The genesis of the Wimbledon Downunder Supporters’ Association (WDSA) was all down to a flat to let advertisement in the London Evening News.
When I first arrived in London at the outset of 1977 to work in Fleet Street for my employers Australian Associated Press, the only Wimbledon I knew was of the tennis variety. I am a sports writer by profession, and I’ll hold my hands up and freely admit, I did not know about the existence of Wimbledon FC. But fate took a hand.
I had to find some digs, but where? I was flicking through the Evening News and came across a flat for let in Wimbledon, a two-bedroom upper maisonette in a quiet street across the road from school grounds.
Months later Wimbledon FC were elected into the Football League. And here comes another twist. It was not far to amble down and take in a few games at humble understated gritty Plough Lane.
The football was of the basic variety, the Dons were struggling for points and they were slip-sliding towards a quick return from whence they came. Yet I was getting addicted to this unpretentious local Fourth Division outfit.
I can recall sitting in the creaky blue-painted wooden South Stand enjoying the up and at ‘em style of Stevie Galliers and the imperial Dave Donaldson at centre-back, so neat and tidy with his back-passes to Dickie Guy. Bearded striker Roger Connell was a bit of a folk hero and Johnny Leslie could be equally both infuriating and exhilarating with his dribbling runs. And, of course, the Durnsford Road end loved Dave ‘Harry’ Bassett’s take-no-prisoners.
I wasn’t really up with things inside the club and relied on The Wimbledon News for the skerricks of information and it was sad but inevitable when the admirable Allen Batsford made way for his ambitious assistant Dario Gradi in the first week of January 1978.
My work beckoned me ‘oop North for the Australian Kangaroos’ rugby league tour not long into next season, but I went to some Dons games around Leeds, where I was based for months. I recall zipping up to York to see the Dons thump four past City at Bootham Crescent and weeks later I drove down with a journo colleague to Oakwell and a crackling match with Barnsley.
I didn’t catch up with Wimbledon again until Boxing Day and an incident-packed match with Portsmouth before almost 8,000 fans at Plough Lane. Some Pompey fans got into the Durnsford Road end and it was a seething mass behind the goal, even forcing the retaining wall to buckle and collapse. Portsmouth won 4-2, even though the Dons had led 2-1 at halftime through a brace from Ray Knowles.
I was fully emotionally switched on by now but the clock was ticking for me. My working brief in England was coming to an end and I was due to return home. I didn’t get to see the Dons play in Division Three, and it was perhaps just as well. It was a dreadful season; they weren’t prepared for the step up, finished rock bottom and tumbled back to the Fourth Division.
And in another quirky coincidence on our way to Heathrow we were passed by the Wimbledon team coach with the players coming back from training. In my mind I took that as a metaphorical farewell wave from the Club to which I had become so attached.
As they say absence makes the heart grow fonder and I took an even keener interest in the progress of the Dons when I got back to Australia. In those pre-internet/email days news on an English lower league team on the other side of the world was nigh on impossible, so I subscribed to the Dons match day programmes and made contact with the inestimable Eric ‘Mr Wimbledon’ Willcocks. It was an association that was to have long-standing consequences to this very day.
Every few weeks a Dons home programme (with a scribbled brief note from Eric) would lob into my letter box and I would quickly scour its contents, imagining how games would have been played out and which players would be doing what. I did get to see the Dons live again in the 1982-83 and 1986-87 seasons when I returned to the UK to report on further Kangaroo tours.
Eric played a seminal role in the formation of WDSA in 1985. And in another coincidence Eric got me in touch with another Aussie, David Kenwery, who had dropped in to Plough Lane to catch a couple of games. Between us it would be the genesis of a growing group of supporters that flourishes to this day.
I’ve been back several times since to track the phenomenal rise of AFC Wimbledon.
WDSA has drawn together dozens and dozens of expats and their families – even Aussies like me — over the years with the common denominator following Wimbledon and AFC Wimbledon. Such is the widespread nature of WDSA’s membership gatherings are limited around this wide brown land.
