporters went about setting up

AFC Wimbledon...and to cut a very very very long story short, yesterday

afternoon, after eight very determined seasons,

which involved five promotions through the lower leagues,

AFC Wimbledon was promoted to the football league.

It took nine years and a lot of hard work, true grit and determination .

I don't support AFC Wimbledon but I do support justice

and fairness in the game and I do think that it is ALWAYS

the supporters who get the rough end of the deal

in football..yet without the supporters ..well where would the game be?

So boy, did I let out a huge cheer!

I love Saturdays and the footy results!

During these years, I've always watched out for the results of Wimbledon AFC.

Yesterday, even though their play off match went to a penalty shoot out,

I just knew that this was how the story had to end...

it couldn't be any other ending! Could it?

Because, as with most fairy tales, the ending is usually happy.

Except that this is not the end is it?

Oh no! It's a new beginning

for all of those supporters and people at AFC Wimbledon,

who made it all happen.

******

''This is a phenomenal achievement," the Wimbledon manager, Terry Brown, said. "We've done it in nine years but could have done it quicker with proper finance from a multimillionaire. Instead the club has been driven on by pure fan power. We have 35 volunteers who do every job around the club. We look after them and they look after us. That ethos won't change now we're in League Two, when we'll have the smallest wage bill in the division by a mile. But that is what Wimbledon has always been about; being the underdog and fighting for everything they can get."

******

I might well have had a smile on my face at 5.30pm ish yesterday but

it was nowhere as big as the smiles on the faces of

those in Wimbledon, I'm sure!

And I bet the Strawberries and Champagne tasted so very, very sweet!

Well done AFC Wimbledon!

GAME SET AND MATCH...I'D SAY SO!! ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFC_Wimbledon

;-)