Yes, SW19 is back from its tour of the Pacific North West and finally getting used to BST again. That’s the excuse I’m making for not bothering to update since my return anyway. If you’ve ever wanted to know what Idaho looks like, click here. I was going to suggest it as a new home base, but it might be a little bit far for people. That said, it’s slightly less out of the way than what Barrow will be next season.
The trouble is, everything I was going to mention has either been mentioned before elsewhere or simply drifted off into irrelevance. With that in mind, where to start? Oh yeah, it’s the 21st anniversary of OUR cup final win today. Cue tales of drunken escapades involving double decker buses and a ham sandwich. And that was before the coaches left for Wembley...
Actually, there’s a degree of poignancy that we’re talking about such an occasion when we’re looking ahead to the most exciting campaign in years. One could argue that the decline of Wimbledon FC started after that sunny day all them years ago. The team got broken up so that the Lebanese camel molesting cunt could further his bank balance everyone could push onto higher things and it was never quite the same again.
Yet the buildup to this upcoming season has meant that things have come full circle. In a way, we’ve taken the last seven years off as a much needed break, and we’ve now stepped back into that same intense arena that greeted us all back then. That buzz has returned, that excitement and trepidation of the unknown. Then, as now, we’ve hit what we consider the big time.
All this makes it strange that just over a week ago, we were intently tuning in on H&R vs H&Y. If 21 years seems like yesterday, then the BSS playoff game seems a lifetime away. It’s funny that people have almost forgotten that H&R exist now, let alone somebody giving us real grief up until very recently. Guess it’s like finally removing a piece of dog shit from your shoe – once it’s finally prised off, and the lingering smell dies off, you forgot you ever had it on you.
I was going to do another load of sideswiping at H&R and their ground, but I’m finding it harder to, simply because it feels irrelevant to do so. What’s the point? It’s more than likely they’ll do what other past nemeses have done – reached that pinnacle in doing battle with us then slid off back to the backwaters, never to be heard from again. Remember Walton and Hersham? Or Withdean 2000? Me neither. Apparently, they (the Axewounds) still list us never beating them (in the AFCW era, WFC beat them in a PSF around 2000) as one of their major honours though, so the inevitable FAT/FAC tie next season will at least have a bit of unfinished business.
But all our collective attention turns towards next season now. We’re all glad that H&Y went up, simply because the alternative was far worse. And at least it’s likely to be an Xmas or Easter fixture. Then there’s Gateshead. Our first trip to the Toon since 1999 (actually, is Gateshead Geordieland or Mackemville? May be worth checking out in case it causes an international incident). It’s going to be like a step back in time, though I think that’s been applied to any trip to the North East since 1977.
Got to confess, I don’t know much about the Heed as they’re termed. I believe they might have links with Newk, so don’t be surprised to see Michael Owen playing. He’ll be the one making Inns look quick. Oh, and apparently they moved from South Shields to Gateshead in the 1970s, which if nothing else will give our moralising section something to drone on about for the next year.
Of course, it’s all very well looking forward to such sojourns, but right now we haven’t actually got much of a squad. In case you haven’t seen it, the released list thus far is here. One reason I have delayed updating this week was to cover any more releasees (is that a word?) but as of now there don’t seem to be any more. Anyway, nobody should be a surprise on there, even Finn and Davis. Or should that be especially those two?
Their fate was, IMO, effectively sealed at the Worcester game at KM. Finn turned up late, and TB was allegedly heard at half time that he was going to kill Davis. The man with the tan was also dropped for the H&R game at the Beaverdome because it was – again, allegedly – felt we’d be down to ten men pretty soon. In other words, could you have relied on both of them to make that step up to such a professional level? OK, I know that TB has gone on record and said that they have good jobs and better suited to part time football. One does wonder if that is the whole story. Or indeed, a code word or three….
The rest aren’t exactly surprising. Seems that Peacock, Pigden and Dean Mason were just in the right place at the wrong time, and may eventually return. As for the others? Out of that lot we’ll miss JG the most, but we did get him for a year longer than perhaps we would normally. Haswell is no great loss in all honesty, he didn’t cut it against Wycombe and Chelmsford when given that responsibility, and we can and will get somebody who doesn’t hoof it at the first opportunity. And as for Belal…
Typically, as I was about to publish it, Jake Leberl is on his way too. Again, no real surprise there, although it is a shame when a proper WFC fan leaves us. By the close of play today I expect a couple more to be out of the KM doors. Do wonder if Inns will be here next season. And there’s a hunch that somebody you wouldn’t expect is about to get his P45…
In situations like this though, I don’t envy TB. There’s a lot of sentimental attachment to this collection of players by the supporters, a lot of our fans do have quite a degree of romanticism in them. And I expect the management do too. Every manager says how hard doing this sort of thing is, and some noses will certainly be put out of joint.
The bottom line is this though. What was our hardest game last season that wasn’t Wycombe? H&Y at home? Chelmsford? Welling? Whatever it was, that will be the easiest game we will face in the Conference next season. You can forget having a Bognor Regis or Fisher type fixture now, unless a team really goes pearshaped. People may hear the name Kezie Ibe and think that he wasn’t much cop for us. Well, he certainly gave us problems when we faced him. And if I was to tell you that he’d be considered one of the lesser players in the division…
With this in mind, can you really say that releasing all these players is such a bad move? I may misjudge the standard of the BSP, making it out to be harder than it could turn out to be. But rather that than underestimating it. From what I’ve seen of BSP games, they are of a higher level than what we’ve been used to, and we’d be down the lower end of the table if we’d kept our squad intact. If one took Finn as an example – he just about got away with what he did against defenders who were quite poor. Against better back lines, he would have been anonymous. An impact player without the impact. So if you’ve had any remaining sentimentality, now might be a good time to finally let it go.
Of course, releasing players is one thing, getting replacements is quite another. The rumour mill is already churning, with Woking’s just-released Matt Pattison making encouraging noises. Am I the only one who doesn’t like this sort of thing when a potential player goes and says this in print? Not so much the “AFCW is a big club” type schpiel, but the come-and-get-me type comments. Although I did see he (or his agent) is covering his arse when he says that he might not be the only one on our list. Hmm. For what it’s worth, I’ll be happy to see him at KM next season, along with Quiche. We’ll need their level of talent for starters…
The obvious long term aim is to go full time with younger players. Indeed, I can imagine that we will start signing a fair few rejects from the likes of Chelski, Palace, Fulham who want to remain in the game and in London, but are willing to take a second chance. Whenever the phrase “full time” is mentioned, it does start bringing on a cold sweat. But at least three of our players – Kennedy, Hussey and Hatton – are on something resembling full time status (how it works I’ve never quite found out), and you can expect more of those sort of signings, not less. Presume they get enough to live on…
One thing of note – we might be eligible to join the Football Combination now. For the uninitiated, it’s basically the reserve league for tinpot clubs like, er, Brighton and Gillingham and QPR. And Palace. You may have seen the name of Lewes in there, too. Now, I don’t think we’ll join this season – we will need to play a certain amount of games at our home venue (ie KM), and some will be played in the afternoon, which will mean a committment by the whole squad to being full time. Or at least available for scheduled games at that time. And I think we’re a year behind in that development. By the looks of it, Eastbourne Borough are in there and Crawley Town are looking to join it this season…
But if/when we do join (and we will tie up with them eventually), it could be as important to the future development of AFCW as signing Jon Main was. It has to be better for the development of our squad to be playing Palace in the Combination rather than (with all due respect) Wealdstone reserves in the Suburban League. It will certainly make the aim of TB to get in youngsters from higher up a lot easier to “sell” anyway. A released Palace youngster wouldn’t drop down any standard while playing for our stiffs, and if he impresses will inevitably have a far better chance of getting into the first team. Ask Kennedy Adjei.
Anyway, we’re now in football purgatory mode. Any single bit of information that leaks out will be devoured through sheer desperation. You may even find doing some work or, Satan forbid, watch cricket to get you through the upcoming months.
Trouble is, apart from the OS and WUP, there’s precious little else to feed the AFCW part of your brain. I doubt if the SLP and Kingston Surrey Comet will have masses on us, at least nothing you won’t have already known from the first minute it got leaked. You could go elsewhere for your fix – you could lurk on the Conference South forum, but that’s pretty boring. The Conference National one feels like a crappy working man’s club in some northern shithole. You know, where the ashtrays were made of tin, the telly is permanently on a mis-tuned ITV and you can’t tell whether the smell of urine is from the toilet or the contributors. Some of the jokes, especially about us, show more than a smigeon of eccentricity…
Alternatively, you can read this place over the summer. Yes, it’ll be going strong, and it’ll even reach its tenth birthday this close season. I might do something, I might not. Funny how a lot has changed in the decade hasn’t it? Back then, I was full of optimism at a new direction for the club after years of stagnation. Now…?