Bestselling YA author has acquired rights to the story of the fan-founded football team who improbably achieved promotion to the Football League

The AFC Wimbledon film seems like a curveball – actually it's an open goal Read more

John Green, author of the YA novels The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns, is to write and produce a film about English lower-league football club AFC Wimbledon.

Wimbledon FC were given permission by the Football Association to move 50 miles away to Milton Keynes in 2002, and became MK Dons. The move angered fans and led to the creation of AFC Wimbledon, who worked their way from the bottom of the football pyramid system all the way to League Two.

In a post on Medium, the American writer referred to the tale as “the greatest underdog sports story you’ve never heard, starring a bunch of middle-aged people with absolutely no athletic talent” and provided more details about the project.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Is AFC Wimbledon’s rise the greatest sports story never told? Photograph: Richard Lee/BPI/Rex Shutterstock

“Football is a game where adults can sing together and cry together, a rectangle upon which we can see in manageable scale all that is good and terrible about people, all the injustice and folly and joy of human life,” Green wrote. “And when that rectangle was taken away from Wimbledon, they built it again. That resilience represents the very best of us, and I am so excited to be part of the team working to share that story.”

In a Reddit AMA, Green described the film as “a docudrama” with “comedic moments”.

To “prove” his interest in AFC Wimbledon, Green also posted a picture of himself wearing the club’s third kit.

The film will be made with 20th Century Fox. The studio also worked with Green on the big-screen adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars, which became a surprise hit and grossed more than $300m (£209m) worldwide. Sarah Polley is set to direct another of Green’s novels, the teen romance Looking for Alaska.