Summary
What a finish to the game. A quite magnificent finish from Lyle Taylor was a rare piece of quality in an otherwise poor game, and it was that striker that set Wimbledon on their way. Plymouth had a late claim for a penalty turned down in injury time, before Akinfenwa’s penalty, but in truth, they probably didn’t do enough on the day: Carey was marked out of the game, Matt never got enough support, and Reid wasn’t given enough time off the bench to make an impact.
Wimbledon will play in League One next season, the same division as MK Dons. It’s a quite remarkable story.
Thanks for reading, and for your emails and tweets. See you next season. Bye!
"It always seems impossible until it's done" #Wombley #playofffinal #COYD #COYD #COYD #COYD #COYD pic.twitter.com/UDHNSdawvK
— AFC Wimbledon (@AFCWimbledon) May 30, 2016
Akinfenwa, twice a play-off final loser and whose contract is up at the end of this season, has been talking to the cameras. He is hilarious.
“It’s what dreams are made up. It’s a beautiful thing. Oh, yeah, but sidebar, I think I’m technically unemployed. So any managers out there, hit me up on the Whatsapp. All those people who said I was too big to play football. Haaaaaaa, come on now. From playing in the dark in Hackney to winning at Wembley. It’s a beautiful thing.”
LOL.
Akinfenwa just gave his post match interview straight to camera! pic.twitter.com/9aRuvOvNIG
— Mark Farrelly (@MarkFarrelly131) May 30, 2016
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AFC WIMBLEDON ARE PROMOTED TO LEAGUE ONE!
Full-time: AFC Wimbledon 2-0 Plymouth Argyle. Cue bedlam.
GOAL! AFC Wimbledon 2-0 Plymouth Argyle (Akinfenwa 99)
The big man sends McCormick the wrong way, and AFC Wimbledon fans are in dreamland. Akinfenwa rips his shirt off and celebrates in front of the fans. One man is in tears.
2 - Adebayo Akinfenwa has scored in back-to-back games for AFC Wimbledon for the first time since September. Beast.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) May 30, 2016
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Penalty to Wimbledon!
Azeez, just on, goes down in the area after another Wimbledon counter-attack. Forster brings him down, it’s clumsy but never a penalty, Azeez ran into Forster! Azeez, Kennedy and Akinfenwa are all arguing over the ball. They all want to take it. Akinfenwa wins the argument, obviously.
96 min: Akinfenwa wins the flick on, and Taylor is through on goal. He’s clean through … no! A terrible shot, he tried to chip McCormick but completely scuffed it and the keeper just caught it. He’s injured himself in the process, too, and has to come off: Azeez on.
94 min: Penalty shout for Plymouth! Oh, that could have so easily been given. Carey makes an incisive run down the left, feeds Tanner, who is bundles to the ground by Bulman. There’s not to much contact, but Bulman got none of the ball. Not given!
92 min: It’s taken a while for them to react, but here Plymouth come, attacking in waves. Reid, with his trademark low socks, controls the ball on the right and crosses towards Matt but Robinson heads clear. He’s had an excellent day.
90 min: Seven minutes added on here for injury time. Mainly due to the injury to Hartley. A huge roar from the Green Army. Here we go!
88 min: Attack it is! Bulman strives forward on the counter attack, feeds Taylor on the left, and the goalscorer stands up a cross to Akinfenwa at the back post. The big man powers a header towards the top corner from close range, but a quite magnificent save from McCormick turns the ball over the bar. That is some save. Keeping Plymouth in it!
86 min: Interesting to see what kind of ambition Wimbledon show now. Will they continue to attack as they have done for most of this half, or will they get bodies behind the ball?
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84 min: Lord have mercy: Hartley comes together with Akinfenwa under a high ball. Who do you think comes off the worst? Hartley comes down from a great height, lands flat on his back, and writhes around in agony on the ground. Ouch. He’s not getting up, and is going to have to come off. Forster comes on in his play. That was a lengthy delay for the stretcher.
82 min: Plymouth throw on Reuben Reid, for Wylde. They need a bit of his magic now. How quiet has Matt been?
80 min: Wimbledon should be 2-0 up! Fuller makes a surging run from right back, plays a lovely one-two with Taylor and is clean through, but McCormick comes out and makes a wonderful save with his right hand, closing the angle superbly. Fuller holds his head in his hands, he knows his shot could have been stronger.
GOAL! AFC Wimbledon 1-0 Plymouth Argyle (Taylor 79)
And they have scored! Ooooohhhhh! Could that be the goal that takes AFC Wimbledon to League One? And it’s Taylor, who has got it with his 23rd goal of the season, latching into a teasing low cross from Kennedy. The ball dipped at the last minute, and Taylor read it, before a deft touch glances the ball off his right boot, past McCormick and into the corner. Taylor goes wild, ripping his shirt from his back, and sprints towards Ardley, who sprints down the touchline to greet him. Dons fans going crazy here!
