A question of morals
27/01/03 | by Alex Walker

It's not often football becomes the centre of moral dilema. In fact, football usually represents an escape from the toils of regular life in which one can indulge in an amoral support of your team during which the only difficult decision comes down to whether or not you should risk a Balti pie at half-time. Which is why I feel for the fans of Wimbledon FC who, in a matter of months, will no longer have the escape route which a club usually provide to its community.

Many of them have already made their moral decision and boycotted the club following the decision to relocate to Milton Keynes. And rightly so - after all, why should they continue to support a club that will soon no longer belong to them and why should they put money into the pocket of Charles Koppel, a man who plainly doesn't care for them in the slightest?

At the start of the season, Wimbledon fans asked all right-thinking football fans to join them in their boycott of Dons matches in protest at the move. At the time, during the many debates, I was pretty convinced that I too would support them. If the same thing happened to Forest, I would expect fans of other clubs to support our cause.

But now, with just a few days left before the game, I'm wavering. I still haven't changed my standpoint on the issue and quite frankly find Koppel's actions an insult to football fans everywhere. But, following news last week that Wimbledon have finalised a deal to play at the National Hockey Stadium in MK, it would seem that any protest would be in vain.

That said, the protests have probably been in vain all along. Koppel was determined to get his own way, and the resulting attendances that have been in the hundreds have only backed up his view that there isn't enough support for the club in London.

But that's not the point. The Forest analogy doesn't work because the club is too big to move. But imagine if Scardino decided to relocate Notts County to Newark or somewhere similar because Nottingham couldn't support two proffesional clubs (and let's face it, he'd probably do anything to recoup his investment).

The moment a football club leaves its home town, it ceases to be the same football club. Almost all football clubs are named after the town or city they are based in, or, in the case of Arsenal, the place of work of the people who founded it. The key word in either case is community.

Football clubs in themselves are communities, but they also serve the communities around them. It was bad enough when Wimbledon were forced to leave Plough Lane, but to take the club to a place that could effectively mean two hours' travel for most Wimbledon fans to get to a match is removing the club from the community so much that the connection is severed.

Wimbledon will cease to be the same club. In a few years, what will there be to stop the club renaming themselves to Milton Keynes United or something? I don't buy the argument that the move to MK is the only way of saving the club - I'm sure the fans would rather see the club go bankrupt than being renamed and repackaged. In either case Wimbledon FC ceases to exist.

But despite it going against my principles, I'm still considering going. For a start, it's my birthday next Sunday and I usually celebrate by taking in an away trip - should I let Koppel force me to have a boring birthday weekend?

When discussing this with others, I was asked what difference my £20 would actually make? Probably very little, although I don't fancy giving it to Koppel.

Someone else raised the interesting question of would it make any difference if the match was a play-off away leg or a cup quarter final, rather than just an ordinary league match? If I'm honest, I would probably go to a match like that without a second thought, so where does that leave my moral principles?

Some Forest fans I know are sticking to their principles firmly - so firmly in fact that they are going to watch AFC Wimbledon take on the mighty Raynes Park Vale instead. I'm somewhat tempted to go there just to say I did it, but compared to watching Forest, the match doesn't seem all that exciting, principles or no principles.

I simply cannot decide, which is why I'm going to leave the decision to you, the valued reader. Should I follow Forest to Wimbledon, go to AFC Wimbledon instead, or just stay at home and listen to the match on the radio? The decision is, worryingly, yours...

Here are the poll results:
Go to Wimbledon v Forest at Selhurst Park (29)
	63.04%
Go to AFC Wimbledon v Raynes Park Vale at Kingsmeadow (12)
	26.09%
Stay at home and listen on the radio (5)
	10.87%