AFC Wimbledon
AFC Wimbledon is an English professional football club, based in Merton, London, which has played in League One, the third tier of the English football league system, since winning promotion in 2016. The club’s home stadium is Plough Lane.
The club was founded in 2002 by former supporters of Wimbledon F.C. after the Football Association allowed that club to relocate to Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, about 60 miles (97 km) north of Wimbledon. Most of the Wimbledon F.C. supporters were very strongly opposed to moving the club so far away from Wimbledon, feeling that a club transplanted to a distant location would no longer represent Wimbledon or the club’s historic legacy and tradition.[1][2][3] Wimbledon F.C. moved in 2003 and formally changed the name of the club to Milton Keynes Dons in 2004.[2][4]
When AFC Wimbledon was formed, it affiliated to both the London and Surrey Football Associations, and entered the Premier Division of the Combined Counties League, the ninth tier of English football. The club has since been promoted six times in 13 seasons, going from the ninth tier (Combined Counties Premier) to the third (League One).
AFC Wimbledon currently hold the record for the longest unbeaten run of league matches in English senior football, having played 78 consecutive league games without a defeat between February 2003 and December 2004.[5] They are the first club formed in the 21st century to make it into the Football League.[6]
The club was initially based at Kingsmeadow, a ground bought from and then shared with Isthmian League club Kingstonian F.C. until 2017, and with Chelsea F.C. Women from 2017. In November 2020, the club moved to Plough Lane, a new stadium on the site of the defunct Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium, only 250 yards away from the original Plough Lane, Wimbledon F.C.’s home until 1991. The new stadium has an initial capacity of 9,300, with the option of expansion to a maximum 20,000 at a later date.[7][8]
