Wally Downes has spent almost an hour dissecting moments from an unprecedented six months that will forever live in AFC Wimbledon’s history when conversation sticks on an epic war film, The Great Escape, which quickly became a byword for the club’s extraordinary tale of survival in League One last season. And there was talk on the terraces of another thriller. “They couldn’t work out if it was Mission Impossible or The Great Escape,” he says, smiling. “I prefer The Great Escape because that’s only been one film and Tom Cruise seems to rock up every 18 months for Mission Impossible. I wouldn’t fancy going through that again.”

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The room erupts into laughter but the scale of his achievement should not be overlooked; when Downes took charge last December Wimbledon had lost nine games on the bounce and only a superior goal difference kept them off the foot of the table. Downes guaranteed safety on the final day in early May but Wimbledon’s moment in the sun was short-lived.

“Three days later Liverpool came from 3-0 down to beat Barcelona and a day later Tottenham came from three down [at Ajax] so my Mission Impossible was completely over after three days,” Downes says, laughing and sinking into his chair in the manager’s office at the training ground in New Malden. “We became The Great Escape chip paper quicker than anything that has ever happened before. Two European Cup semi-finals blew my achievements straight out of the water.”

The immediate focus is on welcoming – if that is the right word – MK Dons to Kingsmeadow on Tuesday in the Carabao Cup first round. The last time the sides met in Norbiton in September 2017 Wimbledon referred to MK Dons as ‘MK’ on the scoreboard and made no reference to them on the cover of the matchday programme, leading to Wimbledon being charged with misconduct, charges which the EFL later dropped. The league has been mediating between the clubs since, with AFC Wimbledon instructed to adhere to several conditions including displaying “the name of the MK Dons on the website, match tickets, match programmes, teamsheets and scoreboard (as applicable) in a manner that is consistent with all other teams that visit”.

Downes switches into diplomatic mode. Asked whether referring to MK Dons by name is banned in his household, he takes a ludicrously long sup of tea. “They are footballers playing for a football club; they have to get a living.” As for the match itself: “Just another game, let’s win it,” he deadpans. Does the Football Association’s decision to allow the original Wimbledon club to move to Milton Keynes still grate on those associated with AFC? “Oh yeah,” he says. “To have it ripped away as it was, it was a disastrous time for anyone that had any affinity with the club. The fact that it has never been allowed to happen again shows what a terrible decision it was. It has been well documented who the people were that made that decision. I can never remember who they are …”

Seventeen years on from their rebirth, the return to Plough Lane they have long craved is nearing. The club have set a crowdfunding target of £7m to help them smooth their return to Merton, the pocket of south-west London they regard as home, where they are building a 9,500-seat stadium which they believe will be ready for the 2020-21 season. The less debt funding, the less the stadium will eat into Downes’s annual playing budget of around £2m. Every shareholder’s name will be inscribed on a plaque while investors will be entered into a draw to have their name up in lights at the ground; the winners will enjoy stadium-naming rights throughout the season. Fans can equally invest to personalise concourses, turnstiles, beer taps – and urinals. “I will be buying something there but it certainly won’t be a toilet,” Downes says. “The whole raison d’être of the club once it became a bona fide club on Wimbledon Common with 300 people was not about being in this division – although it was an inspiration – it was about getting the club back playing in Wimbledon by hook or by crook. The fact we are in this division is way beyond what anybody thought.”

Downes, who had a two-year spell in charge of Brentford in 2002, never hankered to return to management and before taking the Wimbledon job was watching their games from afar, on his laptop in Calcutta, where he was coaching in the Indian Super League alongside Steve Coppell, whose assistant he had been at Crystal Palace and Reading in the Premier League. Downes recognised radical change was needed; Wimbledon had lost the ball 30 yards from their own goal more than any other team in the division and were not only conceding at set-pieces but not scoring from them either.

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One of Downes’s first decisions was to go more direct. “There’s a massive snobbery if you play the ball long, opposition fans start booing and you get pigeon-holed as ‘they’re just a boot-it team’. It’s a load of nonsense.” He sought to address other holes too, with the club appointing a head of recruitment in Nick Daws and hiring a full-time kit man.

These are exciting times. Despite losing captain Deji Oshilaja and Toby Sibbick over the summer they have made several intriguing signings. Aaron Ramsdale excelled on loan from Bournemouth last season and they have recruited another goalkeeper from the Premier League, with Nathan Trott arriving from West Ham. Adam Roscrow has joined from Cardiff Metropolitan University, while Nesta Guinness-Walker has signed from Met Police FC. “It was marvellous what the boys did last season but it’s for the memory bank and it’s for other people to bring up,” he says. “Getting us into the new stadium is the next chapter.”