The Archive

AFC Wimbledon may be celebrating reaching the Ryman League, but it hasn't been much of a party for the minnows turned whales, as Robert Jeffery explains

An unbeaten season culminating in a league and cup double. Capacity crowds producing a pulsating atmosphere, home and away. The goodwill of fans the world over and the fawning plaudits of the media. Of such things footballing dreams are made. You’d think that AFC Wimbledon fans, the recipients of all the above and more, would be happy with their lot.

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After last season's FA Cup run, it all went horribly wrong for Telford United. Neville Hadsley looks at how the fans are following AFC Wimbledon's example in getting it right second time round

“We have to be happy with where we are,” says Simon Shakeshaft, club secretary and commercial director of the relaunched AFC Telford United. But you get the feeling that unspoken bitterness lingers.

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There were more than one team of football winners in Athens, though there waas some squabbling over what Iraq's achievement means, reports Matthew Brown

For a nation that supposedly fell in love with the game this summer, Greece seemed strangely indifferent to the Olympic football tournament. Per­haps they simply needed a break after all that Euro 2004 euphoria, but many matches at the Olympic Games were played out in front of virtually empty stadiums. In general the crowds rose above 20,000 only when Greece were playing or if the game was held in Athens itself. In some cases, the attendances barely rose above 5,000 and in others were fewer than 1,500.

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Some couldn't bear to watch what seemed set to be City's most embarrassing moment, but Ian Farrell was richly rewarded for being too stunned to move

Anyone with a good memory for the cultural atroc­ities of the past may well be acquainted with Bernard Manning’s low-rent 1970s variety show The Wheeltappers and Shunters Club. Coming across this horror show of hopelessness I was shocked and saddened to see the once-mighty Roy Orbison hit rock bottom with an appearance. If a fan were to claim this as their favourite O moment, they would no doubt have got the sort of looks I receive upon telling non-Blues that the 1999 Division Two play-off final was as good as it got for Manchester City.

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Ian Plenderleith embarks on his annual search to unearth that rarest of cyberspace entities – the funny football website. The good news is, he is successful this time. The bad news is, not very often

Some years ago this page printed a very unkind review of a new football “satire” website called Sports Offensive , which res­ponded by publishing an admittedly pertinent parody of the author’s regular online column. Since then, and having added the sub-heading “Big Games – Big Lies”, the site has gone from mindless crudity to witty burlesque, inspired in the main by both the hyperbole and inanity of mainstream sports journalism.

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