I tried, but even after a nights sleep, I still can’t calm down about last night. Was that the worst performance in the AFCW era? It was certainly one of the most humiliating, anyway.
Nathan Elder’s goal-line clearance from about a yard out was pretty exceptional though. Well, it would have been if he was defending rather than attacking. He must be looking at getting back to Shrewsbury ASAP, especially when he looked up and saw our own fans pissing themselves with laughter at him. Not booing, not a disdainful roll of the eyes, but laughter.
Oh, and is it true that when he missed, a well known senior member of the squad gave out a knowing smirk?
The reactions afterwards have been what I pretty much expected. One thing I do have to take issue with is the amount of people who believe that because the 1983-89 era was what they grew up with, we should directly ape that and everything will be all right.
It won’t.
That was a once-off, a never-to-be-repeated part of the Wimbledon history, and is something that has never been repeated even during the 1990s, let alone today. And it’s something I wouldn’t want to go back to either – teams these days are a lot smarter, and we have enough trouble with the cleverer teams as it is without the nostalgia trip clouding judgements.
I expect back then there were plenty of times where we didn’t put any effort in, or at least the effort the blue-and-yellow-tinted spectacles conveniently forget. Football is different now, and so is Wimbledon.
Those last eight words may be throwaway, but instead they couldn’t be the most apt words ever written right now. This place and others have been hinting at this for a little while now, but suddenly last night doesn’t matter.
Next season, AFC Wimbledon is going full time.
The decision was given the go-ahead on Monday night, which makes me wonder if that had a direct effect on last night’s debacle. Would explain a lot, anyway. For the life of me, I cannot see half this lot making a career out of football. Christ, I can’t see half of them making a living out of serving from the KM concession stands.
So, how is this all going to work? According to TB, it’s basically going to be the mixture of the proverbial youth and experience. Those who like to read between the lines will note that it’s going to be more the former.
In effect, it’s going to be on the cheap. What does seem to cause a little bit of anguish already within our fanbase is how much this is going to cost. We’re going to need more overheads for starters – better training facilities, full time medical and dietary provisions, full time coaching, etc etc. All on the same budget.
Are we going to cut it fine, and pray that we don’t have an ACL fest next season? I suppose you could look at this in two ways:
– We need to go full time, but we are prepared to take the hit next season. We may go backwards a step next year with such a thin, inexperienced squad, with the aim to go forward. Even with this new approach, we are unlikely to go down. Certainly more likely than last night’s “performance”.
– It’s an admission that this year we spent too much on underachieving senior players like Elder. The cost of one of him would have got us two or even three hungry youngsters who would have put a lot more effort in. And not so likely to clear the ball away from tap-in range.
I guess I take a bit of both, though with more sympathy to the latter viewpoint. We are effectively writing off next season now, which I hope doesn’t have a dent in season ticket sales. Can see walk-in admission prices rising though. We won’t get every signing right, and there could be yet more frustration in next season’s campaign.
But when you look at it objectively, where else could we go? Certain players have proven that they were only good for one season in the BSP. Some like Luke Garrard were never going to be kept on anyway – the gnashing of teeth at him going is more down to sentiment and “he’s such a character” rather than whether he was ever going to help us up to the next level.
Put it this way. Conroy was a better RB than he was, and even Tantastic himself is looking at the exit.
Some would (and do) complain that we’re simply repeating what we said last year about building a young squad up that will take us through to the League, and therefore what we’re planning to do is shit. I believe the term is called “education”.
Look, I’ve covered Conference professionally since 2004/05, and it’s changed a lot since then. Almost to the point I don’t recognise the division. Back then, Woking v FGR was a decent mid-table fixture, and there were no Oxfords or Lutons about. Where are Woking now? Where are FGR heading?
TB himself was of that particular era, and he too has had to re-educate himself to find out what is needed in 2010. You can’t do it semi-pro these days, unless you’re extremely lucky. Woking are still full time, despite being in what appears to be a pretty piss-poor CS this season. Staines – yes, Staines – are going FT. Gateshead are planning to do the same too, and Newport will do so in the next year or two.
With the exception of Newport, none of those clubs are really going to help themselves going FT, but they all feel they have to. If you do remain PT, you don’t get the youngsters in – most of the decent ones are from academies from top clubs who have found themselves down the footballing pyramid. Still decent players, but they have to earn a living.
Youngsters also have that added bonus whereby if they’re good enough at Conf level, they can get snapped up. Which means money. The resale value of a part-time experienced player is pretty low, and unless your remit is simply to survive in the division (like Alty) there’s no point in not going the whole hog.
I’m led to believe we’ve been scouting some pretty decent 19/20 year olds for a while. presumably pre-empting this decision. We’re talking ones who have been trained and developed at some academies with pretty good reputations, yet for whatever reason are playing at lower levels.
Now, we can go up to them, offer them gainful employment for the year and give them an opportunity to ply their trade with us. There are a lot of those sort of youngsters about, and we’ve now widen our scouting pool considerably. Think of Seb Brown and how good he’s proven himself to be in such a short space of time. By going FT, we’ve made getting that ilk throughout the team just that bit easier.
There are two additional side effects of going down this route, which will help us out in ways not immediately obvious. The first is that it will now force us to properly sort out our reserve and youth setup. As we all know, getting this bit right is vital to our future development, and now we can start offering the really talented yet-not-ready-for-the-first-team kids a reason to stay with us.
What has prevented us from going into the Combination next season is unclear, though from previous TB post-match interviews, a lot of the reserves in other teams would “walk straight into our side”. Which does suggest that our current crop of stiffs isn’t good enough, although I still believe it’s a Catch 22…
The second side effect is that by going FT, we can further build up our reputation up amongst players. That was one of WFC’s strengths, even when the rest of the club was happily destroying itself just under a decade ago. You went to Wimbledon as a yoof teamer, you knew you were going to get one of the best chances of playing anywhere. Reportedly, Brett Johnson came to us because we had better facilities than Northampton, and we would all put him down on our retained list any day.
Up until now, a FTer wouldn’t want to come to us simply because of the employment status. As previous What’s Happening At Kingsmeadow articles have suggested, we’ve had players who have been impressed with what we offer, but need full time football. But it shows that even as a mere PT outfit we have already built up a reputation that makes players want to be part of us…
Whatever the rammifications, we’ve made that brave step forward, and in a way it feels like the end of innocence for AFCW. Even if our manager has been full time since he came here. The trials on Wimbledon Common may have been a mere eight years ago, but that almost feels like half a century now. The era of professionalism is going to put the backs up people who wished it was still the idylic days of the CCL and Ryman.
And while we’ve mostly come out of this season more maturely, there are many who will remember the likes of Joe Sheerin, Matt Everard, Rob Ursell, Keith Ward, Danny Oakins and other such honest journeymen playing for the love of the game and AFC Wimbledon…
Then you remember the shit of last night. Where are the P45s?