AFC Wimbledon 1 Liverpool 2, FA Cup: Adebayo Akinfenwa rekindles the Crazy Gang spirit
AFC Wimbledon stand for more than the pranks of the past – but their striker
is a genuine throwback
When did AFC Wimbledon really come full circle? How about when the ball
dropped to Adebayo Akinfenwa, the 17st striker sometimes cast as a figure of
fun, and the heirs to an unlikely
FA
Cup victory 27 years ago were level with
Liverpool,
the victims on that great Wembley day.
It felt that way behind the goal, in the Nongshim Stand, where several us were
in press overspill seats. The jolt of energy and pleasure that sent
Wimbledon fans crashing into one another and bouncing in their seats was a
scene to treasure, for locals and neutrals alike.
On the pitch, the serried Steven Gerrard was taking his first steps towards
America. But Akinfenwa, that mighty journeyman who lists his career high as
“scoring a hat-trick against Accrington Stanley”, stole the Hollywood role
before Gerrard curled in one of his neat free-kicks to put the Premier
League’s representatives back in front.
Some of Akinfenwa’s tackling evoked Crazy Gang belligerence. One pirouette was
more reminiscent of Cristiano Ronaldo. Above all, though, his goal said that
the South London Wimbledon (as opposed to the Milton Keynes one) still know
how to give the glamour clubs a dose of what they least like. Call it direct
football, if you will. Or just call it pressure.
After a long spell of flailing and flapping, Liverpool finally succumbed to
Wimbledon’s tenacity: itself an echo of 27 years ago. And all hail the
scorer of their equaliser: not so much a barnstormer as a barn-crusher – a
centre-forward who lists his favourite ground, strangely, as “the Giulesti
Stadium (Rapid Bucharest).” He also cites his main interests away from
football as “the gym and Nando’s,” with emphasis on the Nando’s. His
favourite order there is: “Quarter chicken (medium), five wings (medium),
chips and corn on the cob.”
A meal like that would get the average Liverpool player dropped for a month
for crimes against body fat ratios. AFC Wimbledon however are serious
without taking it all too seriously. They connect the non-League world where
they started out afresh in 2002 and the pinnacle their (in) famous sons rose
to back in the days when tough-tackling midfielders could amputate each
other’s legs without being shown so much as a yellow card.
Still dapper, still sharp, Lawrie Sanchez winced in the BBC commentary pen to
our right as a Gerrard header put Liverpool in front 12 minutes into this
(kind of) rematch. Gerrard’s goal, his first since he announced his
intention to Go West next season, was from another universe to the Crazy
Gang’s brief Wembley reign 27 years ago.
If Milton Keynes Dons are the body, AFC Wimbledon are very much the soul of
the club who conquered Liverpool after a night in the pub, some shrewd
tactical planning and a large side order of belligerent tackling. Nearly
three decades on, Wimbledon fans are still narked by the previews.
Liverpool, the pundits said, had a national duty to protect football against
the renegade Dons, the last of the outlaws in a game that was to become
relentlessly corporate.
All week we revisited the myths and legends of Wimbledon’s time as a
top-flight club and tried to convince ourselves that Vinnie Jones and John
Fashanu really were back-page fixtures and anti-heroes in the years before
Italia 90 marked football’s reinvention.
AFC Wimbledon are not trading on the pranks, underdog spirit and remarkable
over-achieving of that decade. They are emblems of fan stubbornness,
community bonds and British disdain for franchise sport. This FA Cup
third-round tie was one of many rewards for refusing to move to Milton Keyes
and setting up a new club in the face of immense financial and
organisational obstacles.
For many, beating Milton Keynes in October in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy
will have felt like the bigger triumph. Returning to Plough Lane on the site
of the old dog track would be the greatest victory of all. It would end
their temporary stay at The Cherry Red Records ground in Kingston, where
5,000 spectators crammed in to find out whether the FA Cup could deliver the
message on its tin. Giant-killing, this weekend, has appeared no more
credible than those tales of Liverpool players quaking in the Wembley tunnel
as Vinnie Jones went through his madman shtick.
For many of us there is little to miss about English football in the 1980s.
Lower ticket prices and the greater accessibility of players were one
virtue. Generally, though, disasters cast an inescapable shadow. Liverpool
supporters have an infinitely greater reason to remember that fact than
Wimbledon fans have cause to sing merrily about 1988. Their story is
nevertheless embedded in the English football narrative.
First: winning the FA Amateur Cup and full FA Cup inside 25 years. Then the
implosion and franchising scandal. Then the reincarnation, the return to the
Football League and the campaign to go home to Wimbledon itself. Now this: a
first 45 minutes of thrilling intensity and a promise to the media: “At
half-time, tea, coffee and biscuits will appear as if by magic.”
So this was a tale of two clubs on divergent paths since 1988, but also of two
players. Gerrard, the game-changing luminary who will step through pools of
tears to fly to America; and Akinfenwa, who lists “Lee Trundle” as the best
he ever played with. On nights like this, the links become visible.
Cr. Telegraph UK
