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On the road... Battling Wombles beat the wobbles to survive on day of high drama



There were people on the pitch and none of them thought it was all over. They knew it wasn’t. They knew that AFC Wimbledon had lived to play another day.


There will be another season, one at least, in the Football League, and there can be few corners of the country where that status is cherished quite like it is here.


Lest anyone forget — and these people do not — Wimbledon are the club who lost such a status through no fault of their own.




We are staying up: AFC Wimbledon live to fight another day after a 2-1 win over Fleetwood












That was 11 years ago and their fan-based fightback ever since has been one of English football’s acts of understated heroism.

The good nature of those involved, as well as the sense of injustice felt around football, has created a store of goodwill. It was tapped into on Saturday.


Confronted with a stand or fall scenario just two years after their elevation, an anxious hour edged by at the stadium of Kingstonian FC.


The sold-out ground had not been settled by an early breakthrough, or by the attitude of Fleetwood Town, who were most motivated for a team already secure.


An hour in and the ‘As It Stands’ table was showing that Wimbledon were still second-bottom. They were on their way back to Hereford and Tamworth. Barnet were staying up. Again.


Haydon the Womble, the Dons’ mascot, was dragging a blue bin around the tiny stands, banging the lid. Most of the football could have been placed in it.


And then in the space of six minutes Gary Alexander scored for Wimbledon (right), Roy O’Donovan for Northampton against Barnet and John Mullins for Rotherham to seal Aldershot’s fate. As it stood, AFC Wimbledon were staying up.




Meanwhile... Barnet dropped out of the Football League following defeat to Northampton Town








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The problem was that also in the space of those six minutes, Alexander scored again. This time it was in his own net, a deflection from Andy Mangan’s header.


Dons 1, Fleetwood 1. As it stood, Barnet were staying up.


Alexander’s unintended equaliser was scored in the net behind which there is a large blue banner declaring: We Are the Resurrection.


That is the story of this club, these fans. From Combined Counties League, through Isthmian, Blue Square South and Conference, they have done it by themselves for themselves.


As chief executive Erik Samuelson wrote in the programme: ‘We are operating in a division where 16 of the clubs have notes in their accounts saying essentially that they can continue only by relying on funding from their directors. We have chosen not to do it that way.’


All fans want success, better players. In football that means a discussion about money.


But after Fleetwood’s 64th-minute equaliser, that conversation was on hold. Then minute 72 brought a penalty-box challenge from Rob Atkinson on Curtis Osano that saw the Dons’ right back produce one drop that was welcome.


Up stepped Jack Midson, a man who sounds like a 1970s detective. He solved this one, slotting the ball in calmly from the spot.


As it stood, as it was to stand, Wimbledon were staying up.


A minute after Midson, Barnet were 2-0 down. The club now managed by Edgar Davids had finished 21st, 22nd and 22nd in the previous three seasons.




Spot on: Jack Midson handled the pressure penalty as he slotted home to keep Wimbledon in the league





Jack Midson


Pure delight: Boss Neal Ardley

Now they had more points than in any of those, but they were 23rd.


Barnet have a new stadium — The Hive — and they will be playing re-born Chester there next season. In the Conference.


At Wimbledon they could not believe there were five minutes of added time but they survived those too.


Then there were people on the pitch. It was euphoric.


Wimbledon manager Neal Ardley, who arrived after the season had begun, beamed with happiness and sighed with relief.


‘No one can call me an inexperienced manager any more,’ he said.


This dramatic season has, of course, brought that first clash with Milton Keynes, whose use of ‘Dons’ continues to infuriate.


Ardley referred to ‘the team up the M1’, Samuelson to ‘that lot’.


It was an angry spark from a chief executive who gives that job title a good name. It shows the feeling; but there were others.


‘I said to my wife this morning that I felt like I’d died,’ said Samuelson. ‘Everybody I’d ever known was crossing my path. There was a wave of goodwill towards us.


‘We need to behave in a way that we continue to deserve that. I believe we do, but we need to keep ourselves in check.’


With that kind of attitude, who would not wish AFC Wimbledon well?
Crewe score a fine 10

Another notable good news story in the Football League concerned Crewe Alexandra. And there is a Wimbledon connection, too.


Of the 22 starters in the Everton-Fulham game on Saturday, four were English. At Crewe, not only did the League One team field a starting XI from their academy, 10 were English.


Crewe won 2-0 against a useful Walsall team and earned a barrel of plaudits, deservedly. This is nothing new at Crewe of course. Ever since Dario Gradi arrived at the club in 1983, he has made it his daily business to develop young players.
Prior to that, Gradi was Wimbledon manager in the old Plough Lane days.

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