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78 min: Akinfenwa immediately wins a header, and Wimbledon fans erupt as though they just scored a goal.
76 min: Here he comes …
It's time for "The Beast"! Bayo Akinfenwa enters the fray for Tom Elliott with 76 minutes gone. #PlayoffFinal #Wombley
— AFC Wimbledon (@AFCWimbledon) May 30, 2016
72 min: Barcham is down. He’s been Wimbledon’s best player this second half. Ardley will want him fit. Yep, he’s OK.
ATTENDANCE: The @SkyBetLeague2 #PlayOffFinal attendance is 57,956. pic.twitter.com/JJJlTirxRj
— The Football League (@football_league) May 30, 2016
That nearly 6,000 more than the League ONE play-off final yesterday.
70 min: Great chance for Wimbledon. A clever run from Elliot is well found with a pass down the line from Kennedy. Bulman, 37-year-old Bulman, is the first of Wimbledon’s midfield to join Elliot and he breaks beyond the striker into the box but it’s a poor cutback and McHugh is able to clear. No clear-cut chances as yet, but Wimbledon are getting into some excellent positions.
66 min: First substitutions of the afternoon: Tanner comes on for Jervis in a straight swap for Tanner. A minute later, Wimbledon respond: Meades on for Smith.
64 min: Carey may have been a ghost in this hour, but he’s making himself a nuisance from set pieces. First Jervis wins a free-kick right on the edge of Wimbledon’s box – Carey gets it up and over the wall but Roos is there to palm it wide. Next he swings a deep cross to Hartley who is completely unmarked at the back post for Plymouth. Oh no! He can’t connect properly with the header and instead nods it into the turf, the ball bouncing kindly into the arms of Roos. Hartley should have scored!
62 min: Wylde slides in on Fuller, and catches the Wimbledon captain badly. Yellow card for the Plymouth man. Deserved.
59 min: The quality is still poor, but the atmosphere is definitely hotting up, particularly as both teams are now kicking towards their own supporters.
Alex Ross on the email: “I asked my friend, Big Tim, who I am accompanying today, what the best Plymouth chant was when I met him earlier. “Argyle, Argyle,” I was told. Witty it may not be but at least they’re singing it loudly. The last time I was at Wembley I watched England play Macedonia. I can confirm that today’s atmosphere is better.”
Well at least that’s something.
56 min: Ouch! Smith is about half an hour late on Carey on the left touchline. Carey has taken some stick so far this game.
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54 min: Great block from Nelson! The ball fell to Barcham on the edge of the box and the winger smashed it goalwards on the volley but Plymouth’s captain threw his body in front of the ball. Fearless defending.
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53 min: Mellor is increasingly looking like a weak link for Plymouth at right-back. Twice in two minutes the defender has given the ball away in dangerous areas, with Barcham pouncing. Elliot gets to the byline and swings a cross in towards his mate Taylor, but Nelson is there to head it behind his own goal. Corner to Wimbledon, but it’s cleared by Boateng.
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51 min: Oooooo, so nearly an own goal from Carl McHugh. This was very nearly a spectacular one from the Plymouth defender, who tried to lob the ball back to his goalkeeper, but sent the ball just a yard wide of his own goal. McCormick was stranded. McHugh is a lucky boy.
49 min: “Wylde is opening them up at the back, but his final ball is still erratic,” writes Reg Gorczynski. “Sort that out and we might snatch a couple of goals. Green Army forever!!!”
47 min: Plymouth are immediately on the front foot, with Wylde whipping in a dangerous cross to the back post. Jervis beats the keeper Roos to the ball but can’t direct his header at goal. Roos actually clattered into Jervis there and got none of the ball, but none of the Plymouth fans appealed for a penalty.
Peeeeep! And we’re off again.
Is it a good game? Not really, but the result is paramount. It wasn't a great game 20 years ago... #PilgrimsAtWembley
— Plymouth Argyle FC (@Only1Argyle) May 30, 2016
The match in question here, of course, was Plymouth’s 1-0 win over Darlington in the Third Division play-off final. Ronnie Mauge’s header won the match for Neil Warnock’s side that day to send them into the Second Division.
Half-time reading
Joy of Six: football chants, which features the AFC Wimbledon classic ‘Where were you when you were us?’, directed at the MK Dons fans in 2012.
For that one, and a few more gems, click here.
Half-time: AFC Wimbledon 0-0 Plymouth Argyle
I’ve watched better halves of football.
