Sunday, August 30, 2009

AFC Wimbledon 0 Yellows 1

I couldn’t convince my dad of the importance of yesterday’s win. His logic, as a now armchair fan, was that with the form shown under Wilder we should expect to be winning these games. He was almost dismissive of the game.

Well yes, but AFC Wimbledon are the kind club that wins the Conference. They probably will within the next couple of years. They’re enjoying both the stability and forward momentum that characterised Dagenham, Aldershot and Burton. If you avoid crisis off the pitch in the Conference, almost by default, the likelihood is that you’ll enjoy success on it.

Wimbledon shed the baggage they carried with the whole MK Dons debacle and are now a fresh beacon of hope in the game. I always felt empathy for the original Wimbledon; we were the teams of the 80’s, proof of what could be achieved. Of course, they went further, by winning the FA Cup and staying it in the top flight, doing it ugly. For all our verve and joi de vivre, our successes were overshadowed by something more prosaic. It taught me an important lesson about life. It’s why people make billions making milk cartons while those trying to save the planet and reinvent our economic system live in tents and don’t wash their hair.

It is almost universally agreed that a point would have sufficed. I thought it would even have been a good time to lose our first game – there would have been no shame in it and with Forest Green to come on Monday it would have been the perfect opportunity to bounce back. Maybe we’re still tainted by our recent past and should have been more confident.

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