page_title: Relocation of Wimbledon F.C. to Milton Keynes
section_title: Legacy of Wimbledon F.C.
hierarchical_section_title: Relocation of Wimbledon F.C. to Milton Keynes / Legacy of Wimbledon F.C.
caption_attribution_description: English: MK Dons V Sheffield United at Stadium MK on 10th November 2012.
context_page_description: Wimbledon Football Club relocated to Milton Keynes in September 2003, 16 months after receiving permission to do so from the Football Association on the basis of a two-to-one decision in favour by an FA-appointed independent commission. The move took the team from south London, where it had been based since its foundation in 1889, to Milton Keynes, a new town in Buckinghamshire, about 56 miles to the northwest of the club's traditional home district Wimbledon. Hugely controversial, the move's authorisation prompted disaffected Wimbledon supporters to form AFC Wimbledon, a new club, in June 2002. The relocated team played home matches in Milton Keynes under the Wimbledon name from September 2003 until June 2004, when following the end of the 2003–04 season it renamed itself Milton Keynes Dons F.C.
  Wimbledon F.C. spent most of its history in non-League football before being elected to the Football League in 1977. A series of club owners believed that its long-term potential was limited by its home ground at Plough Lane, which never changed significantly from the team's non-League days.
context_section_description: The location of the history and legacy of Wimbledon F.C., as well as the honours won by the club, was disputed for four years after the independent commission's approval of the move on 28 May 2002. In the view of AFC Wimbledon and that club's supporters, the "identity of a football club is implicitly bound up in its community". The club regards itself as Wimbledon F.C.'s spiritual continuation to this day, holding that the community maintaining and backing AFC Wimbledon is the same one which originally formed Wimbledon Old Centrals (later Wimbledon F.C.) in 1889, "and kept Wimbledon Football Club alive until May 2002".
  MK Dons initially maintained that any debate was pointless as their club was simply a renamed Wimbledon F.C. Winkelman was unequivocal when answering readers' questions in FourFourTwo magazine in November 2004: "MK Dons and AFC Wimbledon share the same heritage, but we're the real child of Wimbledon", he wrote. One reader asked: "Now that you have renamed the team, and changed the badge and colours, do you agree that AFC Wimbledon now carry the true spirit of Wimbledon?"; Winkelman replied that AFC Wimbledon's founders had betrayed their club and "left their team before their team left them". In another answer, he poured scorn on suggestions that he might give Wimbledon F.C.'s trophy replicas to AFC Wimbledon, writing that the fans had "abdicated their right to it when they all walked away." "The fans who have continued to support us from London—they're the ones who've had to put up with this shit for so long," he concluded.
  The Wimbledon Independent Supporters Association founded the Wimbledon Old Players Association (WOPA) in September 2005 as part of its drive to "reclaim the history of Wimbledon Football Club for AFC Wimbledon and/or the community of Wimbledon". Membership was opened to any former Wimbledon F.C. or AFC Wimbledon player or manager. There were 60 founder members. A "Wimbledon" team, organised by WOPA and backed by AFC Wimbledon, played in the London Masters indoor football tournament in July 2006. Plough Lane was replaced by a residential development comprising six blocks of flats. Representatives of AFC Wimbledon, the WISA, Merton Council, Barratt Homes and the Dons Trust attended a ceremony in November 2008 at which the development's gate and each of the buildings was named after a figure from Wimbledon F.C.'s past.
  Despite Winkelman's strong words in 2004, his club later agreed to hold talks with the Football Supporters' Federation (FSF), the MK Dons Supporters Association and the WISA. The FSF was refusing to admit MK Dons supporters, discouraging friendly matches against MK Dons, and urging football fans generally to boycott MK Dons home games. The parties reached an agreement in October 2006. The FSF would end its calls for a boycott and admit MK supporters as members, and in return MK Dons would "recognise and genuinely regret the hurt which was caused to supporters of the former Wimbledon F.C. by the move to Milton Keynes", renounce any claim to Wimbledon F.C.'s history up to 2004 and transfer the Wimbledon F.C. trophy replicas, copyrights, web domain names and other patrimony to Merton Borough. All of this was done in August 2007. The Wimbledon F.C. trophies were put on display at Morden Library in Merton in April 2008.
  Sections of MK Dons' fans continue to relate to their club's former identity as Wimbledon. When AFC Wimbledon and MK Dons met on the playing field for the first time in 2012, some MK supporters wore scarves bearing the Wimbledon name, and Wimbledon F.C. shirts. Others have attempted to reclaim the "Franchise F.C." label for their own use, chanting "you're getting beat by a franchise" during matches. Elsewhere in the Milton Keynes fanbase, attempts to create a club culture separate to Wimbledon are visible, largely driven by the Concrete Cows. MK supporters have christened Stadium MK "the Moo Camp", while as early as the first match in Buckinghamshire, mooing was heard in the crowd. The South Stand is known as the Cowshed, a tradition maintained from their Nationa
caption: MK Dons playing at home to Sheffield United in League One, 2012
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