AFC Wimbledon

Sixer’s Sevens: Sunderland keep the momentum going against AFC Wimbledon

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John McCormick writes: yesterday Pete Sixsmith’s piece raised plenty of questions about ownership and investment. Underlying them was the question of whether or not we’d go up this season. Have we developed the ruthless killer-off streak that was missing last year?

Charlie Wyke’s form suggests we might have but two games don’t make a season. Matches like today’s are key, given that we are on the edge of the kind of winning streak that was conspicuously absent last season, and a 3-1 went some way to answering the question.

As did the seven word text Pete sent immediately on the final whistle:

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Sunderland vs Wimbledon. Can we win this one in style?

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Jake: ‘any win does the job but a thumping victory would do wonders for morale’

If you followed the game one way or the other, or saw Pete Sixsmith’s splendid match report here, you’ll know we gained three massive points at Rochdale without covering ourselves in glory.

Perhaps we should take comfort in the fact that successful teams have always had a knack of grinding out or snatching results when playing well below par or just being matched in all respects save goalscoring by opponents.

It is not sycophantic but a sheer matter of common sense to applaud a disappointing but winning performance, especially when it happens to be the third victory in a row. That level of consistency in results has been sorely lacking in recent seasons.

So without further ado, let us be having your feelings on whether, on paper, another highly winnable game – at home to AFC Wimbeldon on Saturday – will go to script.

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Portsmouth then Sunderland, Ipswich, Rotherham, Peterborough and Coventry top our poll. But where are Lincoln?

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On Friday we had over 3,000 visitors, followed by a quiet weekend. Not everyone took part in our top six poll  but over 1200 votes (not voters) have now been cast. That’s not bad, I suppose, for a League One fans’ site but I am expecting a few more will chip in before the season kicks off.

Early results suggest the headline I used then – for which I visited a couple of betting sites to find the promotion favourites – was on the right lines. Of the six clubs I named five are in the top spots. Lincoln (currently lingering in 8th place) are the exception with Sunderland, unsurprisingly, replacing them. There’s a gap – slight but quite evident – between the top three and the next three,  after which numbers drop off, so Lincoln and Doncaster, who made last season’s playoffs and now lie seventh, have quite a bit of ground to make up.

All of the clubs in the League received votes, which I’m taking to signify that we  managed a wide reach. It will be interesting to see if enough fans of so-called smaller clubs, which are predominantly towards the bottom of the poll, visit in large enough numbers to move their favourites upwards. Crowdwise, numbers are against them but we have only small numbers voting so you never know.

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Ipswich or Portsmouth? Rotherham or Peterborough? How about Lincoln or Coventry? It’s your choice

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Last season our punters got it more or less right and correctly predicted most of the top six. Luton were missed but that was mainly down to the Coventry Ninjas, whose hijack of last year’s poll pushed them (Luton) out of the top places.

Maybe the ninjas or another club’s fans will do the same again this season. As far as I’m aware the polldaddy vulnerability that allowed multiple voting still exists and all I can do is disable the ability of readers to see the results in real time. That might change how the poll coding works (it’s built-in and can’t be changed) but it takes something away. A pity, but there we go.

I’ve got a lot on for the next few weeks so I won’t be conjuring up a novel method of tracking and displaying our chosen clubs’ progress or the lack of it. All I’ll be doing is monitoring the accretion of points for now, though I might come up with something different later in the season.

As always, your comments are welcome. We hold posts for moderation but they do go up eventually, subject to meeting commonsense rules of decency, manners, libel etc.

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Rambling through Accrington, Coventry and Ipswich to Lincoln. How do Sunderland’s rivals shape up financially?

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League One comprises 24 clubs. Three of them, Bury, Bolton and Blackpool, are entering, exiting or plodging in the clarts of receivership. Leaving them and Sunderland aside gives us twenty clubs.

I thought I’d take a look at their finances. Nothing detailed, just a skim through any entries at Companies House and a quick perusal of a search engine, enough to kill some time I have and satisfy idle curiosity. My idea was to divide the twenty into two and cover 10 clubs each time. After that matters should have moved ahead with the Lancashire Bs and Sunderland’s takeover and I should be able to revisit these four.

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Sixer’s Sevens: Wimbledon make it hard for Sunderland

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Pete Sixsmith sent a text at half-time: ‘A distinctly underwhelming and goalless first half’, at which point I had to head out to the railway station.

I suspect, from the little I picked up on my return, that the second half didn’t provide much of an improvement. But we won, and Pete’s instant post-game seven word text recognises that, if little else (and Gary Bennett made the obvious point at the end that with new men in the team and Honeyman just back from injury, it was natural that there would be rough edges) … :

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The First Time Ever I Saw Your Team: AFC Wimbledon

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John McCormick writes. Like Pete Sixsmith I enjoyed watching Wimbledon v West Ham.  But with one eye on the weekend’s  League One results and next week’s fixture I couldn’t help wondering what effect their well-earned win will have on AFC Wimbledon. Will it have knackered them so they can’t compete with our well-rested heroes? Or will it bolster them for what is going to be a bumpy ride to May.

Pete, of course, doesn’t just watch Wimbledon on TV. Let him pick up the story, and tell you in his own inimitable words how he goes about things:

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Wimbledon Who are You? Should that West Ham upset make Sunderland wary?

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Mark Sturges (right) with his supporters’ group banner

What a result that was, says Monsieur Salut. But why does it always seem to happen like this? A player goes months without scoring, a club keeps losing as if for fun, a manager is sacked … and then we come along. The variation of the theme this time is that Wimbledon,rock bottom of League One, suddenly hit a flash of form and dispatched Premier League opposition in the FA Cup. I heard a Hammers fan on TalkSport yesterday and he was apoplectic that his team – otherwise going nowhere special, upwards or downwards – couldn’t muster the spirit and quality to overcome such a modest obstacle to progress in one competition where glory might just be possible.

Our first of possibly two Wombling Who are You? interviewees, Mark Sturges*, answered the Salut! Sunderland questions before the FA cup tie, but his additional thoughts were invited. It’s fair to say there was an air of grim resignation about his original replies but he now adds ths: “The team played very well- surprising as we’d lost 0-3 at home to Fleetwood on the Tuesday. This team has proved we can compete so must start showing that in the league IF we are to have a chance of survival before it’s too late’ …

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