Wombling free
Franchise 2 Burnley 1
Alternative match report by Firmo
And so the bright day dawned in
which Burnley were to play in London, and I wasn't going to be there to see
them – by choice. The funny thing is,
it felt fine. I had expected to feel a pang or two that sunny Sunday morning
about missing Burnley playing on my manor, but in the end it turned out to
be surprisingly easy to join up with the Wimbledon supporters instead. It just
felt like the right thing to do. As we sat on the grass outside the Hand in
Hand on Wimbledon Common drinking excellent Young's bitter in the sunshine,
I knew we had been right to do it. The game hardly mattered. We scarcely gave
it thought.
The day was, of course,
not without its disappointments. For a start, Burnley allowed Franchise to
beat them.
Not having been at the game, I obviously can't
comment on match incidents or team performance, but a Burnley victory really
was what was required for the afternoon. It was one of those unusual occasions
where two sets of supporters wanted the same team to win. We cheered our player
of the season's opening goal – but so did the Wimbledon fans. We were
mutually upset when Connolly scored two goals to give Franchise a win. Comment
from one of the Wimbledon fans: "He never did anything when he played
for us last season."
It was also mildly disappointing
that the Selhurst Park attendance was as high as 1,972. We wanted it to be
much lower. Still, the Wimbledon supporters
were pretty happy with another sub-2,000 gate. Bearing in mind that the attendances
are massaged anyway, they felt this was a very low crowd for not just the final
game of the season, but their former club's last ever home match in London.
Personally, I'd hoped we might erase from the record books that pesky lowest
post-War attendance of 1,692 at home to Colchester in 1986. I'd wanted us to
snatch WISA's 'biggest percentage attendance drop' trophy from the hands of
Nob End. As it turned out, while Preston saw a drop of 83.8% in their attendance
from this season, we will have to be satisfied with a thoroughly creditable
74.31% fall. Not bad at all.
Well done to everyone who chose
to stay away. Apparently only 473 Clarets fans attended, which is clearly
well down on the number of supporters we would
normally expect to see at a London match. Naturally it's disappointing that
anyone was there at all – an ideal away following would have been zero – but
those of us who pressed for a boycott can take quiet satisfaction from that
low away attendance. It never was a terribly easy thing to do, asking people
not to go and support their team. Wimbledon supporters know and readily concede
this. They realised they were asking a lot, and what they did not want was
for supporters to squabble over the rights and wrongs of a boycott, but I can
tell you that they really do value the sacrifice made by anyone who decided
to stay away. It was clear that the efforts of some Burnley supporters' groups,
websites and fanzines in supporting their cause was very much appreciated.
I know for a fact a number of stalwart members of the London Clarets made the
conscious decision to stay away from the game. To them, I pass on the Wimbledon
supporters’ thanks.
So, well done to those
who gave it a miss – and let’s have no
comebacks and recriminations between those who did and those who didn’t.
Naturally, the internet has given rise to a certain amount of this, generally
taking the line that anyone who can stay away must not be a true Burnley supporter.
How predictable, and how utterly boring. I’ll only say that for me it
was a nice coincidence that, in the same week that in ten years of living in
London I first missed a match in the South East by choice, I took delivery
of my first Burnley season ticket since moving South. Nothing to prove here.
The important thing was staying
away from the game. It's fair to say that there wasn't a great turn-out on
the Common for the alternative afternoon drink.
Of London Clarets there was a smattering, with rather more Wimbledon fans on
parade. Funny how it goes. We decided to mount an alternative event because
people asked for one, but I noted that the people who'd requested it tended
to be absent. I suppose it will always be thus. There are plenty of folk who
will go along with something on the way back from a game with a few pints inside
them only to give it a miss when it comes to the crunch. And I suppose we already
knew that there's a difference between sticking your hand in the air for something
at an AGM and actually doing it in practice. Still, what the hell – the
people who came enjoyed themselves. I was always going to have to go out for
a drink – sitting at home listening to Clarets World or something would
have been too strange – so given that, at least I got good company and
a nice place to drink in.
We spent the time of the Selhurst
Park match sitting on the grass and talking about football. The Wimbledon
supporters are a jolly nice bunch of people,
articulate, passionate, and possessing – after what they've been through – surprisingly
intact senses of humour. The beer flowed freely – I never seemed to be
without at least one pint – and the football world was put to rights.
Then it was time for the
real match of the day. Being of the chronically fat and unfit disposition,
I excused myself from this. I last played in a five-a-side
match about ten years ago and vowed never again, and so far I seem to have
stuck to my word. I'm not sure what the excuses of others were, but Phil Whalley
did us proud, representing the London Clarets in a game that veered between
five- and six-a-side. As many of the players on both sides were wearing various
hues of AFC shirts, I was never quite sure who was playing for what side or
what direction they were playing in, and although there were plenty of goals
(not that we're not used to that), I've no idea what the score was or which
side won. Good match report, eh?
Phil, playing to no one’s surprise very much on the left wing, proved
to be capable of beating an opponent with ease – although a touchline
might have impaired his trademark take-the-ball-around-the-outside-of-the-opponent
routine. The lack of an end product to his forays forward provoked comparison
with Alan Moore, although in the cold light of sobriety that was unfair. Phil
became ‘Burnleyman’ for the two playing children – that’s
what they shouted when they wanted the pass – and even when all other
adults had flopped onto the grass breathing deeply, he stayed upright to run
the two kids through some goalkeeping coaching. Young Rhys, resplendent in
the green of the AFC goalkeeping kit, looked a particularly bright prospect – but
apparently he’s already on Wimbledon’s books.
After the match, we said
our goodbyes to the Wimbledon supporters and set off on a meander across
South London
to meet our friends who had been to the
other game. See – no comebacks or recriminations. The journey to a pub
in somewhere called Carshalton was enlivened (?) by the fact that our taxi
driver was a real ale enthusiast keen to talk beer. Much more of that stuff
was drunk until Cheam, at which point your correspondent, by now exhausted
and, frankly, quite pissed, called premature time on the season.
Mark my words, we haven’t heard the last of the Wimbledon fans. Theirs
is a cause that deserves to succeed, and if there’s any justice in the
world, it will. Regrettably, it does look as though the club once known as
Wimbledon will manage to up sticks and plonk itself on Milton Keynes this summer.
But the fight of the Wimbledon supporters will go on. They will fight to establish
their new club – which is, incredibly, still less than a year old – and
that means seeking promotion to the Ryman League and seeking the funds to buy
Kingsmeadow as a home. One of the ways they will be raising funds is by selling
merchandise to supporters of clubs which have particularly stood by them, and
we hope we’ll see them in Burnley next season doing just that. They are
assured of our support. There’s also the fight to re-claim the history
of Wimbledon FC, which surely belongs to the successor club of AFC and not
the Milton Keynes franchise.
There’s also the question of what to do next season when the fixture
of Milton Keynes v Burnley comes around. There is a school of thought that
says now this has happened, even if we thought it was wrong, we should just
accept it and ‘move on’. It’s a school of thought that I’ve
never understood. If something is wrong, it doesn’t become right just
because it’s been done. Personally, I don’t fancy giving Franchise
any of my money next season whichever flag of convenience they happen to be
playing under. Just at this minute, I have a feeling I may go to Milton Keynes,
sample what ale is to be found – and then stay in the pub and not go
to the game. If this appeals, you know who to contact.
In the meantime, enjoy the summer.
"As with all articles on the site, the views expressed in the match reports section are those of the individual contributor, and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Burnley FC London Supporters Club."
