The Championship column March 20 2008
Ned Boulting takes a look at the life and times of the club which stems from the tradition of Wimbledon.
Billy Connolly once said: "When they start to design their own uniforms, you know you're in deep trouble."
He was talking about men like Colonel Ghadafi, Fidel Castro, General Galtieri: nice looking chaps who, you suspected, took far too long in front of the mirror every morning adjusting their epaulettes, before phoning the State Medal Works to order another couple of decorative gongs.
Now, I don't for one minute want to compare Pete Winkelman's MK Dons to the pariah state of Libya in the 1980's. That would be wrong. But, sitting in über-comfortable press facilities at the all-black Stadium:MK, I was reminded of Connolly's observation while watching the comings and goings of various club officials all kitted out in matching black suits, sporting the curiously neutral club logo.
Is it a shield? A fox's head? Is it a cute reference to the Molineux wolf? A spade? A Don? No idea.
Perhaps it's history waiting to happen. An empty space waiting for the meaning to arrive.
That meaning may arrive sooner rather than later, too. Paul Ince has a team in harness which is far too good for League 2. Jemal Johnson and Lloyd Dyer are shimmering talents. Colin Cameron is a master at this level. To bring the classy, if portly, figure of Kevin Gallen off the bench is a luxury no one in that division can afford, expect the Winkelmeisters. They're not hanging around.
And great credit to them, too. Particularly the supporters, who are making it up as they go along (the only song they really belt out is 'Noone likes us, we don't care'). But to sell out 26,000 tickets for the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final and ask for 6,000 more is an astonishing achievement. The club which gave birth to MK, I recall, struggled to shift 13,000 for an FA Cup semi final against Chelsea.
Mentioning Wimbledon in MK is a bit like saying 'Jose' anywhere near Avram Grant. People start to twitch.
Quite rightly, they have moved on. Yet the first person I bumped into last Saturday was Reg Davies, the erstwhile club Secretary of Wimbledon FC, now a director at MK. To him, I was a reminder of the past, given that I used to cover their matches at Selhurst Park. I could have sworn, for that reason alone, he was pleased to see me...you can rub as hard as you like, but the pencil marks never quite disappear.
No, it's a brave new world they're building. And one day, 50 years from now, they too will be hauling around with them the baggage of past glories: like Forest and Clough, like Villa and the European Cup, like Spurs and Nicholson, Leeds and Revie....I could go on and on. Like Wimbledon and 1988.
And then, and only then, when the battered stands of their tidy ground reflect the struggles of trying and trying and trying again to win something, will the uniforms make sense.
Ned Boulting