In response to Ingrid Dickenson's reply to Laura Slade: "We residents do not want AFC Wimbledon back at Plough Lane

I live in the local area around Plough Lane. My grandparents lived here and my mother was brought up in the area.

My Grandfather was an ardent fan of Wimbledon back in their first stint in non-league through the 50's and 60's. My mother took me to my first Wimbledon game on Plough Lane in 1978, and she happily allowed me to go to others unchaperoned as a teenager in the early 80's.

I assume this is the period of fear and unbridled chaos to which Ms Dickenson harks back to with such gusto. Personally, I never saw any beer getting poured anywhere except gracefully down the necks of some happy and pleasant Wimbledon fans, resulting in zero beer-flavoured carwashes being handed out, just as the street furniture along Kingston Road has remained beer-suds free the past 12 years.

Perhaps Ms Dickenson has been watching too many works of fiction like Green Street and Football Factory on which she has based her seemingly-misremembered reminiscences?

That said, I distinctly remember some hooligan flung a half-eaten strawberry in my hedge once while I was giving it a trim - so perhaps I should start my own campaign to stop those beastly rotters oiking it up with their racquet every June and July and positively ruining my serene summers.

But seriously, I welcome the opportunity to educate Ms Dickenson et al about the benefits that a football club and its community work - oh and money - will bring to the local area.

For instance: if the shopkeepers in Arthur Road have any concerns about extra foot traffic 25 times a year they should know that the only thing that the cafes and shops and stores along Kingston Road dread about us is the chance we will move back to our true local area in SW19 and that they will lose all the very welcome money and trade of which they have been the beneficiaries for the past 12 years.

No broken windows or garden gates uprooted with superhuman strength in Kingston, I am sad to report.

The rest of Ms Dickenson's letter is full of equally hysterical levels of fear-mongering and outrageous exaggeration. It is sad that people still think this way, but it shows the work in front of us as fans to help educate those who prefer to clutch misinformation and fear to their chest, instead of illumination and education about sports fans in the modern era. Almost all of us realise that the gentrification of football in the past generation has made it a very middle-class event indeed. But we should cut the delightful Ms D some slack - after all it has been 23 years since Wimbledon were forced out of Plough Lane - a place they'd called home since 1912: but, as she says so herself "the `present’ football team NEVER played in Plough Lane". So she surely has no worry that Vinnie Jones will pass by and bite the head off a live bat in front of her living room window, just as the residents of Brighton no longer fear regular contretemps by Mods on Rockers.

Wimbledon fans themselves are just like us: very friendly, highly educated and ever-so polite. Same goes with almost exclusively every modern football fan.
The proposed stadium is in an area of light industry and box stores - it is not on Ms Dickenson's doorstep, no matter how much she wishes to interpolate the geography of the stadium.

And it will be a modern stadium with conference facilities, sports and fitness centres, established youth community schemes and a very well behaved set of loyal fans which will make Wimbledon's football club an even more cherished community asset. Something which Ms Dickenson by rights should and indeed can be proud.

Failing that, I know Gaillard homes are confident that 600 homes situated right next to the stadium will sell very quickly. But presumably they are planning to install bullet-proof glass and throw in some free arson insurance with every sale.

Ah well.

Tudor Jennings
SW19 and proud of Wimbledon's football team.

 

 

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