Premier League

[xoxoxoBruce]

Check out the greatest story never told, AFC Wimbledon.

So, okay: In May of 2002, the English Football Association gave the owners of a club called Wimbledon F.C. permission to move 70 miles away, to a town called Milton Keynes. Despite fervent protests from Wimbledon fans, the FA decided that it was “not in the wider interests of football” to have a club based in Wimbledon.

This happens all the time in American sports — the Brooklyn Dodgers become the LA Dodgers, the Baltimore Colts became the Indianapolis Colts — but it doesn’t happen in England, where football teams are not franchises but rather community assets. For many Wimbledon fans, to lose their club was to lose their community. As one protest banner read, “A club is for life, not just for profit.”

Despite the defiant graffiti and protests, it appeared Wimbledon would be without a football club until a group of supporters decided they would just start a team. Of course, there were some initial challenges — for instance, none of them had any experience running a football club, and they also had no uniforms, no sponsors, no coaches, and no players