Have you read here yet? If not, do so before reading on.
Read it now? Good. OK, here’s the SW19 take on it. Following the news that the Joseph Hood was NIMBYed, it looks like moves are afoot for the Crown House brigade to once again do a team called Wimbledon in the sensitive dangly bits. And while the original story has since moved on and there won’t be a decision made just yet, it raises serious questions of priorities.
Making Fulham firm favourites for the FITC is a slap in the teeth for everyone involved with the AFCW Junior Dons thing. In its first year it has done very well, and while I fully understand that it may be a bit too soon to fully take charge, perhaps doing what (deeeeep breath) MK council did with Franchise’s equivalent and take it over for an interim period. What links do Fulham have with Merton? How many Fulham fans are there in Merton? Will Fulham actually exist in 2-3 years time? It doesn’t make sense at all, and for Merton to let it go as far as it has is a bit too much to take.
Now, some are already saying that given this scenario we should give up Merton once and for all, and jump fully into bed with Kingston Council. To my mind, doing that is akin to just giving up the fight on Franchise. It’s unfinished business, and those in some tall 50s building in SM4 are as much responsible for us having to form AFCW as a South African lawyer with highly malformed retinas. It’s ALWAYS dangerous to rely on local councils to do anything, to lead the way. Kingston may be run by those nice, well-adjusted, placid, touchy-feely Liberal Democrat type people, but I bet they could right royally fuck us over given half the chance and sufficient motivation. In a nice, well-adjusted, placid and touchy feely manner, needless to say. If we close the door on Merton because of this, we would have repeated what Hammam did in 1994 when he “divorced” the council. It was wrong then and is wrong now. It makes us look like the losers in all this, and spiteful ones at that.
So, what is Merton up to? Those of us who live in Merton will know that they’re a shambles at the best of times. But really, what is their mentality over this? They were very lucky to win last time, and they only gained one new councillor because some councillor in Raynes Park received a brown envelope to jump ship. Allegedly. Either they know that they’ll probably get kicked out next time, hence the wrecking policy, or they really have lost what little plot they had in the first place. Look at the amount of AFCW stickers in cars around, and LBM are committing suicide by pissing us off. It’s a shame that there aren’t so many AFCW fans in Mitcham and Pollards Hill, which is the bedrock of Labour’s support in Merton (Labour got practically wiped out in SW19/SW20 and SM4). Perhaps anyone about to move house should, ahem, start investing in the Mitcham area. Purely for reasons of property prices, of course.
This whole thing also makes me wonder just how sincere they were over MK : it didn’t go un-noticed at SW19 Towers that as soon as the last local elections were over LBM went very quiet. Anyone persuaded to keep the current incumbents in would be easily forgiven for feeling they were used in such a way. It took WISA a bit of nagging to get Judge to make a post-MK comment, whereas before they were Rent-A-Quote. Particularly galling when SW19 overheard after an MK post-match protest by two people from Merton Council, “At least we’re being transparent over this”.
So what? Well, we’ll discuss what to do at the next elections when the time comes, though I do like the idea of forming our own political party. Hell, I might even put my name forward for that. In the meantime, I think it’s time for direct action against Merton. Previously, I think I mentioned about winning over the NIMBYs in Merton – if I didn’t, I’ll state it clearly : we will only get anywhere with the support of the locals. We can use LBM’s legendary incompetence to our advantage – after all, if the NIMBYs are doing this as a way of getting at LBM, let’s work with them. Common enemy and all that. Are Merton our enemies? Well, their actions have proven that they aren’t our friends.
Of course, we shouldn’t trust anyone of a political hue, and anything we want to do will have to be done ourselves. Yes, that is the sound of a broken record you’re hearing.
Meanwhile, Franchise returned to training today. No sign of Koppout. Reportedly, their water cooler got repossessed (stop laughing). They weren’t allowed to train either as there was no insurance available, and the players looked slightly POed. Their exodus could be starting – Connelly’s been linked with Reading, and Reo-Coker and McAnuff might be on their way to Pompey after all. Keep watching…