July
2002 |
Non
League Headlines
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30/07/02. Kingstonian 2 v AFC Wimbledon 1 Attendance : 2,500+
Goal Scored by . Dave Fry
Our 1st visit to our new home, very nice stadium and what looks like a good pitch, once again the wombles had a kick off delayed.
The 1st half was dominated by the K's missing a host of close range shot, but the opening goal finally came just after the half-hour mark,. Greg Ball played a ball inside Keith Ward for Wingfield to run onto.
The Second half was total different the Wombles came out with all cylinders firing and total controlled the midfield.
Andy Bell’s did net for the K's second goal but the wombles kept up the pressure.
The Don goal came when Daniel Jones ran at, and beat, Jon Leacock on the left and pulled the ball back from the goal-line. There waiting was David Fry, who bicycle-kicked himself into the history books by scoring AFC’s first goal at their new home.
Additional changes from both sides took any real flow out of the match - which was probably a good thing for K’s as the Dons were certainly on top for a time after they scored.
The final whistle saw a slightly strange pitch invasion as the Dons’ fans celebrated their homecoming. They certainly didn’t disgrace themselves, although had K’s had their shooting boots/foreheads on in the first-half they may well have done.
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27/07/02. Windsor & Eton v AFC Wimbledon 0 Attendance : 500
Kevin Cooper started for the Dons today, after putting two past us at Gander Green Lane. The first half was an unbelievable performance, with accurate passes and sound defending. Windsor was frustrated, even scared of the Dons, as they nervously kicked the ball out of play when the Dons were attacking. The change was remarkable, after our 5-0 drubbing at Walton & Hersham. The team played with poise and created some nice chances, although failing to convert them. On the other hand, Windsor had to defend deep, and had two shots at goal; both which were covered by Andy Hunt in goal again, after his sterling performance on Wednesday. Windsor’s saving grace was that of their back four, who on at least four occasions, made Cooper offside.
The second half saw the Dons fans invade a different half of the terraces, and carry on singing. The match actually looked within our grasp. The refereeing before this game had seen some fairly dubious decisions (as the home team selects their own referee to govern the match), but up until the first half, the decisions were sound. With the second half under way the first five minutes showed how the Dons dominated play: passing coolly, dribbling and searching for men. A free kick was given for an unknown reason on the right of the pitch just inside of Windsor’s half. They caught the Dons off-guard and allowed a one-on-one with the keeper; placing the ball into the back of the net on the 53rd minute. After this the Dons seem to come apart as such, and Windsor gained confidence. This led to an assault on the Wimbledon keeper, only for a second goal to go in and be ruled out, much to the delight of the fans.
Eames substituted five off his men, and this seems to show some gratification as two sitters were sorely missed. Overall the game was played mainly by Wimbledon, but it is the goals that count. I feel that the 5-0 that Walton gave us on Wednesday taught us a lesson, and I also feel that the way we played today taught us that we can win; that we are special; and that we’re going to make history. Well, we hope!
I think that the key to our game, against teams a couple of divisions above us is: fitness. In our first couple of games we showed that we could run around for the first 20 minutes well, now we are showing that we can run around for the first hour well. It’s going to take a few more games and a few more defeats (not big ones, mind), to teach ourselves that we are a capable, adaptable and a fit team, full of potential to exploit the CCL.
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24/07/02. Sandurst Town Games Ticket Information.
Decisions taken 21st/22nd July 2002 following meeting with AFC Wimbledon
Entrance fee - £5 with
£1 for concessions
Programme Cost - £2
Match will be all ticket
on Voucher System to be managed in conjunction with AFC Wimbledon. Voucher distribution
to be finalised.
For Sandhurst we hope to offer vouchers to home supporters visiting our 2 home
1st team friendlies on 6th and 10th August and at a Youth Team friendly on 14th
August.
Commemorative badges are being designed.
Ground capacity 2000.
23/07/02. Walton & Hersham 5 v AFC Wimbledon 0 Attendance : 1,200
Our huge apologies for being so late with this one, but our AFC went down 5-0 to a strong Walton and Hersham side on Tuesday night. It was not our strongest squad admittedly. There was about 1200 in attendence, far more than the Franchise FC match a few days earlier.
The main concencus is that, despite being without a result, Terry has the boys on the right track. Friendly's against teams several divisions above us.
Then, once the CCL season starts, it will seem all that easier for it.
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20/07/02. Borhamwood 4 v AFC Wimbledon 2 Attendance : 1,300
Once again there was good support for the wombles, with a crowd of about 750, the road from the station was paved in yellow and blue shirts and so was the local witherspoon pub.
