Wimbledon, a town
located in south-west London with a population of over 68,000 people. It is
famously known for its Wimbledon Tennis Tournament that crowns the best Male
& Female tennis players. It also was the home of a football club that had success
in the 80s & 90s until its unexpected demise; poor ownership, loss of
stadium and going against its own fans. This is the rise and fall of Wimbledon Football Club.
The club itself was formed in 1889 and mostly played its
football in the lowest leagues. They moved to their stadium named Plough Lane
in 1912, the same year the Titanic sank. 1931 saw their first trophy as they
were crowned champions of the Isthmian league. They would win this trophy
another 7 times until they were transferred to the Southern league in 1964 for
geographical reasons and to get a better chance of being elected into the
professional Football league. Before 1986, non-league clubs had to run to be elected to the professional
leagues against the four worst perfoming teams in the EFL. Only a few clubs
managed to win including Wigan Athletic, Hereford United, Oxford United,
Ipswich Town and many more. In 1977, Wimbledon finally gained a spot in the
Football League after beating Workington FC to re-election and became
professional; before this, the team won the Southern league 3 times in a row
under their manager, Allen Batsford. This was at the time when their new
nickname was starting to be used, the Wombles. This came from the show of the
same name where the Wombles’ home was located in the bottom of Wimbledon.
Wimbledon’s first season in professional football started
rough. Their manager was sacked and were mostly near the bottom of the table.
Fortunes changed when their new manager, Dario Gradi, steered the club in the
right way and finished 13th place out of 24 places. Most of the work
came from its owner, Sam Hammam. He took over the club just after the club’s
election. The next year saw the club promoted from the 4th to the 3rd
division by finishing in the top 4 automatic promotion spots. They also made FA
Cup progress by playing against Leeds United in 1975 and Southampton in 1978,
both teams were in the top league. However, the 3rd division was
more harder for them and were relegated after just one season in last place.
But nobody would have guessed what would happen next as the Wombles got
promoted back to the 3rd division.
It might sound confusing at first but the divisions are easy
to understand. The 4th division is the basement league of newcomers
and other teams that are in financial problems, the 3rd division was
where clubs would develop as standard professional teams, the 2nd
division was where the TV rights would start to come in with more bigger arenas
and the 1st division was where the best of the best would play; this
included Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham.
1981-82 saw the club back in division 3 and bad luck struck
again with Wimbledon relegated yet again but only by goal difference against
Walsall by scoring less than 10 goals. The club was very close to staying up.
This lead the team to shape up and get stronger under their new manager, Dave
Bassett. Hammam’s money would change everything as the club was not just
promoted back to the 3rd division but also the 2nd
division in 1984 and then Division One! This was all done in four years.
Wimbledon were finally in the promised land and if it was not for their
manager, their owner and their main goal-scorer, Alan Cork, Wimbledon would
have been languishing in the bottom leagues.
Wimbledon’s first season in Division 1 saw the club finish 6th.
They did better than Aston Villa, Manchester City, Chelsea, Nottingham Forest
and even Manchester United. Players such as John Fashanu, Alan Cork, Lawrie
Sanchez, Vinnie Jones and many more would become superstars for the club. 1987
saw Bassett leave Wimbledon and was taken over by Bobby Gould, the next season
would be their most unexpectedly successful season.
In 1988, the Wombles finished 7th with Fashanu
becoming the highest goal scorer for a second season. However, it was not just
a successful league year for Wimbledon but it would be the FA Cup that would
make the team a household name in England. They won against West Brom,
Mansfield, Newcastle United, Watford and Luton Town to make it to the finals;
their team they had to defeat was Liverpool, who won the league that season
with their Manager Kenny Dalglish. Miraculously, a Lawrie Sanchez header
managed to get back in the net and managed to win Wimbledon the FA Cup. When
the final whistle was blown by the referee, the commentator, John Motson,
shouted out on TV “The Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club!”. This would be
the club’s newest nickname due to the diversity of skilful and interesting
footballers in the team .The trophy was very important to them because it
allowed clubs from the small divisions to the First division to play against
each other in a knock-off tournament and give the winners a chance to play in
Europe the next year. Sadly, in 1985, the Heysel disaster occurred between
Liverpool and Juventus; this was when Liverpool fans caused knuckle fights and
riots against the other team during one of their European matches and got all
English teams banned from European football for 5 whole years. This was an era
of Hooliganism and hardcore vandalism in football. Despite this, Wimbledon
celebrated their success and were given a chance to play in a special Centenary
English Football League tournament with the top 8 clubs in the First division. They
were knocked out against Newcastle in the Quarter final.
The next few seasons in the top league for Wimbledon were decent
as the club were still strong with finishes at 12th in 1989, 8th
in 1990 and 7th in 1991. On the other hand, Plough Lane was found
not to be legible for top flight football as most of the stadium had not a lot
of seats and would crush many people who would stand up and be too crowded that
it would be seen as a hazard. This came after the Hillsborough incident in
1989, where policemen failed to control the Liverpool fans who wanted to watch
their team play against Nottingham in the FA Cup Semis. 96 fans died and was a
turning point for football arenas; no more terraced stands and more seats for
comfortability. Because of this, Wimbledon had to groundshare with Crystal
Palace in Croydon.
