AFC Wimbledon

Originally older brother Michael and myself were to attend AFC Wimbledon's home match against Notts County FC yesterday. Mike lives in Hull and the last time we had attended a football match together was Chelsea FC years ago with our late father. Perhaps in the months to come we will attend a Hull City match together.

In those days Chelsea was in the top division. Most of the crowd there at the time  stood  and hopefully, cheered in the chilly weather.

Times in the football world have of course hugely changed with high some would say too highly, paid players, many from overseas with foreign owners of the clubs as well. Chelsea FC itself had had a long standing Russian owner until the Russian war against Ukraine commenced, after which with some difficulty, the club managed to divest itself and now has acceptable owners.

Reverting to AFC Wimbledon. Unfortunately Mike was  at the last moment  unable to attend their home match against Notts County  as he was called in by the Harefield  Hospital for  urgent surgery yesterday, which thankfully was successful.

Instead, maytrees min, who lives about a mile away from the AFC Wimbledon ground, attended with me. Unlike many if not most professional football clubs, AFC Wimbledon is still largely owned by the fans. As it happened the crowd attending the match reached a record for the Dons of almost 8,700. Fortunately maytrees min and I had great front row seats in the club's  Cappagh stand as may been seen from the picture below taken shortly before the matched commenced.

The football was exciting especially in the first half of the match when the Dons scored two excellent goals. Notts County replied by bringing on four substitutions and for a while in the second half they looked as they might pull one goal back. I suspect that players in higher echelons of the game would remain on top of the ball for the full 90 minutes rather than tiring too much before the finish

AFC Wimbledon later  brought on two substitutes of their own and almost scored a third goal.

The Don's ground and facilities are modern, We enjoyed some tea and coffee at half time and had no difficulty in bringing the cups to our seats so I suppose the ban on football clubs taking drinks into the stadium, only applies to beer and other alcoholic drinks

After the match we walked back to a cafe, local to maytrees min's flat and then back to her home where her husband Johnny, was watching France against Ireland in the six  nations rugby. As for football, Johnny is a Premiership Brighton supporter. Brighton are doing well at present. Maytrees min told me that given the far larger stadium at Brighton, crowd noise there can be greater than at AFC Wimbledon. Despite that, the singing and drum playing at the Dons' match, was noisy and continued throughout the game.

Most of the AFC Wimbledon football matches I have attended feature in blog posts here; for example AFC Wimbledon but I would say that yesterdays game was one of the most enjoyable matches I have attended since the club was formed, replacing the old Wimbledon FC. Of course the sunshine and relatively warm weather will have assisted

The match commenced at 12:30 pm. Usually Saturday professional football matches commence at 3pm. I prefer the 12:30pm start though maybe the start time is set by the FA  if not TV companies.