Britain is home to some of football’s oldest and most famous footballing rivalries, from Manchester to Merseyside, Old firm to Old farm, there are nearly enough two team cities and geographical grudges to make sure at least one neck tattooed die-hard gets a glass to the face every weekend. So with over 75 recognised local derbies across England alone, some of which having been contested for over a century, how has a clash between two clubs that didn’t exist 20 years ago and play 80 miles apart become one of British Footballs most passionate and fiercely contested fixtures? The answer to that question lies in the South-West London Borough of Wimbledon, so grab your Oyster Card and your Tennis whites as we explore the creation of England’s most controversial club, and the team that was born out of its protest.

Aside from being the home of the world’s most prestigious Tennis tournament, Wimbledon was typically known for two things, the Wombles and Wimbledon FC (in that order). In the 60’s and 70’s uncle Bulgaria and co. were some of the most beloved and well known characters in Britain, however in the 1980’s, the characters very much came courtesy of the Dons. The self-proclaimed ‘Crazy Gang’ became an ever present fixture in the English top flight, the likes of John Fashanu, Lawrie Sanchez and leg-breaker turned actor Vinnie Jones were both adored and hated for their pranks, boyish behaviour and unconventional amateurish playing style.

Wimbledon Football Club were perhaps the most charming and admirable team of the 1980’s, not only because of the personalities of their players but because of their incredible and unprecedented rise from being an amateur team to lifting the FA cup within the space of 10 years. After finishing top for 3 successive seasons in the Southern League Championship (then 5th Division) in the late 70’s they were one of the last teams to be elected into the Football League before the election process was abandoned in 1979, Wimbledon continued to excel and between 1982 and 1986 the Dons were promoted thrice, going from Aldershot to Arsenal between Thriller and Bad. The following season (their first ever in the top flight) saw the now lovable underdogs finish 6th in the league, ten points above a Manchester United side who were struggling in their first season under a certain gum-chewing Scottish manager. Spoiled with success and with an ever growing fan-base both casual and fanatical Wimbledon went on to cause one of the biggest cup upsets of all time by beating ‘The greatest post-war side England has ever seen’ Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool 1-0 to win the 1987 FA Cup, the Crazy Gang lifted the cup in front of Princess Diana and 98,000 fans as they wrote themselves into footballing folklore, and became every Everton fan’s second favourite team.

Unfortunately for Wimbledon fans, that was the best it got for them. Despite maintaining first division status and becoming a founding member of the Premier League, the 90’s were severely mediocre compared to the preceding decade. Vinnie and co. eventually left and due to new UK stadia laws, the Wombles were made to leave Plough lane (their home of 78 years) and ground share with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. In all honesty Wimbledon’s only real lasting contribution to the Premier League was allowing Tony Yeboah, Paolo Di Canio and David Beckham to score screamers against them, and after declining in League position from 1996 onwards, Wimbledon were eventually relegated in 1999/2000. With the financial blow that comes from leaving the affluent Premier League and still without their own ground, Wimbledon received a controversial offer that would cause one of football’s biggest injustices. The 20th century was over, and soon would be Wimbledon.

On the subject of things that stopped existing after the 90’s, what do Roberto Baggio, Vanilla Ice, and Matt Le Blanc have in common with the large Buckinghamshire town of Milton Keynes? That’s right, they were all born in 1967. Now although it’s entirely believable that Joey from friends is pushing 50, it is surprising that a UK town with 250,000 inhabitants is the same age, especially when most British settlements were founded around a millennium ago. Milton Keynes was born out of a government initiative to help relieve some of London’s overflowing population, the ‘new towns’ plan included large upsizing’s of Northampton and Peterborough and after a lot of pushing and hard labour, gave birth to an entirely new town, Milton Keynes. It’s not too difficult to make a town feel like a town, build a church, a shopping centre and a Nando’s or two and you’re pretty much there, however there was one thing that MK struggled with that wasn’t quite so easy to build… an established football team with a fan base…

Despite Sky inventing football in 1992, most of if not all of England’s biggest clubs were established in the Victorian era, you may remember Arsenal and Southampton’s recent 125th anniversary kits (where in an incredible act of marketing the clubs somehow convinced fans that 125 is a milestone worth making a kit for), with this and the English League system being established all the way back in 1888 Milton Keynes were almost 80 years late to the party, every football fan in the country already had their own team and were not prepared to change. In 1974 seventh division club Bletchley Town was renamed to Milton Keynes City FC, an odd choice of name as Milton Keynes isn’t a city. The club struggled for a fan base and after 11 years of money haemorrhaging, bottom half finishes and/or relegation, the club dissolved in 1985. Even with the failure of Milton Keynes City (still not a city) and the obvious obstacles, the tenacious ‘Milton Keynes Development Corporation’ were desperate for an excuse to build a Stadium worthy of top flight football, and would begin their infamous plan B.

