So, where was I? Oh yes, Bristol Rovers v Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes actually has another name after Milton Keynes, but they shouldn’t. Whatever you think of them, they are not, never have been, never will be the Dons. The Dons are Wimbledon, the club who came back from the dead. But anyway, last Saturday I bit my tongue and saw them. And I was surprised.
First of all, there was the sight of MK’s owner Pete Winkelman. This is the bloke who bought the remnants of the old Wimbledon, took them away to Milton Keynes, effectively stealing a club from its community and putting it seventy odd miles away. I mean, seventy odd miles. Some people went with the club, many more didn’t. I don’t hate the ones who stayed with the club: how stupid would that be? I wasn’t in their shoes, maybe they just went with what they believed, still do believe, their club to be, all the way to a new town. What happened was truly terrible and it should never be forgotten. I rather think that for many people there is a reluctant acceptance of what happened and the matter is closed. I get that too.
I would never, under any circumstances, visit stadium MK because what happened was so utterly wrong and I would not give them a penny of my money. Whether you call that a principled stand, I don’t know, but I would have a job living with my conscience if, after all I had said about MK, I then turned up, paid them money, as if nothing had happened. There are, I know, those who said the same as me, but decided, when no one was looking, to go anyway. Perhaps we should all move on – God knows, people have said it enough times to me about my own somewhat erratic relationship with the Rovers! – and just accept a wrong was done and that’s that. It’s for people to make up their own minds and to live with their own decisions.
Anyway, MK. I suppose I was half-expecting plenty of grief from the fans about them but there was none, apart from some “bants” from a friend of mine to the aforementioned Mr Winkelman. It was as if nothing had happened and for almost everyone else, nothing of note has happened. This probably showed just how out of touch I am with the modern supporter. In a way, I was then able to look at MK with an open mind.
That open mind reminded me that MK’s players are professionals and like professionals they will go where the best contract with the most money. The same goes for managers and other employees too. Nowadays, I doubt that a single thought about uprooting a club to another town forms any part of their decision-making, so I was able to “enjoy”, if that is the word, MK as a football team. And what I saw was pretty good. Like many League One teams, they play the ball on the deck, quickly and incisively. They more than matched a Rovers team simply brimming with confidence and over the 90 minutes probably did enough to win the game, although thankfully they didn’t.
I felt no hate and in fact felt nothing at all to them. They were just another visiting team who we needed to beat to maintain our play off push (yes, I am being serious). We didn’t beat them and instead I enjoyed that footballing rarity: the decent goalless draw.
I will never look favourably at MK whatever they do. That’s just me. That they did and that they were allowed to do it by the buffoons at the Football League was as unforgivable as it is now irreversible.
Wimbledon, bless them, are back where they belong and who knows where their incredible journey will ever end? For as long as they remain in the Football League, it will be an achievement in itself.
In the case of MK, you can take the team out of Wimbledon, but you can’t take the club. And if, Mr Winkelman, you have a single shred of decency and dignity, you will strip the Dons bit for your club’s name and allow the club to whom it really belongs to wholly re-own it.
