City fit for Dons (as well as the odd cow)

Steve Larner, news editor of the Milton Keynes Citizen, believes Wimbledon will find a warm welcome in Buckinghamshire

Come on you Dons ? you are already late.

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Opposition mounts to Wimbledon move

Come on you Dons – you are already late. The news that Wimbledon Football Club could be making the journey here to move into a state-of-the art stadium in Milton Keynes might have had its home-grown "real" fans crying into whatever "real" football fans drink these days.

Up here we already have the dark blue and yellow carpet out and the The Style Council's "Come to Milton Keynes" spinning on the CD jukebox. Our newish new city has almost everything its 210,000 (and rising) population could wish for except a top-flight, or even a not-quite top flight, football team.

And now, some 30 years after the first bulldozers arrived, we have got one – almost. Apparently that has not gone down too well with the die-hard Dons fans not exactly pleased at the prospect of having to venture beyond London's city walls – or the M25 as we country bumpkins call it.

They should try it, if only the once. And how about lots of other people, like national newspaper editors and columnists, comedians and writers who have made a comfortable living taking the piss out of our concrete cows, making the trip?

Or artists following in the footsteps of Gilbert and George to our Gallery, or actors to tread the boards of our £30m theatre, the finest outside that Town by the Thames.

Or entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to work in the most vibrant economy in the UK. Or scientists, sports enthusiasts, shop-till-you-droppers. Or Mercedes and Audi drivers – those companies are based here, too.

MK is easy to find. It is a big place with big ideas and even bigger plans to come. Up the West Coast main line, the A5 or the M1 and you get off the train or out of the car.

Don't bother with the wellies – we have progressed from a giant building site to a road and footpath system that spoils drivers and cyclists – but do bring the skis and try Europe's biggest indoor real snow ski slope. (We could have just waited for it to snow like it does in the Alps but, what the heck, it only cost £60m).

Waiting for that real snow to fall is a bit like starting with a little football club and watching it crawl painfully up and slide even more painfully down the league tables trapped in a ground that's too old and too small or having no ground at all. Instead in two years' time we could have a proper big football club playing in a big £50m stadium, perhaps even in the Premiership.

Not that we would want to give the rest of the country the idea that we are just a load of loadsamoneys here in concrete-cow land. You can throw cash at any problem and, if big money can't buy you love, it can buy you football sides off the shelf that can take you to the stars.

There is a real get-up-and-go spirit in Milton Keynes – the sort of spirit that says "Up yours" to the mockers and doubters, and that says we are not afraid to break the mould.

That is why Milton Keynes hasn't got a football team with 112 years of tradition behind it (the place didn't exist 40 years ago), and why we are not afraid to tread on a few toes and upset a few diehards to get ourselves one.

"There is no real support for football in Milton Keynes," and "They are all Manchester United or Liverpool fans so they won't support a local team," say the mockers and knockers. Just you wait. If it all comes to fruition in two years' time, Milton Keynes and its fans will do their new football team proud, and prove the rest of the country wrong yet again.

After so long waiting for a team of its own, even one delivered like something from the catalogue shop (Argos is based here as well), that opening game of the 2003-04 season could be the start of something big: Milton Keynes Dons FC.

From commoners to Keynes via the crazy gang ­ a history of Wimbledon FC

1889: The club are formed as Wimbledon Old Centrals, playing their home games at Wimbledon Common. They claim their first honours by winning the Clapham League title in 1896. In 1905 the club change their name to Wimbledon FC.

1912: Plough Lane becomes home. The stadium is to change little in the 79 years that Wimbledon play there.

1921: The South Londoners reach the upper echelons of amateur football by joining the Isthmian League. After making little early impact, a first Isthmian League title in 1931 sees Wimbledon emerge as a major force in amateur football. They go on to win the championship a further seven times and make appearances in the Amateur Cup Final in 1935 and 1947. They eventually win the competition at Wembley in 1963, beating Sutton United 4-2.

1964: The Dons turn professional and join the First Division of the Southern League. They win promotion immediately, but have to wait 10 years before winning the Premier Division. They went on to take the title three years in succession from 1975-77, during the same period a reputation for FA cup giant-killing is established, beating then First Division Burnley at Turf Moor and holding Leeds 0-0 at Elland Road.

1977: League and cup successes are rewarded with election to the Football League. After two seasons in the Fourth Division, the club "yo-yo" between the Fourth and Third Divisions. The pattern is ended after Wimbledon win the Fourth Division in 1983, with another promotion the following year. Alan Cork, who scores a club-record 29 goals in the 1983-84 season, goes on to become the only player ever to score in every division of the league with the same club.

1984-86: Under the stewardship of Dave Bassett Wimbledon become popularly known as "the Crazy Gang". Employing an uncompromising brand of kick-and-rush football Bassett's rookies ­ personified by Vinny Jones and John Fashanu ­ jump from the Third to the First Division in only three seasons.

1988: Lawrie Sanchez scores the winning goal in a famous FA Cup final victory over an all-conquering Liverpool side. Several players wore sunglasses on the way to Wembley, apparently to relieve severe hangovers. They had allegedly spent Friday night preparing for the match in a local pub and had finally got into bed, intoxicated, at around 2am.

1991: Wimbledon leave Plough Lane and establish a ground sharing arrangement with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

1993: Wimbledon's home fixture with Everton is watched by just 3,039 fans, the lowest ever gate at a Premiership match. In the same season, 30,115 watch the final home game of the season against Manchester United ­ a club record.

2000: After 14 uninterrupted years in the top flight the Dons are relegated to the Nationwide League First Division.