‘If you can’t beat them, take them’ became the malevolent ethos of the MKDC’s plans to bring football to their shiny new town, as they staged several attempts to simply relocate an already established Football League club to the town and re-brand it as their own. The first offer actually came pre-Milton Keynes City (not a city) FC in the direction of Charlton Athletic in 1973, fresh off of the back of relegation to the third division, and with their new stadium-adjacent sports complex being denied planning permission they seemed like a better fit than any to pack up and go elsewhere. Eccentric owners ‘the Gilksten family’ made public that the club had been approached with a relocation offer, and it would be accepted if the complex was still not allowed to be built, fans rightfully outraged and signed petitions in their thousands for the complex. It eventually transpired that negotiations were almost non-existent and the story emerged as merely a sly business move by the Gilkstens, who entertained the MKDC with no intention of eventually relocating… the complex was granted and built shortly after, well played Gilksten’s, well played. The MKDC made two further offers before the turn of the century, their initial approach of Wimbledon (1979) and top flight Luton Town (1983) both went down awfully with the respective fans, even with the promise of a 50,000 seater ‘Super-Stadium’, which would presumably be as much ‘Super’ as Milton Keynes is a ‘City’ (it’s not a city).

This brings us back to the 21st century and our struggling Wimbledon FC. Starting their season outside of the top-flight for the first time in 15 years, losing tremendous amounts of money and continuing to sleep on Crystal Palaces sofa until things picked up, the club looked to be heading into a downwards spiral, and it was at that time they received an offer from you know who, only this time with a scary new face… literally. Leading property developer (and physical embodiment of what Frodo would have looked like had he kept the ring) Pete Winkelman and his company ‘Inter MK group’ were looking to do big things for the growing town. At the turn of the millennium the group introduced ‘The Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium’, a plan to bring a 30,000 seater stadium, an IKEA and an Asda to the town, and although people will go just about anywhere to get their hands on some Swedish furniture, it was clear that they would not be flocking in their thousands to a team-less stadium. In what pseudo-fan Winkelman described as ‘a football frenzy waiting to happen’ an open approach was made to pretty much every team in London, but he was rather swiftly told to piss off by all but two, the struggling London clubs Wimbledon FC and Queens Park Rangers. Amidst simultaneous financial crises The Don’s and The R’s were rumoured to have been considering a merger that would see Wimbledon move to Loftus Road and become the Clegg to QPR’s Cameron, however after the inevitable fan upset club chairman Charles Koppel appeared on pitch after Wimbledon’s final League game to publicly defuse any desire to become the ‘Queens Park Dons’, briefly pleasing the supporters. Remaining in desperate need of solution both clubs were offered relocation within the same month, with QPR prioritised. The Hoops hastily refused, leaving Wimbledon as Winkelman’s final choice, and through desperation came increased advantageousness, in a ‘write a number on a piece of paper’ style transaction Winkelman offered to ‘save’ the club if granted relocation, Koppel accepted.

The clubs reluctant intentions were made public on August 2nd 2001. Going into their 1st Division campaign almost penniless, Koppel insisted to both the Wimbledon supporters and the FA that the only viable alternative to liquidation was to relocate. The FA refused unanimously, insisting that if Pete Winkelman was so desperate to have a Milton Keynes based team in the Football League, he would have to start at the bottom of the pyramid and put in the time and effort like every other new club. This honourable stance against ‘franchised football’ was (unsurprisingly) exasperatedly appealed by Koppel and Winkelman. Unaware of their own irony the pair decided to play the victims, claiming that the FA were allowing one of its oldest clubs to die, and in the same way that you might reluctantly give an overweight child a Mars Bar just to stop it from crying, they were granted a retrial. The questionably panelled trial was far more mechanical than the initial FA controlled proposal, the human consideration of integrity or supporter satisfaction went out of the window and the move was considered under a strictly ‘business-smart’ sense. Amazingly, the panel UNANIMOUSLY determined that the proposition was wrongly rejected because of a stubborn and inflexible policy (I suppose that’s one way of saying it), and to almost every fan of Wimbledon and English football’s dismay… the relocation was granted.

After news broke the inescapable fan outrage came wide scale as the ironically counter-productive yet justified mass boycotting of all club merchandise hit the club hard, fan-produced protest programmes outsold the official match day copies 3 to 1 and of the 26,000 seats inside Selhurst park, only an average of 7,000 would be filled during the Don’s farewell season. The children that watched their beloved crazy gang lift the FA Cup were now men, resentfully watching from afar as the club they loved died as they knew it. Understandably, Wimbledon fans refused to entertain the idea that a team playing in Milton Keynes could in any way continue to represent Wimbledon FC, in their eyes the club would no longer exist and supporters would be left in a peculiar state of allegiant limbo, what does a football fan do when the club they love dies? That question was most dynamically answered by life-long supporters Kris Stuart, Marc Jones and Trevor Williams who having presumably just read the entire Roy of the Rovers back catalogue decided that this was the opportunity to do something great, and on May 30th 2002 they would create their own brand new team, AFC Wimbledon.

