Thread: Resurrection awaits AFC Wimbledon or Luton Town in play-off final

Resurrection awaits AFC Wimbledon or Luton Town in play-off final

The prize is a return to the Football League which would be as great as previous illustrious moments in these clubs' histories

The AFC Wimbledon goalkeeper Seb Brown in training for the Blue Square Premier play-off final against Luton. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian

It is without doubt the greatest underdog story of football's current age of top-down materialism; all it needs now is a deliriously happy ending. On Saturday afternoon AFC Wimbledon play Luton Town in the Blue Square Premier play-off final at the City of Manchester Stadium. For Wimbledon victory would see this supporter-owned club attain Football League status nine years on from the de facto extinction of their venerable Merton predecessors, Wimbledon FC, who were relocated by the club's owners to the apparently untapped football-hotbed of Milton Keynes, there to rebrand as the MK Dons.
AFC's subsequent rise is a remarkable feat of sustained creative resistance, albeit for many the wounds of the club's formation are still raw. "They started again from absolutely nothing," the club's manager, Terry Brown, says. "No ground, no training ground, no money. Just living off the crowd, which was 3,500 bona fide Wimbledon fans. It's just incredible.
"The Football Association and the Football League allowing the move to become MK Dons was scandalous. And that quote at the time from the FA, that it wasn't in the best interests of football for AFC Wimbledon to start up, it was a scandalous remark. In a way we're bloodying their nose by being successful."
It is worth rehearsing the journey AFC have taken en route to Eastlands. This is a club that as recently as 2001 was holding open trials on Wimbledon Common. Early players included Harvey from So Solid Crew and Glenn "Trigger" Mulcaire, who would score the club's first ever goal and later go to prison for phone-tapping while in the employ of the News of the World. Four promotions in seven seasons followed, culminating in elevation to the Blue Square Premier – the Conference – in 2009. This season AFC finished second in the league, six points ahead of Luton, who are regarded as narrow favourites to win, partly on the strength of getting the better of the two regular-season meetings between the teams (one drawn, one a 3-0 win at Kenilworth Road).
Fittingly for an AFC team built on youth – a hardcore of early 20-somethings bolstered by seniors such as the captain Danny Kedwell – the most striking aspect of pre-Eastlands training at Kingston University playing fields is the universal high spirits; no signs of end-of-season fatigue here.
"They are absolutely flying at the moment," Brown says. "We're having to calm training down rather than building them up. People ask how you stop them freezing on the day, but it just comes down to what good players they are. They're young, they're talented and they play without fear."
The sense of genuine relish for the occasion extends to Erik Samuelson, the club's chief executive. "I think we're going to win it," Samuelson says. "It really is unheard of for me to speak like that, but I'm feeling good. Eastlands is one of the biggest pitches in the Premier League. It will suit us down to the ground. We're young, we're full of pace, we like to pass the ball."
Samuelson has been at AFC right from the start, and carries out his full-time duties in return for the nominal sum of one guinea a year ("it sounded posher than a pound"). He too speaks with zeal about the resurrection of a club of which he is first and foremost a fan. "I've been driven, personally, by righting a wrong. You have to channel that feeling into something positive. I do sometimes think if we do right that wrong and get back in the Football League, maybe I'll just collapse finally."
If there is something vaguely Old Testament about this nine-year quest to right a wrongful exile, there is also a pervading sense of neighbourly positivity about AFC, embodied among the players by the goalkeeper Seb Brown, a 21-year-old locally reared England C international, whose family attend every game. Brown even describes his own conception as "a product of the '88 Cup final": his parents were among the celebrants when crazy gang-era Wimbledon beat Liverpool 1-0 at Wembley.
"Promotion would be amazing for the whole community, there's just such a buzz," Brown says. "This is the biggest game I've played in. It's totally different, with the crowd and the size of the ground. But you can't get caught up in it. We're not doing suits or anything like that. We're treating it like a normal game."
It isn't, of course. But if Wimbledon do feel the magnitude of the occasion, it is worth remembering that Saturday's final has similar significance for Luton, a club previously eviscerated by insolvency and punitive points deductions. There is a salutary indication here of football's shifting sands: 23 years ago last month this fixture – Wimbledon FC v Luton Town – was an FA Cup semi-final (Wimbledon won 2-1 en route to the victory against Liverpool; Luton went on to beat Arsenal to win that season's League Cup). The prize for both, at this stage in their histories, is arguably as great. As Brown says: "Come Saturday they've got a choice to go to Las Vegas or Magaluf – and I'm telling them to go to Las Vegas."

Resurrection awaits AFC Wimbledon or Luton Town in play-off final | Barney Ronay | Football | guardian.co.uk

Interesting fixture.
Never made it to Wimbledons old ground, but went to Lutons a few times.
Whichever club makes it, i hope they are succcessful - Luton because i enjoyed going there, and Wimbledon because MK Dons is a fucking joke.

I am one of the owners of AFC Wimbledon. Well I have a 1 pound share in the club!

Can you get FA cup final tickets?

Originally Posted by withnallstoke

Can you get FA cup final tickets?

Thats a good point. I will have to take this up with the Chairman.

It'll be a great game. I wish I could be there.

Both teams deserve to go up just to stick it up the FA's arse, who have treated them with utter disdain over the last few years.

Good luck to Luton & Wimbledon.

0-0 after extra time

AFC Wimbledon win 4-3 on penalties.

Bad luck Luton. Hope to see you next year

Luton are off to Magaluf.

Congrats to the real Wimbledon. I hope they manage to overtake the MK Wankers in a few seasons.

Lets hope some proerty developer dont chase them oooooooop north once they get themselves re established into the community ,,,,,,,,,good luck to em !

^ Kingston upon Hull?

Crawley Town left them both for dead.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Congrats to the real Wimbledon

Call yourself a fan ?

Originally Posted by LooseBowels

Crawley Town left them both for dead.

Hardly surprising when you see how much money was pumped in

Originally Posted by sabaii sabaii

Call yourself a fan ?

Call yourself a dick?