MK DONS HAS THE FRANCHISE WORKED?

Twenty years after their divisive move to Milton Keynes, the club tumbled into League Two in May, amid dwindling crowds at the gigantic Stadium MK. FFT weighs up the first two decades outside of London for a team whose stigma shows no signs of fading

- Leo Moynihan

In 1967, the people at ITN travelled to a small, agricultural village in North Buckinghamshire called Milton Keynes. Home to 200 residents, the village and its surrounding areas had been designated to house a new town; a place to accommodate the post-war overspill of people needing new homes and a new life. A reporter, taking the opinions of those already living there, found a settled community, suspicious of change. "It's the Londoners," one woman said with a smile. "We just don't like them."

Fast-forward 56 years and within that new town, in a 30,500-capacity multipurpose stadium, you can hear a chant. "No one likes us, no one likes us, we don't care."

A lot has happened between ITN's visit and the present day, from the city folk who moved into a freshly constructed town to the south London football club that followed them. But while the locals' distrust of their new neighbours subsided long ago, there remains much scepticism around England's most resented football team.

EXIT, PURSUED BY A WOMBLE

The final score was 2-1. In May 2002, after an FA arbitration meeting, a three-man independent commission gave their decision. Two of them voted in the affirmative and one voted against. Wimbledon FC would be allowed to move a full 60 miles up the road to Milton Keynes.