It's a Matter of Honour

Call me churlish if you like, but as a Wimbledon supporter of 30+ years I cannot help feeling that the "return" of Wimbledon's honours to Merton Council by Milton Keys Dons FC (hereafter and forever known as "franchise") is not the massive cause for celebration that some Dons fans obviously feel it to be.

For the uninitiated, the story is here
http://www.wisa.org.uk/cgi/l/articles/index.cgi?action=show&id=558
and the background is that when the franchise stole our club, our players and our position in the Football League they took our honours, our history and our heritage too. They have since conceded that they are, in footballing terms, a completely new entity, and have no rightful claim anything that was achieved by the old Wimbledon FC. Some people appear to be borderline ecstatic. I am not among them.

Let's be clear about one thing. Merton Council did not win the FA Cup. Or the Forth Division Championship, the Southern League Championship or indeed anything else dating right back to the Clapham League in 1897. Merton Council won none of those things. Wimbledon Football Club did. And Wimbledon still has a football club, and that's where those honours and all the accompanying history should be.

Who the hell are Merton Council to have our honours ? What bloody right do they have, for God's sake ? At its simplest, this is just another mis-appropriation of history and heritage that's only slightly better than that exacted by franchise fc when the horrendous deal was originally sanctioned by the FA in 2002. In a broader sense, it's yet another example of the State taking over where they have no right to be. Why should we have to traipse into the Town Hall or some other godforsaken hell hole to see honours that belong to a football club ? Simon Wheeler, WISA Chair, tries to claim a historic victory, saying "Wimbledon supporters can be proud that the honours won by their Club no longer belong to another community". But apparently, they still do. Merton Council is not our community.