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Why the League are right over Wimbledon

Well, this is a weird one. I'm going to have to take this slowly. Deep breath. Okay. Here goes. The. Football. League. Have. Got. It. Right. Phew. There. I've said it.

The Football League have got it right in refusing the 'owners' of Wimbledon permission to move the club to Milton Keynes. Simply, this was a move which could not be allowed to happen. If the move had taken place, it would have had implications not just for Wimbledon, but for football as a whole. If Wimbledon had been allowed to up sticks and relocate to Milton Keynes, a precedent would have been set. If it happened once, what would stop it happening again?

It always seemed clear to me that what was being offered to Wimbledon supporters was not the survival of their club, but its extinction. If Wimbledon play in Milton Keynes, they surely cease to be Wimbledon. Explicit in the proposal was the hope of attracting a new set of fans to watch the team play, in a new stadium in a new town. (Doubtless after a short period it would have been proposed that the name ‘Wimbledon’ was an inappropriate one for a club based in Milton Keynes, and the name too would change.) Wimbledon would have ceased to exist. Their place in the league would have been occupied by a Milton Keynes club, which would, in effect, have bought that place. In other words, welcome to the wonderful world of franchising.

In support of the move, we were told that Milton Keynes is the largest town in the country without a football league club. But doesn’t that tell us something? There exists a system for rectifying such an omission: football’s pyramid, which enables teams to rise from the non league. If there is a demand for a football team in the town, why hasn’t a non league club used this system to meet it? If there are supporters out there, if there are people with money, if there’s a scheme to build a new football ground, why hasn’t a Milton Keynes team come close to even the top level of non league football?

In fact, attempts to encourage football clubs in the area have failed. Bletchley Town, now defunct, once played as high as the Ryman League. I’m not a non league expert, but as far as I can ascertain from my research, Milton Keynes does not currently boast a football club at this level. The Ryman League contains clubs such Chalfont St Peter, Leyton Pennant and the Metropolitan Police. A trawl through a comprehensive Milton Keynes website [www.mkweb.co.uk] reveals two clubs: Bletchley United, of the North Bucks Football League, and Wolverton Tiger Moths, a youth football club. This is not in any way to patronise, or denigrate the efforts of these clubs. Grassroots football is a vital part of our game, and those who sustain it deserve credit. But if there is demand in the town, why hasn’t anyone made a go of it yet?

I suspect the answer is that Milton Keynes residents, many of whom come from other places, have existing loyalties. Those who have an interest in football will already have a club they support. The MK MU fan is a beast well known to us. Those loyalties endure, and I’d suggest that people would have little interest in switching historical support to a new club. Are Burnley supporters based in Milton Keynes about to stop supporting Burnley? Of course not.

Nevertheless, if Milton Keynes entrepreneurs and politicians want to have a league football club in the town, and believe it will be successful, they are entitled to that opinion. They must simply do it in the same way as anyone else: they should form a non league club, work their way up through the non leagues and seek eventual promotion into the third division. Because, in the rules, that’s how it’s done. You can’t simply buy a place in the league. Clearly, those involved in Milton Keynes don’t have the patience for this long and slow process to be followed. They don’t want to sit around for years spending money and risking failure. They want a short cut. In denying them this, the Football League has served the game well. To have allowed them to do so would have been to insult all those non league clubs currently striving for a place in a league, and those who have reached the league and established themselves, like Wycombe, Macclesfield – and Wimbledon.

Not, naturally, that this was the way the move was packaged. It’s said that Wimbledon, ten years without a home ground, cannot find a permanent home within South West London. I find this hard to believe. Arsenal seem to have found somewhere to build a new ground in an intensely populated part of North London, suggesting that, while it isn’t easy, it can be done. Theirs will be the second new ground built in London since the Taylor Report. I cannot believe that somewhere in South West London there is not a patch of land which, with will and persistence, could not be put to use for a new ground. I can only assume that will and persistence have been lacking, either on the part of those running the football club or local political authorities.

Wimbledon’s argument was weakened because they do not currently occupy their own ground. This points to another problem: when a football club moves out of its area, it seems to become awfully difficult to move back. Brentford, proposing a ground share with Woking, also gave cause for concern. The Football League is also right in not allowing this to happen. The only circumstance in which a club should be allowed to move away from its community is on a temporary basis while a new home ground is actually being built. Vague promises count for nothing; once Brentford were in Woking, they would have had a hell of a job to return to West London. We’ve been here before, and others have beaten the odds. Fulham, when near bankrupt, might have left Craven Cottage. I bet they’re glad they didn’t now.

I would say that, if a drastic move is the only way to keep a club alive, that club has already died. A move to another town or city does not represent survival; it is the replacement of one club by another. In such circumstances, clubs that can't carry on, having exhausted all possibilities, should be replaced through the normal processes of promotion from the non-league. At the very least, no club should move without the consent of its supporters. Such consent is unlikely to be forthcoming.

There are also historical cases of clubs moving about – particularly in London, where Arsenal migrated from south of the river, while Millwall did it the other way round. So it could be argued, Wimbledon do not play in Wimbledon, the ties with their area have been broken, so what’s to stop another move?

For a start, there’s no precedent in recent history for a club moving a long distance away from its support. Even the examples given above involve moving from one part of a town or city to another. This was common enough in the game’s infancy, and has enjoyed a late revival because of ground changes. But I cannot think of an example where a football club has upped sticks and shifted to another part of the country entirely. Secondly, it isn’t right that Wimbledon play at Selhurst Park. But surely the aim should be to move them back as close to Wimbledon as possible. What they have now is not ideal, but the solution is to take them back, not move further away. A second, bigger wrong doesn’t make a right.

As exiles, we have moved away from our football club, and have found it makes the bond stronger. But it would be somewhat different if your club moved away from you. Many would decide it was time to give up the dream, the dream having died. Others would find the effort too much to sustain.

Football clubs cannot be considered a business like any other. Can you think of any business where the customers would keep coming back after years of disappointment with the product? The only thing that makes football clubs unique is the supporters. In a world where players, managers, boards and even grounds change, they are the only source of continuity. Moral ownership of a football club rests with its supporters, and so football clubs must be based within the community of their home supporters.

A club that tries to change its supporters really is something else.

Thank heavens, then, that the Football League has blocked this move. A wrong precedent would have been set had they allowed it, and in preventing this, they have made a clear and unanimous stance. Football clubs belong when they belong. Not everything is for sale, and even in this money mad game, not every feast is moveable. I never thought I'd say this, but hats off to the Football League.

Firmo
17 August 2001

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