On Monday 27 May Kris Stewart was made redundant from his job as a management accountant. On Tuesday 28 May an FA Commission granted the owners of the football club he had supported for 15 years, Wimbledon FC, to relocate to Milton Keynes. That night, he says, 'we were drowning our sorrows in the Fox and Grapes on Wimbledon Common, which is the pub where the team used to change back in 1889. And where the team went for a beer before the FA Cup final. And Marc Jones [another fan] was going around trying to pull people out of it and saying we shouldn't allow ourselves to be beaten. That we had to pull out of it. And by the end of the evening we were thinking what if, what if...'

Six weeks later, on a summer's evening at Gander Green Lane, the Surrey home of Sutton United, Kris Stewart became the first football club chairman in the history of the game to be feted by his team's supporters following a 4-0 defeat in a pre-season friendly. A genial semi-bear of a man puffing away at a B & H, he stood alongside his commercial director, the very hyper 'five foot and an eighth of an inch' Ivor Heller, and looked down as hundreds of people, from a crowd of nearly 5,000, chanted 'AFC Wimbledon, AFC Wimbledon'.

'Anyone would think we'd won,' said Stewart.

'Who cares?' said Heller.

Stewart picked up a microphone to thank the fans. 'What a fantastic night we've all had. It's been lovely. See you on Saturday at Dulwich.'

Looking back the next day, Stewart said: 'People chanting my name was a bit weird. Lovely, but a bit weird. It's all happened so suddenly. People are really enjoying it again, which is something that's been hard to do recently. For so many people it's a blessed relief to start complaining about the strikers instead of spending all their time screaming at the board. Mind you, there was a chorus of "Sack the board". But I think that was tongue-in-cheek.'

AFC Wimbledon lined up for their first ever fixture as follows (4-3-3): Andy Hunt; Drew Watkins, Simon Johnstone, Kevin Tilly, Dave Towse; Neil Northcott, Mehmet Mehmet, David Fry; Joe Sheerin, Dean Martin, Trigger.

No one had a clue who they were, including the chairman. 'There were no numbers on their backs so it was difficult to single anyone out,' said Stewart. Manager Terry Eames - Molesey (1992-93); Leatherhead (1994-96); Dorking (1998) - had organised a trials day on Wimbledon Common a week and a half ago, which attracted 230 would-be players. These were the best, a bunch saved from total anonymity by Sheerin, who played nearly 15 minutes for Chelsea as a substitute for Gianfranco Zola against Wimbledon.

But who needs fame when you have such names? Mehmet Mehmet bossing the midfield; Dean Martin spearheading the attack and presumably calling all his team-mates 'Pally'. Then there was Kevin Tilly, the late-fortysomething central defender, keeping it tight at the back. He had played in Wimbledon's famous FA Cup game against Leeds back in 1975, before they joined the Football League. And, of course, Trigger. 'You've heard of Rivaldo, you've heard of Rivelinho, you've heard of Pele, we've got Trigger,' said the announcer before the game.

Trigger is a mysterious figure who, said his dad in the bar, works for an agency that works for MI5. So secretive is his employment that even dad doesn't have his phone number - though he does possess a press cutting of Trigger's last moment in the limelight, playing up front for Croydon Athletic.

Having never played together before, Wimbledon performed creditably. Martin had a goal disallowed, David Fry put himself about a bit, Tilly pulled off a dummy, Sheerin looked sharpish, and Trigger, well you had a sense anything could happen with Trigger on the pitch.

A series of substitutions rendered the second-half irrelevant. Crowd interest, however, was maintained up until the last minute by the hope that someone would become the first goalscorer in the club's history. It was not to be. Next stop Dulwich Hamlet, then Bromley, then Borehamwood, then Kingstonian, then Leatherhead, then Enfield Town then, on 17 August, it's showtime in the Combined Counties League.

Whatever the future, this first game was significant. It was, in the words of the aforementioned Marc Jones, who went online at weirdandwonderfulworld.com after the match, 'fairly unspectacular - but at its heart was the true Corinthian spirit, a sense of hope, of effort and of respect. This is something very special here. A cottage industry in the middle of a globalised trading estate. A corner shop perched between hypermarkets. A community football club in the midst of greed and desperation. As money continues to distract football club chairmen like a young girl fluttering her eyelids at a married man we stand proud as an example of good people doing the right thing the right way. That reason alone is enough to make me know we CANNOT fail. Decency in the face of extreme adversity. An example that belief is all, that dignity and courage counts after all.

'I'm waffling now, it's getting late and I'm very, very tired...'

As were Heller and Stewart, who, says Heller, 'didn't finish the media interviews until eleven at night, which was pretty disconcerting because we're not used to it. Eventually we had time for a couple of beers, and it was only a couple of beers.'

Heller has supported Wimbledon for 31 years. He has been at every significant event, 'except the first couple of years at Selhurst when I couldn't set foot in the place. And the atmosphere on Wednesday night was similar to when we won the Southern League for the first time in 1975.'

Heller - 'I suppose I'm a bit of a salesman, really. In fact, I know I'm a bit of a salesman' - has already secured a six-figure, three-year sponsorship deal for AFC Wimbledon with the company that makes Championship Manager. An appropriate sponsor, for his chairman is an avid player of the computer game. 'I started off playing as Wimbledon and I managed to get up there and win the League,' says Stewart. 'Then I started working my way up from the bottom playing as Macclesfield. And, also, had a lot of fun being Wigan.' From fantasy football to real-life chairman.

His club will play at Kingstonian, which was the obvious choice, says Stewart. 'It is just outside Merton but only half-a-mile from the border and the facilities are top-class.' Their fixture list is due out in a week or so and the attraction of Chessington United, AFC Wallingford and Netherne has already prompted more than 600 fans to buy season tickets, which is 600 more than the 'franchise' Wimbledon have sold.

The aim, as it has been since Sam Hammam took the money and ran, is to return to Plough Lane. This will require £12 million and Heller has already started a campaign to raise that sum. Stewart, meanwhile, is hoping to oversee a sustainable football club using the many talents of the supporters. 'People tend to think, "Football fans, what do they know?", but we have a microcosm of society here with accountants, lawyers, journalists, delivery drivers, teachers. They all have their skills and they are all very useful.'

A club run by fans for the fans where the players are paid expenses only and drop in for a drink after the game. AFC Wimbledon - a mere seven promotions away from the Premiership and Trigger less than a decade away from becoming a household name.