After spending most of the season being perceived as a low scoring side that was greatly reliant on their decent defensive record, AFC Wimbledon have become the great entertainers as they have hit a run of form which should be enough to help them stay above the bottom four – something which would have been regarded as success before a ball was kicked for the team which made it up through the League Two Play Offs last season.
For a while during the first two or three months of the season, Wimbledon’s sights were aimed much higher than mere survival as they spent much of their time in the top six, but a run of nine league games without a win through to the New Year had many thinking they were right to tip the Dons to go down after all.
A win at Leyton Orient on New Year’s Day didn’t stop the slide as just one point was taken from the next twelve available and so when they went to rock bottom Port Vale early this month, it looked like a way for Vale to, perhaps, launch a revival at the expense of a team they could potentially finish above come May.
I watched part of that game and it was just as tense as you would expect it to be with quality at a premium, but the Dons got the vital goal in the eighty eighth minute and, since then, there’s been a 3-2 home win over an in form Reading, courtesy of a Marcus Browne hat trick, and a 3-3 draw at Barnsley on Saturday in which they turned an early 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 lead and would have been disappointed to have let the home side equalise in the eighty seventh minute.
Wimbledon come here tomorrow with a surprisingly good away record which includes six wins and three draws in their sixteen matches and, in fact, their twenty two goals scored is only bettered by Plymouth and Reading.
I think now we’re at a stage where for the majority of our remaining matches the formula has to be not to allow complacency to creep in because we’ve proved we’re better than most of the teams we’ve got left to play, but if we take our foot off the gas at all, sides like Blackpool and Burton have shown that we aren’t good enough to assume we only have to turn up to win.
We should beat Wimbledon, but they’ve triumphed against Lincoln this season and so we need to be on our guard against, perhaps, the team in this league that is easiest to underestimate.
On to the quiz, seven questions related to the different versions of the team from Wimbledon going back to the 60s.
60s. This forward, who I remember as the player with the most impressive pair of sideburns/mutton chop whiskers of the time, had an unusual route into the professional game as he began his working life in the coal mines of Kent. However, his prolific scoring during his three years in non league football for Wimbledon predictably had clubs from the Football League circling. When he left the Dons, it was for a modest fee to join a team which had recently recorded a notable cup win at Ninian Park and, after starting quietly in his first season, he went on to win the club’s Player of the Year award, plus a Player of the Year award voted for by the managers in the division his team had just got promoted from. In fact, his scoring rate at his first professional club was slightly better than it had been in non league football and so it was no surprise when a club in the north of the country which had a very illustrious past paid a then club record fee for him. Despite a still decent scoring rate, the move did not work out – as to why, home sickness shouldn’t have been a factor because the club concerned were from the county of his birth. It was something of a surprise though to see him again drop into non league football after a couple of years as he moved to a city with a team nicknamed the Clarets. He didn’t stay long though because another team that had been a power in the land decades earlier before falling on hard times brought him back into the Football League briefly. After that, he had a season in South Africa and then saw out his football career with various non league sides in Kent. Who am I describing?
70s. This Scottish full back was at Leicester as a youth, but left to join a team in hoops without playing a game for them. His form over four years for his new team earned him a move to another side with a distinctive kit which would soon be playing in the First Division for the first time in their history. He played in most of the games as his team earned that promotion and was a fairly regular selection in the first season after they went up, but saw little first team action after that and was eventually loaned out to to reds from another country. Surprisingly, at the end of the loan spell, he chose to sign for Wimbledon, who were still a non League side at the time and he was a regular in their team for two seasons before ending his career among Poppies. Who is he?
80s. See how many times crayon is used perhaps to find a player who began his career at Wimbledon and returned there later on loan – he played just one league game for the Dons on both occasions However, he clocked up more than three hundred appearances for a team that had a reputation for playing like Wimbledon at that time. (5,6)
90s. Recently arrived slaughterer maybe?
00s. Appropriately I suppose, this forward’s first club was Wembley because he’s most remembered for a goal he scored for a then non league club in a controversial tie with Premier League opposition in the FA Cup. His goal earned his team a draw before they lost narrowly in the replay and, although he played close to three hundred Football League games, it’s what he did while out on loan to that non league club which people associate him with now. In fact, there was one other game which was truly memorable for him – that was when he scored five times in a League Two game I believe it was in what was the club who loaned him out’s record win. Towards the end of his career, he had an injury hit spell at AFC Wimbledon as they climbed the leagues to regain their EFL status, but who is he?
10s. Sounds like an Argonaut with a liking for Christmas!
20. Measurement of distance followed by an oxymoron perhaps!
Answers to follow:
