Thetownend.com

When it comes to these cunts the rules should be very simple. Do not engage in any form of communication with them. Don't look up their views - they are fucking worthless. The only way to treat them is to completely isolate them. Just do not engage in any form of exchange with them. Apart from Winkelman don't even smack oine.
They are beneath contempt. I hate The Scummers because of who they are, I hate these cunts because of what they are. 

blah blah blah Franchise blah blah blah wimbledon.

we should be thinking of more important things, like ourselves.

Jesus wept...

'Proud that MK has got such a go-ahead club, befitting the go ahead city I have been proud to live in for the last 20 odd years.'

Go ahead city?!  This really is an exercise in self-delusion, isn't it.  Milton Keynes is a fucking planning accident , dreamed up in the 1960s and still being suffered by its residents (and anyone else unfortunate enough to have to visit) today.  A plastic town (yes, folks, it's a town) and a plastic franchise.  The two deserve each other.

I am proud never to have watched a game of football there.  And I never will.

DV - you need something to take your mind off our current predicamant. I don't think I can cope with our shirttyness 24/7. The Abomination provide an outlet as long as its one way.

I don't think anything like MKFranchise will be allowed to happen in the football league again. And there's encouraging signs that teams have started to realise that they'll never be able to successfully chase the marketing dream. Yeah there's extra revenue to be made from good ground facilities and gaining connections with business and other stuff, but it's becoming more and more apparent that it is extra revenue.

I think we're starting to see the beginnings of a push back towards using the best natural resource teams have - a connection with the local community (as sort of mentioned above). Hopefully a realisation that just rinsing out a dying group of hardcore fans, who will go whatever the cost, is unsustainable. I think we're starting to see it now with reduced season tickets at some stuff. Hopefully it works out.

I'm not under the illusion that there was some golden time where clubs were ran with no worries with regard to finance, but it's definitely taken a leap to the extreme in the last two decades.

Unfortunately It's clearly going to be too late for a lot of football clubs, with the league being unable/unwilling to enforce the "fit and proper" to run a football club rule - and the vultures about willing to strip a club of anything of value.

And the top "super"clubs are too far gone in their quest of global marketing to be pulled back now. It's only a matter of time before the pressure gets too much and the pre-season tours of Asia take the step up into the occasional competitive fixture played out there. An undoing of the "football brand" will be much easier where it hasn't been a success.

I'm not really sure where that essay came from. One of those starting to type and then just carrying on jobbies. I'll re-read it in a bit and decide it's all nonsense.

Put standing areas back in the grounds, the atmosphere will be much better and more people will attend.

I cant understand why they try to defend themselves.
They are what they are, plastic fans.

It is getting very tiresome keeping having a go at these new world fans.
Very similar to Reading fans in a way, you see them walking to the grounds all their new scarfs, new shirts, new Reading this and that, you never see an old shirt, old scarf or come to that old supporter ... bandwagon get on it.
Where will you fans be when it goes pearshape which it will.

The thing is dell, there were at least 15 or so MK fans who looked to be their fifties and sixties wearing full squadwear in The Merlin yesterday.

Yes I saw many as well, but they never had a side before did they from Milton Keynes and have just jumped on the bandwagon.
My comparison with Reading was totally shit, I know what I meant just didnt come out right.

They had the Cobbs just 20 minutes down the road, if they wanted to follow football they could have been doing so all their lives!

Swindon fans (and residents) can often be an apathetic bunch, as we all know.  But on the MkFranchise issue we have - as a body - been very vocal.  I am proud of that.  And the reason that best explains this is, I think, that we have come very close during the last decade to losing our own club.

Dell - I think you're being a little harsh on Reading fans, to tell the truth.  I know they are often derided as being plastic as well, but to group them with the Franchise is not fair in my view.  Reading is an old club that has fallen on successful times and, much as we might think they look a little plastic now, I think we would all like a little of the success that they have had.  When better times do arrive for us (as I believe they will), we too will acquire a new set of supporters.  You will see more Swindon tops being worn around town, just as you see a lot more Reading shirts in Berkshire than you used to.  I would be quite pleased to emulate a little of what Reading has done...but NEVER would I want to emulate the Franchise.

Flamable - excellent essay.  Agreed with every word.

I think all successful clubs get bandwagon jumpers, Reading are no exception. Though living in the Reading/Basingstoke area as they achieved success was interesting. You used to see a fair few Saints shirts about the place. They soon dried up to be replaced by Reading. Knew a couple of older Reading casual fans that claimed despite lots of empty seats it was hard to get tickets in the Championship promotion year due to an increase in season ticket sales for the latter part of the season to ensure getting one for the prem year.

We'd be the same if we were ever that fortunate again. I'd think "where were you when we were shit" as the chant goes, but I'd be happy more money was coming into the club. But we all know for most clubs success and (hopefully) failure is temporary and cyclic and at some stage the new support will fade away.  

MK is a different kettle of fish to all that (for me anyway). But I've said my bit on that so won't go on.

EDIT: Beaten to essentially the same point by Ardiles. It took Reading a good 10 years and a substantial redevelopment to get where they are. And that was probably easier then than now. It shows how much work needs to be done to get success and how we have to be patient even if it is torturous on the pitch right now.

Great minds, Batch...

Ardilles you are right about my comments I'm sure.
Funny thing I spoke to a couple of neighbours at lunchtime (new Reading fans) and apparently it is all going pearshape after a draw on Saturday and Wolves and Birmingham winning.
Oh if only we could be so down in the dumps.

I was hoping the nice person from Bletchley might have wanted to talk about railways, what with Bletchley being a noted trainspotters paradise in the past.

Bletchley is a railway town...in much the same way as New Swindon was railway town..just sort of stayed a backwater...nevertheless interesting for all that.

When you stated the above Reg, I had to look it up:

The London and Birmingham Railway, now the "West Coast Main Line", was officially opened from Euston to Denbigh Hall, approximately one mile north of Bletchley station, on April 9, 1838, where a temporary station was built. The line was fully opened in September 1838, and there seemed no apparent need for a station in the Bletchley area at all. It was not until 1847 that Bletchley station was built following the opening of the line from Bedford. Originally a major intercity station, that role passed to Milton Keynes Central in 1982 when the latter was built, long after the east/west route had been downgraded, taking Bletchley's importance as a junction with it. Today, no Virgin inter-city services stop at Bletchley.

Reading are new football though. They get unbelievable gates at home, and take no fans away. The money making way. Fammilies not blokes spending the money in pubs and having a community around a football club. How do you keep alive the rivalry and fan culture with fans who wont travel?

Reading fans views on football are boring and predictable. They have an out of town ground, with fans who will not go against the grain (because why bite the hand that has fed you?). But 70 Readings in the football league is my idea of football hell.

The sanitisation of football and the out of town grounds will in time be regarded as a massive mistake (in my view). The sanitisation of football has to end sooner or later, because some of these clubs are nothing more than hollows shells to me now. Lots of money and no soul! Can it last? If people dont really care about it, then whats the point?

You take the money out of the game and you watch the passion flood back into football, but it might take another generation. Young kids now see the money more as a motivation than the glory and raw excitement that attracted a lot of us to the game as kids.

The irony of ironies is that once upon a time we were derided in Europe because of football hooliganism. But the football authorities have become so obsessed and paranoid about it that they have failed to see the NEW reason we are hated in Europe. Because of our clubs rampant commercialism and obsession with scooping up revenues from other countries.

Eternally teasing us with the World Cup will be their perfect way to get their own back.

Agree with some of that - especially the part about the out of town ground.  (The Green Park/Whitley area around Reading's ground bring's a new meaning to 'soulless', and I'm glad our board seem to be making the right noises about keeping STFC in the centre of Swindon...where it belongs, in my view.)

But some sanitisation is inevitable, I think.  As it happens, I was shopping in Reading yesterday morning and whenever I'm there I do notice how embedded Reading FC has become locally in a way that STFC isn't in Swindon.  It's the number of RFC shirts being worn by children, the fact that you can buy the shirts in John Lewis, the level of coverage they get in local media (their games are often covered simultaneously by two different local radio stations).

Yes, it's all a bit sanitised and middle class...but they've embraced all that and it's brought them success on the pitch.  They've also had a fuck of a lot more to cheer about during the last decade than we have...hundreds more moments where they've cheered a goal or a win or a promotion.  Unfortunately, I think the two go hand in hand to an extent.  If the 2010s is going to be a more successful decade for us than the one about to end, we'll need to accept a little more sanitisation.

[I'm rambling.  Apologies.]

This has turned into a good rambling thread. Some good views being aired.

Anyone if mind if I split it off somewhere a bit before my effort into a new thread so all this interesting stuff about football as a whole doesn't get lost at the end of this match day jobby?

Yeah, I do, dont sanitise the thread!

No to thread sanitisation!

I think you'll find the Bletchley legend centres around the fact that our decoding genius population bailed out you carrot-crunching hicks from the prospect of nazi invasion during the second world war. Probably a much better contribution to the enemy threat than being sat on a hay bale threatening to shove your pitchfork up some German fellas backside.

Most of this has happened in the  last 10 years in reading, since they flattened the bus depot and built the oracle, when i lived there you could go all day without seeing a reading shirt, investment in the town kicked it off, and everything else followed, not saying out of town bowl is the answer but for the club to progress, Sbc needs to get their act together and start making the town what it could be.

Haha. What the fuck?

Stephen Hawking in the house!

Your appreciation of my genius is duly noted. Thank you for your honesty.

I think he meant more of the deacon than genius. I was embarrassed looking at your fans yesterday, I just dont get how you can be passionate about a brand.

Its like cheering on diet coke.

As opposed to cheering on a bottle of piss that'll be a step closer to their AFC Wimbledon buddies next season?

What has Reading's attendance retention been like since they dropped out of the Premier League? With all the talk about people getting second half season tickets in their promotion year for the purpose of getting a season ticket in the prem and not going until then, it'd be interesting to know if attendance have dropped back down again much.

I think Reg really did want to talk Railways :)

Football is developed in the UK and therefore doesn't need clubs to move from town-to-town in search of popularity. Personally I find it baffling that fans switched teams so easily!

I've long accepted that Franchise are a part of the Football League but I'll never recognise them as anything other than an ghastly franchise and even if/when they make 20/30 years I'd still feel the same. Nothing against the supporters, it's Winkelman and the Football Association that are to blame here :)

The "Americanisation" of football in England really isn't welcome and hopefully never will be again.

I will love the day the real wimbledon pass you cunts in the league.

Just don't interact with the cunts. Let them spout their shite to ears that don't listen. Don't encourage them ,even if it is to give them a gobful. Basically slag them off , call them whatever but don't interact with them. Don't try and legitimise them by engaging in debate. 

They didnt have that much of a drop off. Like I said, theyve had great attendances for home games for 7 or more years.

You can only notice the band wagon jumpers by the away supports. Reading, Charlton, Fulham, they all struggle to get 300 up to Anfield.

We had 3300 at Sheffield Wednesday in the Premier League. On a tuesday night. Bottom of the league!

An intelligent post deserving of an attempt at an intelligent answer.

I had to walk away from my old side at the end of the 1999/2000 season after 25 years of active support (plus a few more of idolising pictures in Shoot as a youngster). It wasn't easy at all, and not a decision I made lightly. Obviously, the Milton Keynes situation hadn't really arisen at that stage, and I took comfort in watching non-league football for a few years until moving to Milton Keynes in late 2004.

Nobody ever comes rallying around to those of us who followed our teams when things were proper shit, with crowds of under 6000 in stadiums that now sell out every week simply because there was no point in bleating about it. We were nudged aside as the money men moved in and had no choice about our footballing futures as many Wimbledon fans had no choice in theirs.

Realistically speaking, if Swindon were ever to play top-flight football again, how many of their current fan base could swallow the hike in ticket pricing before being swallowed up by 'new' support?

The fact that people think fans of MKD arrived from nowhere shows how out of touch many really are. We'd already been robbed blind long before fans of Wimbledon got their chance to see how it felt.

Er... Posting about ignoring us? That's interaction, isn't it?

Sorry. Missed that.

You're right. That is a big red mark for the plastic fans. I was a bit slow on the uptake.

They should give the away side a relative fraction of the gate receipts for a league game. Didn't they used to do that? Would be a nice fan recognising leveller

I thought it was 50 per cent up until the late 80's? It was the Football League's great leveller. I think they abolished it in an effort to stave off the breakaway league. Basically Man United were getting well pissed off that they couldnt win the league.

Bletchley I thought you said you were going to post an intelligent reply? None of that made any sense to me?

Other big red mark against plastic fans is the lemming wearing of team kits, by that I mean every home fan wearing kits. Thinking you have to wear the shirt to support the team. An even bigger one is fans worrying about wearing the right away kit when they change. Doing whatever stewards want you to do. Drums. No one standing up.

I said it was an attempt. I'm not the intellectual type, after all.

In fairness, I've seen Swindon visit MK three times since the relocation and they're possibly amongst the highest ratio of shirt wearers to overall support I've witnessed. It's not a critisism. Simply an observation that you possibly haven't seen the change in your own support over the years because you may be focused on other things.

Drums are a pain in the backside, but I tend to blame the England scene for much of it. As for stewarding, a meeting was held with Winkelman, head stewards and club staff earlier this season after two of our regulars were ejected for the most laughable claims of persistant standing I've seen in my life. The communication between the club and fans have seen an acceptable level of tolerance to the situation but my yardstick of loyalty doesn't neccessarily involve how long you can stand for before you get challenged, but what legths you're prepared to go to when it comes to following your team.

For many of us, bills go unpaid, partners go unloved and the kids go unfed so we can watch those overpaid twats at places like Grimsby on a freezing cold Friday night. We might not be 'proper' fans to many, but we do try our best to act like them on occasion.

I'm struggling to see your point about us having "shirt-wearing" fans. What is it, exactly?

Im no fan of shirt wearers, and I do think it is a bit of a plastic indicator. But if you look at teams like Bristol Rovers or Wolves, their shirt wearers are often a bunch of absolute nutjobs who have been following for decades.

 

 Yeah....look at this 0-6-0 shunter putting in a shift at Bletchley....

 They get a lick of paint, but some of those English Electrics are over 50 years old

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq1oxQUqusg

 Driving that train, high on cocaine...

 

It's a response to SW's post regarding the lemming-like wearing of replica kits. My own point is that, unfortunately, it's an epidemic with pretty much every club at every level these days with very few exceptions.

Even Millwall had a fair few scarfers and shirters sat down with their dressers at the ND this season. It just looked totally fucking wrong!

I drove past about 6 chavs all in Franchise shirts yesterday on a dual carriagway, I nearly put 3 litres of engine through them, in hindsight I wish I had.  I really really feel bad about what those bastards did to the real Wimbledon.  It actually sickens me to the core.  I will be very proud when the real Dons return to the football league as I have the utmost respect for the way they handles what happened.

So, we're just as plastic as your lot because we buy replica kits? That's a bit of a shit argument.

How does a team only formed seven years ago intend to 'return' to the league?

Daft thing is that the AFCW followers I know are simply looking forward to gaining a league place one day in the future. It's everybody else that keeps the ball rolling, while those that actually matter seem to be happy in the success they've already acheived.

From my end, good luck to them. They had a decision to make and it felt it best to start a new side that they felt reflected what they wanted from a football side. Others made a different choice and followed their players and staff up to MK. It's the type of cock that wants to run down teenage supporters that need to be eradicated from football. Just my opinion, mind...

Thankfully, my reply was directed at one of the more intelligent supporters on this forum that might see what my 'shit argument' is actually trying to say.

If you'd like me to involve you a bit more, I am prepared to grunt at occasional intervals and spill bargain-basement red wine down my shirt front to make you feel a part of things.

Ben, Ive got a theory about fans, especially of yo yo clubs like ourselves. The are defined by the era in which their team was most successful.

Oxford and Luton were most successful in the early 80's when fans were just absolutely cuntish to each other. Which is why they are both a set of spite fuelled stabbing cunts.

Reading were most successful in this decade, which is why their fans are a bunch of middle class plastics not interested in the history of the game or tribal fan rivalries.

Rovers were most successful in the 1970's, which is why they are pretty much 95% men who love a beer and a scrap.  

Whereas we were most successful in English footballs golden period (in my view) of 1988 to 1993. Which is why weve got the best type of fans. Bit of everything. Or at least I thought we had. Our support has gone downhill in the last 12 months in my opinion.

Because they support the club that won the FA Cup in 1988.  But you knew that.

I've responded to a Franchise customer, which was a bad idea.  I regret it already.

Nice to know I'm a plastic fan.  

You would think that having watched Town for nearly 40 years I would be accepted as a real fan by now.

I guess not  :D

I thought Wimbledon won the FA Cup in 1988. Shows how much I know, being a plastic fan and all that...

I didnt mean it like that Posh red.

Its just when you get everyone in the entire ground wearing the same top, like they do at Reading, it does look well gay.

AFC Wimbledon had teh support of many things to do with the origional Wimbledon unlike Franchise who simply bought a place in teh league and moved in.  In my opinion, the real dons are AFC Wimbledon and I hope one day they return to where they should be.

And I suppose you're member of MENSA?

That's OK, it was meant in a light hearted way.

I think it (the amount of Replica Kits at our games) is partly because we have a lot of kids.
My son often wears his Town shirts to Football training up here, I'm just glad he hasn't turned into a Chelsea, Arsenal or Man U fan.

Now why on earth would you go and make a supposition like that?

I really didn't know that I was that much of an intellectual bully!

You're not, you are just a Franchise Scum supporting wanker.

Certainly got loads of kids.

And have had for 10 years or more.

Which begs the question where are the kids from 10 years ago?

Not hooked on football.

Like what? A chunk of Wimbledons fan base and... Well, not much else really.

The players, staff, name, kits, pens and pencils and everything else shifted north to Milton Keynes, as did a section of Wimbledon fans who were happy to make the transition with their team.

I'm not knocking AFC Wimbledon. I don't particularly care for the misleading propoganda they used a few years ago, but they had their reasons.

Their surge through the pyramid has been impressive, although I understand they're not making many friends on the way. Many non-league fans see them as Big-Time Charlies which, in those circles, they probably are.

You fancy me, don't you?

Serious question BletchleyDons, were you a Wimbledon fan before the move to MK?

It's an interesting one.

You could argue that the longer ago the success was the less it matters, but I guess also there's the transference from old fans to the younger ones effect. You'll have pick up more fans when you're successful (like it or not) and it's their attitude which gets past on to the next generation - overriding what had gone before in a way.

I guess you could call it the Football Genetics Theory, you fans keep the traits of those when you were last successful.

I think our success has a nasty twist too it. You're always going to have fans who think we should better than we are - that's not a pop at fans who say we're not doing well this season, I mean more the undercurrent who think we have a rightful place in the top two leagues. That success ended about 9 seasons ago under Jimmy Quinn, yet it's the empty promises we've had from the likes of Brady and Donegan which have extended it over the first part of this decade.

I'm not sure I'm being fair to be honest. I haven't been going regularly since about the play-off season, but then there were fans who were adamant we should be in at least the championship/div1(as then) by default, and I guess they can't all have died out.

Am I wrong that I see Swindon as a high mid table league one team, with a once in 15 years deviation of good in the championship and average in league two? I think that a sensible running of the club just cements that even more. I'm glad we're going to play within our means, and it will give us an advantage over the other clubs who implode into doing the same, but it also means that we're going to end up more often that not at the level our support deserves.

How about the area they represent? If you are wimbledon why change the name?

Pretty sure I've already covered it in this thread, but I wasn't. I was a ST holder at Stamford Bridge, having followed them as a schoolkid and attended games since 1974/75.

By 1999/2000, I simply couldn't afford to watch them any longer. The rewards for my loyalty were being pushed aside to make room for the type of supporter they really wanted and I didn't particularly care by then anyway. Chelsea had become a machine with no identity and weren't the side I was embarrased by as a kid. I could have just gone on an irregular basis several times a year, but that wasn't what following them used to be about for me. Supporting Chelsea was about getting beaten by shit like Cambridge or Cardiff in front of sub-7000 crowds, not packed houses sat next to Scandinavian tourists and snobs.

I followed non-league (enjoyable but without any genuine passion) for four years until I moved to MK in late 2004, and soon began watching the franchise. At least the lack of identity was my choice and not foisted upon me.

The owner wanted to make his club more marketable to a new audience.

His methods were cuntish to say the least, but the means currently seems to be justified by the ends that have been acheived.

My problem (one of them on this issue...) is that MK decided roughly 35 years ago that they wanted a league club.

Now MK City were an already existing club and instead of the council getting behind them and building from the bottom they shit on them and actively decided that the best way to get league football would be to wait until a club from wherever in the football league were in the shit so they could buy thier registration - not the team, the registration.

How on earth can you seriously think that is acceptable?

The amount of money that has had to be put into the dons would easily have seen City push for league status years ago - it took Rushden and Diamonds what, 11 years from conception to gaining league status.

If the council had played this right from the start then this whole discussion would never have to happen.

How is it right that teams like Stevenage have been banging on the door of the league for years had to watch a town come from nowhere waving a piece of paper in their faces saying that they now have a league club after all the hard graft they put in?

And this argument that Wimbledon would have died?  They did didn't they?  Started from scratch again and will be a league in the next decade.

Accrington Stanley folded and 44 years later they were back.

Get off your high-horse and realise that the whole thing stinks and should never have happened.

You McDons fans are not moral troopers you think you are, if it were legal to blow schools up you wouldn't do it because it's just plain wrong, as is following the Dons.  Just because something is so does not make it right.

So what was wrong with going to the Cobbs?

I didn't move to Northampton, did I?

I am responding to your other post, but lost it in another window...

No you didn't but that would have been the right choice...

I think that of all the lads in the pub stood in the corner all wearing the same designer clobber. It's great :)

Waht moral high horse is this?

Just so you're aware, but Milton Keynes City failed to exist from the middle of the 1984/85 season, having been formerly known as Bletchley Town. A Mercedes-Benz works side (relocated from Brentford, funnily enough) took the name when they arrived in the city purely because it was going begging. They had no connection to the Milton Keynes City side that won the Berks and Bucks Cup in 1980 as the highlight of their existence.

The 'legend' surrounding the league club desires is another smokescreen. The situation here is that Ron Noades, while at Wimbledon, invested in Milton Keynes City as a means of using their lottery license when Wimbledon were refused one. Tickets at Plough Lane were sold under the name of, IIRC, Gold-digger Promotions which owned the MK City license. The connections were pure co-incidence, although Noades is on record as saying that Milton Keynes would be an ideal place for league football in the future.

It wouldn't have been the right choice for me, in the same way that upping sticks and going to watch AFC Wimbledon wasn't right for some of those that joined their side in Milton Keynes.

You're a funny cunt Bletchley.

Who the hell do you think you're calling funny????

I've lived just outside MK all my life and followed Swindon all my life, no need to up sticks...

And fair fucks to you. That's your choice and good luck to you for sticking with it.

If you ever do reach a level of success that sees your side and support effectively replaced, will you still feel the same about the club though?

You're all always saying that our views are wrong and that because we can't (shouldn't) get over it that we're some sort of neanderthal breed and that your lot are better than us because you can see through all the reasons to not accept the club and support them.

I've never said that at all. I accept that we're despised by a sizable amount of other supporters in this country. I'm not even defending the situation. I'm just expressing a few of my views regarding the relocation issue. Whether you feel it's right or wrong is entirely your choice. I won't be trying to sway you.

Who knows?  I know I enjoy lower leagues but we all want success, at least all of us Town fans that still follow the team despite them being shit in the most part for the last 15 years will know we were there when it counted - most of us on here protested against previous owners because the club means so much to us - not sure the same could be said of dons fans if things turned sour?

I was going to wade in to the cock-sucking franchise scum myself tonight, but fellow town fans have already done our club and our supporters proud with some fucking well made arguments against a sustained attempt to gain credibility by MK's disgusting and repulsive cooze-lapping crew. Fucking well done lads :)

Shame your contribution went and fucked it all up though!

Our previous Board had plans to move us to J17 of the M4. It was met by an angry reception. One of the Board members, we'll call him Mr Whippy, couldn't quite understand why we wouldn't want a shiny new stadium and a secure financial future (supposedly) 20 miles away.

It's situations like this which is why most fans are hostile towards McFranchise. If fans roll over and let it happen then it will. It's why I have respect for the Wimbledon fans who stayed and created a new team which could retain the passion of the hardcore fans rather than go to watch a new team somewhere else which had no passion to accompany it. They didn't have a choice in the end and the team is doing the right thing by earning the right to play at the levels they've played at, rather than buying a place directly.

The Wimbledon lads would still be there, as would a hardcore of followers who've grown into the club since the relocation.

