Next Up: AFC Wimbledon at Home

With the cup dream over for another year, it’s back to midweek league action on Tuesday with the visit of AFC Wimbledon. Alan Gow was fit to start at Bury, and will hope to keep his place in the starting line-up, while it remains to be seen if the experiment with three centre backs continues, otherwise one of Kevin Amankwaah or Steve Tully may be asked to step aside in favour of an extra midfielder – perhaps Tom Doherty. It may be churlish to suggest this fixture represents a “make or break” as we’re only just into November, but Paul Tisdale and his team are only too aware that recent results have simply not been good enough and that improvement is needed PDQ.

The AFC Wimbledon story is one down in folklore – when Wimbledon announced firm plans in 2002 to relocate to Milton Keynes, which were accepted by the FA, most of their supporters voted with their feet and decided to form a new club. Finding themselves placed in the Combined Counties league they moved in to Kingsmeadow, the home of Kingstonian, before buying their ground when the landlords were financially stricken. Their rise has been meteoric, and after just 10 seasons they defeated Luton at Wembley to clinch a place in the Football League. In their second season they have found life tough, and a poor start to the season saw popular manager Terry Brown fall on his sword to be replaced by Neal Ardley, who played for the old Wimbledon. Results since his appointment have been steady if not spectacular, and they find themselves in 21st place in the table, and may be forgiven for casting an eye over Sunday’s FA Cup 2nd round draw – should they overcome York in their replay they face the prospect of facing MK Dons for the first time. The main goal threat would appear to be Byron Harrison – he has scored six goals this season for a side that has otherwise struggled to find the net with any consistency.

Tuesday night’s match marks the first league meeting between the sides, but not the first competitive meeting – the sides were paired together in the 4th Qualifying Round (remember that?) of the FA Cup in the 06/07 season, City emerging victorious 2-1.

We announced the match officials here.

Since writing this, AFC Wimbledon have brought 2 players in on loan. Read that in their local paper here.