AFC Wimbledon were one of the countries first ever ‘fan-owned protest clubs’, an idea inspired by the actions of Enfield town FC the year previous. Having been compassionately granted membership into the Combined Counties League (9th Division) for the start of the 2002-03 season the newly formed ‘Dons trust’ didn’t mess about, within 2 weeks of the official relocation announcement the media gathered to see the unveiling of the new club, complete with new crest, kit, home ground and even a manager, former Wimbledon player and fan Terry Eames, who romantically played for Wimbledon the last time the club were in non-league football. With all this as well as a lucrative sponsorship deal from Championship Manager, the only thing left was to sign some players. The trust advertised open trials to be held at Wimbledon common on June 29th, attracting over 200 hopefuls, whom were eventually whittled down to AFC’s first ever squad, placed with the task of returning The Don’s to the football league as quickly as possible.

Wimbledon would have to literally begin their battle at the bottom, as their first league game would be played at Sandhurst Town’s Bottom Meadow. The ground with an official capacity of 1,100 allowed over 2,000 Wombles fans to cram inside and witness the Wombles win 2-1 thanks to a Kevin Cooper opener, a man who would go on to score 90 league goals in the clubs first two seasons. The teams comparatively extortionate funding and fan base showed on the pitch as they went on to be an immense success during the inaugural years, smashing attendance and goalscoring records throughout the lower levels of the football pyramid. At the expense of Arsenal, AFC Wimbeldon also impressively hold the record for English Footballs longest ever undefeated streak, the Dons went 78 games unbeaten between February 2003 and December 2004 (22 f***ing months without losing). After 5 promotions in 8 years, and a nail-biting penalty win in the Conference play-offs, AFC Wimbledon found themselves in the Football League (the first club established in the 21st century to do so), the protest club born out of Pete Winkelmans refusal to orthodoxly and honestly try to achieve Football League status had achieved that very goal in less than a decade, and almost every football fan was happy for them.

Meanwhile, in Milton Keynes (remember them?), Winkelman cuts the red ribbon on his long awaited brain-child, Stadium:MK. The 30,000 seater stadium that the city wanted so desperately had been built, and despite the wide-scale mockery that came with the 20,000 empty seats every match day, it appeared as though the Inter MK group effectively got there way. The club struggled to deal with the geographical change and with finances still in hot water and diminished support, the first three seasons of the MK Dons existence were met with two relegations, with them eventually being promoted again in 2007 and finding their feet in League One. As the years passed and the dust settled the neutrals generally began to view MK Dons as just another club, the ethical hot topic became tepid and the Buckinghamshire club began producing players and an attractive brand of football that would actually make them appealing to the neutral supporter, they really were trying their best to knock off that ‘most evil club in the country’ label, although AFC Wimbledon were quickly creeping up on them, and would not forget.

Despite having yet to feature in the same division, the ‘Dons derby’ has been played three times in three different cup competitions, in AFC’s second season in the Football League the clubs were mouthwateringly drawn together in the 2012-13 FA Cup (AFC’s 10th anniversary), in a surreal turn of events AFC Wimbledon would be travelling to play at Stadium:MK, and reporters across the country were poised for the narrative to unravel. An initial plan for AFC fans to boycott the game was resisted as they instead brought 4,000 fans to the ground, their average home attendance. The game was televised with Pete Winkelmans testicular face being zoomed in on every 5 seconds, although the dust had settled the overwhelming consensus was that an AFC Wimbledon victory was what everyone wanted and would be the icing on the cake for one of modern footballs most romantic underdog stories. The game was a classic, the derbies first ever goal came courtesy of a 35 yard screamer from MK Dons midfielder Stephen Gleeson that soared into the top corner right on the half way mark, however after the break Wimbledon striker Jack Midsons diving header sent AFC fans into a state of euphoria, promptly running onto the pitch in unison. MK unfortunately didn’t read the script as in the very final minute Dons striker Jon Otsemobor somehow sent a backheeled volley into the top corner, crushing Wimbledon hearts in the most audacious way possible, the game finished 2-1 and the tie became an all time FA Cup classic. Since that day the sides have met twice more in cup competitions, a League cup tie won 3-1 by Milton Keynes and a thrilling FL Trophy match that saw AFC come back from 2-1 behind to win their first ever Dons derby.

So what next for the two young clubs? With MK Dons having been promoted with the help of 18 year old Dele Alli to the Championship but hovering around the relegation zone, and AFC Wimbledon (led by man-mountain Adibayo Akinfenwa) slowly creeping up the League Two table it may not be long until we see the two in the same division. The clubs no longer seem gimmicky or ‘new’, and very much fit having been 14 years since the announcement of WImbledon FC’s death, it appears as though normality has been restored and born out of this story of reprehensible fan maltreatment is a fantastic and unique derby that is more than simply ‘this town vs that’, but the ultimate symbol of fan power in the face of the games increasing corruption and acquisitiveness. By all means MK Dons vs AFC Wimbledon is… A very modern rivalry.