The flip-side of success is a different animal altogether. It fucked up my football for nearly five years, and I know the support I gave Chelsea when times were really bad hasn't been missed for a second. If Swindon ever went as far returning to top-flight football, the increase in financial commitment alone would see you lose some of your old support while a bunch of newcomers jumped into their empty seats.

It's the way the game is now unfortunately. We don't live in the seventies and eighties anymore, I'm afraid.

I don't think there is any danger of us getting top flight football. So no need to worry.

I started following Swindon when I moved to the town,I was 16 and it was something to do,I fell into supporting them properly mainly by accident.Before that as a kid I went to Yeovil (non league) games. So I switched allegances as an adult,I dont think of myself as a plastic Swindon supporter so I im not really that different to this Betchley guy.

I might start support MK now they're doing well.

No we don't, but I've a feeling things will have changed again by the time Swindon will be knocking on the Prem door...

Good points, although those Wimbledon fans did have a choice and ultimately made it by starting a new side. Others simply couldn't let their old side go and made the move to Milton Keynes. Their choice also.

I've seen terrific arguments on both sides of the fence over the past few years, but my favourite came from a lad I know from Godalming who said he carried on turning up at Selhurst to watch Wimbledon after the FA Commission granted the move simply because it broke his heart to think of the players he idolised running out of the tunnel to an empty stadium, and if his hands were the only ones clapping them out then so be it.

You wish, sonny. Get back on momma's whiskerbiscuit before daddy wakes up.  

It is the same if you ignore all the stealing a football club, over supporting the local non-league sides, which makes MK dispicable.

I guess they did have a choice, much like you had a choice to carry on supporting Chelsea but didn't because the passion had gone.

No passion = no point, ergo no choice imo.

Do you often masturbate in public like this? FFS stop pawing yourself and add something of some use to the thread.

It wasn't so much a case of the passion going. It was the source of my passion that died. It's a bit like living with a bird you stopped loving some time ago. You still climb on it and do the business every weekend, but it's a soul-less performance that actually gets eclipsed by the lighting of the cigarette straight afterwards.

Right - That's me done and I'll piss off and leave you in peace.

To be fair, there's some good posters on here who've put their points over fairly well. Thank for having me on. Good luck in.your fight for survival. Well played yesterday.

Wanker.

when we were in the premiership i could only get a ticket for 1 game, i still follow swindon though, a football club is in your veins you fickle cunt.

At fucking last.

Well fucking said.

As far as I'm concerned there's little or no justification for supporting McDongs, if you've got any grasp on proper football you'd realise its a soulless wankpatch of a club with a fucking awful cunt of an owner too. The day Wankerlman dies I shall not be shedding a tear...

p.s am I right in thinking McDongs only got a shiny new stadium as Asda wanted a supermarket in the town but weren't allowed due to competition laws, but got round it by helping to pay for the ground the stadium is on?

ASDA Walmart to be precise and it was planning concerns IIRC rather than competition laws but yes

No matter what you think, it was a good debate and fair play to all involved.

Now let's move the fuck on!

No...i want to dwell on it.

Can't beat that. Fucking ace!

As I live in MK whenever I drive past the ground I start shouting out cunts cunts cunts. My missus goez nuts but it makes me feel better. I do the same whenever I see a road sign for Oxford!

No supermarket no stadium!!

http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/No-supermarket--no-stadium.580718.jp

It makes my teeth itch that story every time I read it and I find it somewhat appropriate as the founding flagstone it the Dons history is the soulless green and white money mountain and the local wally.   It certainly really underpins and defines them more as a club than the tragedy that is that badge. 

I think you have to bite your lip a little as time goes by they will eventually cultivate a fan base that aren’t inclined alternate their Premiership shirts every other game, or even worse those that have sold their soul and ditched their club for the green devil in disguise.  However, I think they’re still prime targets for the next decade or so for some fair abuse!!

I think this bit of success will be interesting as they seem to be by the large a blinkered bunch and if they don’t progress as quick as some of their supporters seem to believe is their god given right it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out. 

From yesterday's Martin Samuel column :

Roberto DiMatteo and Eddie Newton, the managerial team at MK Franchise, are livid after being notified that they have failed their UEFA A licence coaching badges.

Never mind, they could always follow the example of their employers and nick somebody else's qualification instead !!!