The game started well with AFC Wombles taking the lead with a 35 yard bending strike on goal from Triggers (his 2nd goal for the club), the goalkeeper standing no chance.
Borahamwood then put some pressure on scoring two goal's the second just before half time, to lead 2-1 and as is the custom know with the wombles supporter's they switch ends with the team's at half time.
The second half was pretty much one sided with Borhamwood's showing their experience and taking a 4-1 lead, just before the Wombles received there 1st penalty which was put away with great skill by Mehmey Mehmet to make the final result 4-2 to Borhamwood.
Spoke to Trigger after the game in the club, he said how much he was enjoying the atmosphere at the games, also saw him travel to the game by train where he spoke to another Don's supporter.
Good to see a football player making time for the fan's.
Starting Line Up Hunt, Gallimore, Roberts, Johnson, Memhet, Carley, Sullivan,Trigger, Sheerin, Fry, Dean Martin.
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July 19 2002 AFC Wimbledon hope to have a £12 million offer on the table to buy Plough Lane within three months.
The newly-formed club sees the former Wimbledon FC ground as their spiritual home and, together with a number of blue chip companies, is putting together a bid that present owners Safeway would find hard to reject.
AFC Wimbledon directors were in meetings with a number of companies yesterday and expected to make an announcement on Plough Lane in the near future. AFC Wimbledon commercial director Ivor Heller said: 'It's a mountain to climb, but if we don't give it a go we will never know.
'We need to go to Safeway with something on the table in the next two to three months.'
Wimbledon fans who objected to Wimbledon FC relocating to Milton Keynes put together a proposal that they believed would keep the Division One club in south London.
Any new stadium plans would need to be modified for a non-league club.
AFC Wimbledon have captured the imagination of many people in the footballing community as well as the country's media, and Heller realises they need to strike while the iron is hot to keep the momentum at the club at fever pitch.
Safeway presently have an application to build up to 500 cheap houses on the land, although the Haydons Bridge Residents Association has objected to the plans.
17/07/02. Bromley 2 v AFC Wimbledon 1 Attendance : to follow.
History was made today by the player known only as Trigger.
Game three and AFC-Wimbledon are starting to look like a team.
The Dons held there own for most of the 1st half showing some good passing moves at time, Bromley took the lead with a dubious penalty just before half time.
In the second half the dons had more chance's and finally history was made , when with 35 yard screamer into the top right corner Trigger became the 1st player to score for AFC-Wimbledon.
Unfortunately Bromly had not read the script and scored with a well taken overhead kick to make the final score 2-1 to Bromley.
Once again there was a great atmosphere at a Wimbledon game from supports finally able to enjoy there local football team.
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13/07/02. Dulwich Hamlet 1 v AFC Wimbledon 0 Attendance : 1,346
AFC Wimbledon improved on it's mid-week debut by only going down by 1 goal against Dulwich Hamlet this afternoon in their second ever friendly.
The attendence was an impressive 1,400. Reports that the Dulwich scorer (Wayne Cort) is Carl's brother, are yet to be confirmed.
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11/07/2002.
Over four and a half thousand fans watched an historic match last night as Sutton United beat newly formed AFC Wimbledon 4-0.
The latter, created after the original Wimbledon angered a cross section of their fans by announcing a move to Milton Keynes – 50 miles from their home – also announced a £100,000 sponsorship deal with Sports Interacrtive.
Manager Kenny Eames, who played for Wimbledon thirty years ago, was delighted with the attendance of 4.657 fans, and feels that many will turn against the first division side.
He said, "We have seized people's imagination. People like Charles Koppel and the Norwegians are not the history of this club - they are history."
AFC Wimbledon have been admitted to the Combined Counties non-league and will play their home games at Kingstonian's ground.
10/07/02.
Sutton 4 v AFC Wimbledon 0 Attendance 4657
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AFC Wimbledon started life in style when 4,652 fans turned out to watch them play Sutton United in their first ever match.
The "new Dons" may have lost 4-0 at Gander Green Lane, but they were undoubtedly winners as fans turned out in force to support them.
Kick-off had to be delayed three times as supporters continued to pour into the ground well after the initial start time of 1930 BST.
Kris Stewart, chairman of AFC Wimbledon, was understandably delighted.
"For a pre-season friendly between two non-league clubs it was a fantastic crowd," he said.
"It has been a rollercoaster ride over the last six weeks putting this thing together and everyone's worked really hard to do it.
They hadn't played together as
a team too much but there's obviously a lot of talent there
He pointed out that the 22-man squad had only recently been assembled following trials that attracted 230 players.
"Those guys have only had one proper training session," he argued.
"They hadn't played together as a team too much but there's obviously a lot of talent there."
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