2005/2006 Season Preview - MK Dons

MK Dons: Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Home: National Hockey Stadium. 9,000 (all seated) Nickname: It's in their name see? The Frannies. Hate: Luton? Wimbledon? Last Meeting: No previous meetings. The MK Dons? Who are they? If you'd been on Mars for the past few years and came home to find a club called MK Dons in the league you'd be surprised. I'm sure one of the first questions that you'd think to ask would be 'Did they make their way up the leagues, like, say Wimbledon did?' erm…yeah but no but yeah but no but yeah but… In 1997, realising the Wimbledon fairytale was on the wane, Sham Hammam pulled off one of the greatest confidence tricks in the modern era by selling Wimbledon to a group of Norwegian businessmen for £22 million. This was a far bigger confidence trick than the one he pulled off on the Cardiff fans when he told them they were as big as Barcelona and will soon be as successful as Man Utd and Real Madrid…and he won't ever sell Earnshaw…and the new stadium is on track…and he is in it for the long run…and the whole of Wales will get behind his dream… How did he manage to sell a club with no assets for £22 million? The promise of franchise football. The Norwegians didn't buy Wimbledon FC, they bought a place in the Premiership. Hammam had put it into the minds of the Norwegians that the club would be able to move lock stock and barrel to Dublin in what would be a lucrative Premiership franchise. Other places bandied around as possible locations for the franchise include Basingstoke, Wigan and our esteemed capital Cardiff. At the time of the sale, Wimbledon had been playing for a number of years at Selhurst Park, the home of Crystal Palace, after the introduction of the Taylor Report meant their home ground Plough Lane had become unsuitable for use. Hammam later pocketed £8 million pounds from the sale of Plough Lane to Safeways. A nice by-product of the Taylor Report for Sham. The filthy-rich Norwegians failed to invest enough in the team as they were distracted by the desperate realisation that moving the club to Dublin or anywhere else was not as simple as Sham had explained, and relegation from the Premiership followed. Relegation heaped the financial pressure on the owners. Eeek! Sham Hammam was all talk and no trousers! This wasn't how it was supposed to be! The investment wasn't paying back, and there didn't seem to he any hope of a return on their investment as it stood. Unless… It was the financial state of the club that was used as the reason for relocating the club, yet with the money gained from transfer fees the club was actually making a profit towards the end. It is interesting to note that the 3-man FA committee that decided the fate of Wimbledon in 2002 were given accounts that did not include this £22 million transfer income, an important omission given their decision to give the go-ahead for the move to MK was largely based on the financial plight of the club. Anyone who observes the events of the past 8 years will be in no doubt that the express intentions of the new owners from day one was to move the club elsewhere, any claims of necessity around relocation seem superficial and contrived. If anything, the owners themselves helped create the feeling of necessity by failing to invest in the club. £22 million was generated by transfer sales in just a couple of years, yet little was invested in the team or the cause of relocating to their home in Merton. Significant sums of money were however spent on researching the move to Milton Keynes. Anyway, to cut a very long story a bit shorter, the FA gave the club permission to move to Milton Keynes in 2002, although it was only 12 months ago that the club got the go-ahead to use the name MK Dons and to change the club badge and kit, effectively creating a whole new football club. The move to MK was the brainchild of pop producer Pete Winkleman, who is now the current chairman. Winkleman, or 'crazily-coiffeured club-killing tosser' as he is known in the Dons community, acquired the club as part of the consortium InterMK that helped bring the club out of administration. Winkleman has a history of looking to bring a ready-made football league club to Milton Keynes (Luton, Watford, QPR) instead of taking the traditional route of helping a local club up through the divisions. The problems at Wimbledon and the intervention of superstore giant ASDA meant Winkey's dream could become reality. Asda wanted to build a store in Milton Keynes. Due to planning regulations for the area in question, they could not build one without building a sports stadium for the community as part of the deal. They needed a sports team on board in order to get around the planning regulations. In stepped Winkleman with a proposal for a land deal whereby ASDA got their store, Winkleman got his stadium and Milton Keynes got a professional football club and a place in the Football League. Milton Keynes already had a football club - Milton Keynes City - but it collapsed due to lack of investment and support from the community. It is almost breathtaking to read comments from the MK council chief, claiming 'we've always wanted a (professional) football club in Milton Keynes'. Well, I've always wanted a Ferrari but I'd stop short of stealing somebody else's. Most football fans would rather see their team financially crippled and relegated 5 times in a row than see it disappear altogether, especially to Milton Keynes of all places. Milton Keynes, the place Bill Bailey calls 'Satan's Layby'. An artificial place for an artificial football club. The home of the Open University, the town was created in the 70's as part of a government project for a 'model city'. MK is a bland copy of an identikit American city where the traditional British 'road' or 'street' has been replaced by the 'Boulevard' (the club itself is based on Silbury Boulevard). For some reason they've also decided to have concrete Cows dotted around the place. And another thing, why do the residents persist in calling it a City, when it isn't, and never has been. Before they crept up and stole Wimbledon it was also the largest town in Europe without a professional football team. The views of opposition fans regarding the MK Dons have been quite hostile as you'd expect, with many calling on their clubs to boycott friendly matches with the newly formed club. Tottenham, Charlton and Luton (twice) are among the clubs who have had to cancel planned friendlies against MK Dons due to supporter pressure. Maybe things will change in time, they usually do, but for the next few years the MK Dons will be walking a rocky path. The new stadium will surely help give the club credibility, but the stain of their original sin will be hard to remove. The Football Supporters Federation have recently turned down the application to join from the MK Dons supporters group in what is being seen as a vote against franchise football, a sure sign that a lot of water is going to have to flow under the bridge before the club is fully accepted in to the footballing community. Relegated to League 1 in the 2003-2004 season, the club only narrowly escaped relegation again thanks to the sterling work of Danny Wilson. Last season, based in their poxy little hockey ground, the team scraped to safety on the last day of the season from what seemed an impossible position at one point, eventually finishing in 20th place. The appointment of former Barnsley, Sheffield Wednesday and Bristol City manager Danny Wilson is the major factor in them avoiding the drop. The team took 36 points from 26 games after Wilson took charge, against 15 from 20 before his arrival. So far this summer the club have strengthened the team with the signings of welsh prospect Craig Morgan from Wrexham, and 24-year-old Wigan midfielder Paul Mitchell as well as tying up a deal for Hull City striker Aaron Wilbraham. The club's finances for the new season have been given a boost by the money they will receive from a sell-on clause from the transfer of former goalkeeper Kelvin Davies from Ipswich to Sunderland for £1.25 million pounds. Key players last term for the Frannies were former Wrexham and one time Swansea target Matt Baker in goals and Gareth Edds who scored a number of crucial goals for them in their relegation battle, including two in the final game of the season to keep the club in League 1. One of the stars of last season, striker Izale McLeod, has given the club a boost by signing a new two year deal. McLeod, 20, was top scorer last season, netting 18 times after his move from Derby. The elation that the club felt after staying up should not hide the fact that the team was woefully inadequate for most of the season, and only through Wrexham having 10 points deducted did they stay up. Can Wilson turn the side into an established League 1 club? Not on your Nelly. They will finish: 21st

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