David Kenwery recounts a special memory for the fledging WDSA crew. “The FA Cup final remains my best memory of WDSA and of following WFC in Australia. The host of the Australian television broadcast of the FA Cup Final contacted Rob and interviewed him at length about the WFC story prior to the final.
“WDSA received at least three plugs from him during the broadcast, and in particular for the party held at the Russell’s house that rollicking night in Adelaide. The TV host was dropping references to “Crazy Gang”, “Lurch” and “Fash” like he was a seasoned Dons fan!
“Rob also got in the Sydney Morning Herald. I will always remember that FA Cup party. I remember Jack Russell – who was at the 1963 FA Amateur Cup final at Wembley before emigrating to Australia – smiling like he enjoyed the entire match while the rest of us were nervous wrecks. And the final result was surreal. An unbelievable result fitting an incredible day.”
Our web-site (www.wdsa.com.au) pushes out the message to others around the world and we have put out around 270+ continuous issues of our acclaimed newsletter Wombles Downunder, read and valued by a veritable Wimbledon who’s who.
In October this year WDSA celebrated its 40th anniversary. We’ve got subscribers from the UK, Europe, Asia and the Americas as well as throughout Australia and New Zealand.
This year Pete Slater and his research for a football fanzine exhibition at Leeds Central Library revealed that Wombles Downunder is the fourth oldest of the still active football fanzines and he rated it as the most resilient.
“Wombles Downunder clearly fits the independent criteria we apply (no club funding, guidance and run by volunteers) and it’s a classic zine, a mixture of interviews, history, humour, protest and general grumbling!” Slater wrote.
“Then there is longevity, Wombles Downunder is (back then) 39 years old and though it’s far from the oldest fanzine it’s in the top 10 — fourth oldest in terms of still active zines and roughly speaking (we’re still finding zines) you were about the 38th to start.
“I’d also have to say that Wombles Downunder should get some kind of award for most resilient fanzine, the ups and downs of the club are well documented so bravo for continuing through all that but even before that printing, stapling and posting (POSTING!!) fanzine from the other side of the planet to willing subscribers was quite a feat.”
Long-time contributor Colum McAndrew says: “WDSA has been there through it all, giving a warts and all view for those fans unable to get to games because of their location. In the days before the internet and social media, it was one of the few places fans in far-off places could get information on their club. Even now with a wide array of media channels, it is a go-to place for many: including fans like me who manage to get to most games.”
We take great pride in presenting a wide cross-section of views from long-time valued contributors and interviews with club luminaries which make Wombles Downunder an endearing, essential and enjoyable read. As former Don Kevin Gage emailed one time: “You said I might be surprised by your ‘newsletter’…… I certainly was! It’s a great read.”
A centre-piece of Wombles Downunder are the interviews conducted over the years (mainly via email) .. Dave Bassett (a particular favourite), Bobby Gould, Allen Batsford, Terry Brown, Dave Anderson, Carlton Fairweather, Alan Cork, Mark Robinson, Alf Galustian, Trevor Williams, Mick Smith, Gary Elkins, Ashlee Hincks, Sam Hammam, Samuel West among others.
As I wrote in our blurb promoting the Wombles Downunder fanzine … “WE were there when Fash was terrorising defences in the old Division 2; we were around when Dave Beasant lifted the FA Cup at Wembley; we witnessed the heart-rending day when the Dons went down from the Premier League, and left Neal Ardley on his haunches sobbing; we raged at the injustice of the hijack to Milton Keynes; we flippin’ burst with pride when AFC Wimbledon rose like a phoenix and we cheered when ‘it took only nine years’ to reach the Football League.”
AFC Wimbledon consumes a major part of my life, and all because of a quirk of fate all those years ago. — ROB SMITH.
If you wish to take out a subscription to Wombles Downunder go to https://www.wdsa.com.au/become-a-member/