Wimbledon then finished 13th in 1992 with Fashanu
being the top goal scorer again; Joe Kinnear would become the new manager in
the middle of that season. And then the next season would change as the first
division left the Football League and was renamed to the Premier League. This
meant more money from TV broadcasting, more sponsorship and more success for
the Crazy Gang. A 12th place finished kept Wimbledon up in 1993,
followed by their best league position in 1994, Sixth place. Just as they
pulled off another great season, things would change for Wimbledon. Sanchez,
Cork, Fashanu and many more players left for other teams; they were still
ground-sharing with Crystal Palace; plans for a new stadium were in turmoil and
Hammam wanted to relocate the whole club to Dublin in Ireland!
1995 saw the club finish 9th, 1996 saw the club
finish 14th and 1997 would be their last top 10 season as they
finished 8th and reaching the FA Cup semi-finals until losing to
Middlesbrough in away goals. Other players like Dean Holdsworth, Peter Shilton and
Vinnie Jones would leave or retire; Vinnie would see success as an actor in ‘Gone
in 60 seconds’, ‘Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels’ and ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’.
1997 would also be the year that Hammam left the club, not even taking his pet
Elephant for a walk around the stadium would bring the club some luck. Instead,
he sold the Wombles to two Norwegian Millionaires Bjorn & Kjell. Hammam
would later purchase Cardiff City FC in 2000 and send them to the Second
Division.
Wimbledon’s first season with the new owners was not as
great as they wished. They finished 15th out of 20 teams, just
surviving relegation by 4 points. The next season saw them do worse by finishing
16th; this would be a sign that Wimbledon were in a downward spiral
as famous players left, they were still not back at Wimbledon and Joe Kinnear
would leave in 1999 due to health issues. Even the owners were ridiculed by
fans for not delivering success for the club. That season saw them go from 6th
to 16th in just a few weeks to meaning no European football.
Unfortunately, the club would see its last season in the Premier league as the
club finished 18th and were relegated; after 14 years, the Wombles
were no longer a Premier League team.
After the club finished 8th in the now named
Nationwide 1st division, plans were brought in to relocate Wimbledon
to Milton Keynes; a town with population of over 200,000 that did not have a
professional football team. This caused major protests and opposition against
the ideas; but it did not stop the Football League and FA to allow the
relocation to happen. These plans were forwarded by businessman Peter Winkelman
who also shared his ideas to Luton Town, Charlton Athletic, Barnet & Queens
Park Rangers. Wimbledon finished 9th place in 2002 by missing out
again a play off spot to return to the Premier League. The next year saw
Wimbledon play their last game in Croydon by finishing 10th in the 2nd
tier of English football, their controversial move to Milton Keynes was
confirmed as they moved to the National Hockey Stadium in the 2003-04 season
with a name change confirmed. Wimbledon were in financial stress and were to
change their names to Milton Keynes Dons, thus losing thousands of patriotic
fans and gaining new fans in Milton Keynes. Their last season as Wimbledon
finished dead last and were relegated to the 3rd tier; the club’s
sponsor was literally propaganda for the new club with ‘Go MK!’ on their
shirts. And after that, Wimbledon Football Club was no more. 115 years of
history lost, but not forgotten.
So, where is MK Dons now? Their first few seasons were a
nightmare with relegation to tier four in their second season. At this time,
the EFL rebranded into the Coca Cola League with the Championship as the second
division and Leagues One & Two being the bottom two leagues. 2008 saw the
Dons back in League one but lost automatic promotion to the Championship by one
point. 2015 saw the team finally promoted with Dele Alli moving to Tottenham
Hotspur after helping the Dons by scoring many of the goals to get them there,
which did not last. The team finished 23rd and were relegated back
after 1 season and suffered relegation again in 2018 to league Two. The club
currently plays its football in League one, the 3rd highest tier in
English football.
But the memories of Wimbledon never went away as a phoenix
club was formed in 2002 under the name AFC Wimbledon after the vote to relocate
Wimbledon to their current home. Starting in the 9th tier, the club
rocketed the non-leagues by winning the penultimate promotion to the Football
League in 2011 by winning against Luton Town, who were in financial problems
years ago. They would stay in league Two for a few years by surviving
relegation despite finishing in the bottom half of the league for 4 seasons
running. They would succeed by finishing 7th and securing promotion to League
One after defeating Plymouth in the play-off finals with the help of Adebayo
Akinfenwa & Lyle Taylor. The club currently play football back in Plough
Lane and compete in League One, the same league as MK Dons; thus forming a
rivalry between two teams with one being a club that sold out and one being the
club that fans built to keep Wimbledon in Wimbledon
Wimbledon FC is a lesson to all football clubs to show that
staying where you started from is more important that relocating to different
towns, cities or even countries for financial hunger. As the Wombles left
Plough Lane in 1991, fortunes dried out year by year until its infamous
relocation and refurbishment as a new team in 2005. However, the 14 years at
the highest league of English Football will never be forgotten as the new
Wimbledon are still on a quest to get to the Premier League. Even if the
probability of this may be low, at least the town of Wimbledon have got their
club back. As the fans say, ‘Once a Womble, always a Womble’.
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