Wimbledon FC

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Wimbledon FC
Logo of FC Wimbledon until 2003
Basic data
Surname Wimbledon Football Club
founding 1889 (as Wimbledon Old Centrals FC )
resolution 2004
Colours blue yellow
First soccer team
Venue Plow Lane (1912–1991)
Selhurst Park (1991–2003)
National Hockey Stadium (2003–2004)
Places 15,876
26,225
8,824
league Football League First Division
2003/04 24th place (relegation)
home
Away

The Wimbledon Football Club was an English football club from the London borough of Wimbledon . The club existed between 1889 and 2004, before it was re-established under the name Milton Keynes Dons after moving to Milton Keynes . Biggest successes were the 1986 promotion to the First Division , the top division of England at the time, and winning the FA Cup two years later.

history

The Wimbledon Old Central FC team in the 1895/96 season

The club was founded in 1889 by students of the Wimbledon Common past Old Central School under the name Wimbledon Old Central Football Club founded. After some regional title wins in the prewar period, the club, now renamed Wimbledon Football Club , was accepted into the Isthmian League after the First World War . There the club won the championship several times in the 1930s, which succeeded again in the 1960s. In 1963 he also won the FA Amateur Cup by beating Sutton United in the final .

Abandoned Plow Lane in 2000

Because of the success, Wimbledon FC turned to professional football in 1964 and was accepted into the Southern Football League . There, too, the team remained successful, between 1975 and 1977 the team won the championship three times in a row and defeated in the FA Cup 1974/75 as the first club from non-league football in the 20th century with Burnley FC a first division club. The club was then included in the Football League in 1977, with the AFC Workington being replaced.

After just two years, Wimbledon FC left the fourth division in the direction of the third division , but rose again straight away. Then Dave Bassett took over the coaching post, under which the club promoted and relegated. The renewed rise in 1983 was followed by the march through to the Second Division , from which the club rose to the First Division two years later. In early September, the club was briefly leader of the table before finishing the season in sixth place in the table. Then Bassett left the club and was replaced by Bobby Gould . The new coach led the team into the final in 1988, where Lawrie Sanchez scored the decisive goal for the 1-0 win over the highly-favored Liverpool FC . In the league, the club reached midfield, so that in 1990 Ray Harford Gould replaced.

It was an eventful time for the club with the implementation of the measures proposed in the Taylor Report to increase the safety of sporting events. The previous Plow Lane stadium, which has been in use since 1912, did not meet the requirements, and from 1991 the club shared Selhurst Park with Crystal Palace . In the following years, in which the team had qualified for the Premier League , the club wavered between relegation battle and battle for European Cup places. In 2000, the team was relegated from the first division, the following summer management announced the move to Milton Keynes. After various controversial discussions, a commission appointed by the Football Association allowed the move, which took place in the fall of 2003. From then on, the club played at the National Hockey Stadium in Milton Keynes.

As early as June 2003, Wimbledon FC was subject to insolvency proceedings. As a result, numerous players were sold in the course of the season, so that the club was at the end of the season on the bottom of the table in the second-rate First Division . For the following season he did not appear, the place was taken over by the newly founded club Milton Keynes Dons. Supporters of the original club founded the AFC Wimbledon back in 2002 , which initially succeeded in non-league football and in 2013, when it was promoted to Football League Two, it also became part of the Football League. In the 2016/17 and 2017/18 seasons, both Milton Keynes and AFC Wimbledon played in Football League One before MK Dons was relegated to the fourth division in 2018.

Web links

Commons : Wimbledon FC  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files