By Community Correspondent William Caruana Have you heard of AFC Wimbledon? Do you know where they’ve come from? AFC Wimbledon was formed after the old Wimbledon football club moved to Milton Keynes in 2002. The old club is now called the Milton Keynes Dons. AFC were formed after the angry original Wimbledon fans had their club taken away from them. They decided to hold trials to try and form a new club called AFC Wimbledon. Men from all over London came to trial for AFC, papers were submitted to the authorities and a new club was born: AFC Wimbledon.

AFC started their first season in the Combined Counties Football League: the 9th tier of English football. AFC started their first season slowly, but won their last 11 games to finish 3rd, narrowly missing out on promotion. In the second season, they won 21 games in a row to become league champions. That year they also took part in the world famous FA cup for the first time, exiting after the third qualifying round. During the second and third seasons, AFC Wimbledon set a new record for the longest run of unbeaten league games at any level of senior football in the United Kingdom. They remained unbeaten for 78 league matches between 22 February 2003 and 4 December 2004, a truly astonishing achievement.

AFC had gained two consecutive promotions before being beaten in the play-off final in 2006. The next season was also disappointing for AFC, this time losing in the play-off semi final for promotion. In 2008 however, AFC Wimbledon beat Staines Town 2-1 in the play-off final to secure promotion to the Conference South division. This was certainly helped by the signing of Jamaican Marcus Gayle. Gayle had played over 100 games for Watford under managerial legend Gianluca Vialli from 2001-2005. He had also made 14 appearances for his country, including playing in the 1998 World Cup!

During the 2008/2009 season, the fairytale continued as AFC were crowned champions of the Conference South division on the last day of the season, which took them up to the Blue Square Premier division. This day also marked the record attendance for AFC with nearly 5,000 people seeing them lift the trophy. Should AFC be promoted once more, they would find themselves in the big time; the Football League, the ultimate dream from the very first day of AFC being formed. The Football League would turn the current crop of players from semi-pro to professional footballers competing against the likes of Sol Campbell, a legendary England international and Premier League winner with Arsenal. The team will contest with Notts County FC, managed by former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson (should Notts County remain in League 2). AFC have been promoted 4 times in the past 7 seasons which shows their incredible achievement. The journey still continues for AFC; they currently sit 12th in the Blue Square Premier division after 10 games and look forward for pushing for promotion to the Coca-Cola Football League 2.