43 min: Matt gets the better of Charles on the right touchline but just as he turns towards goal, Reeves comes in like a train to win the ball back for Wimbledon again. Reeves is only 5ft8in, but he’s a little terrier, tearing around that midfield. Wimbledon’s second best player this half, behind Elliot.
41 min: Elliot has been Wimbledon’s chief threat this half, and he bundles his way into Plymouth’s area, riding a couple of challenges. There are shouts for handball, but Elliot carries on regardless but the ball doesn’t run for him as Nelson comes across to cover.
39 min: Our first shot on goal, and it’s taken 39 minutes: Kennedy stinging the palms of McCormick in the Plymouth goal. It’s been a nervy affair, and if I’m honest, the quality has been poor in the final third.
“As a neutral currently behind the goal in the Plymouth end the adjective I would go for thus far is ‘scrappy’,” writes Alex Ross. “The Argyle fans are giving it some, though. Green Army!”
35 min: Plymouth are looking the better team now, and it’s Wylde again pushing the Devon club forward, intercepting a lazy Smith pass and setting off down the left. He gets to the byline, floats a tempting ball to the back post, and Charles, stretching with every sinew of his neck, just about takes the ball away from Matt. A certain goal if Charles didn’t get there.
32 min: Wylde has got wheels, and he leaves Smith for dead, before swinging a cross in to Jervis’s feet. The forward takes one touch and a quick turn, but again, his shot is blocked. Better from Arygle.
30 min: Carey is being man-marked out of the game, due to a combination of Smith and Bulman. He just can’t get in the game.
28 min: Plymouth have a long-ball tactic of their own, Mellor’s long throw. But Robinson and Charles are looking very assured at the heart of Wimbledon’s defence, they’ve had the beating of Matt so far.
25 min: Plymouth have been nowhere in the last 10 minutes.
“We need to get Matt and Carey in the game more...early days yet!!!” emails Gorczyns. “We are looking rusty...too long a lay-off? Not looking good from Argyle right now … time to get that motor running! We’re playing too far back, and really having trouble with this long ball rubbish from Wimbledon.”
23 min: Close from Wimbledon, and again, it’s Elliot who is the cause of Plymouth’s problems, acting like a lightning rod inside Argyle’s box. He nods the ball across the six-yard box and Mellor, coming in front right back nearly slices his clearance into his own net under pressure from Robinson. That was inches wide!
21 min: It’s not pretty from Wimbledon, but their tactic of going long to Elliot, all 6ft3in of him, is working. Elliot flicks it on, and Taylor is onto it in a flash. Hartley is caught flat-footed but McCormick is quick off his line, and just beats Taylor to the ball.
18 min: A neat ball from Elliot releases Barcham on the left, the winger having his first opportunity to get at Plymouth’s Mellor. But the right-back stands his ground, doesn’t commit and reads the early shot well. Good defending.
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16 min: Think there’s about 25,000 Dons fans here, so about 10,000 less than Plymouth. Wimbledon, Plymouth fans, what do you make of your team’s start? Get in touch, if you want: michael.butler@theguardian.com or tweet @michaelbutler18.
14 min: Boateng is back on the pitch, he looks to be OK.
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12 min: With Boateng off the pitch, Elliot wins a flick-on from a Wimbledon long ball, and Taylor is onto it in a flash, but he is forced wide and sees his shot deflected behind for a corner, which is well defended by Hartley. Wimbledon’s front two seem to work in telepathy, you can see why they have been so successful this season: Taylor has 22 goals this season.
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10 min: Boateng goes down, crumpling in a heap after an aerial challenge with Reeves. Boateng eventually gets to his feet but is not moving freely. He’s an essential cog in that Plymouth midfield, a natural ballwinner. But he’ll have to go off for treatment.
8 min: Carey lets fly from 25 yards after wiggling free of the attentions of Bulman and Reeves in the middle. It ends up five yards over the bar, but Carey is very capable of making them count: 12 goals and 11 assists this season. He is the creative heartbeat of this Plymouth team in the No10 role.
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6 min: Chance for Wimbledon! After Nelson dragged Elloit down on the half-way down, Wimbledon float a free-kick into the area. Taylor wins the knock-down at the back post, and the ball bounces inside the six-yard box, but it won’t sit down for Elliot, and eventually McCormick comes and claims.
4 min: Fuller, Wimbledon’s right back and captain today, steams into Wylde. Fair challenge, but Fuller didn’t hold back. The definition of ‘letting him know that you’re there.’
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2 min: Cagey start, as both teams launch balls over the top to turn the defenders on their heels. Bit of head tennis here, couple of 50/50s there, welcome to the League Two play-off final.
Peeeeeeep! And we’re off!
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The teams are out, Wimbledon in their blue with yellow trim. Plymouth in their green and white. The atmosphere is buzzing!
📸 - Anthems done...🎤 pic.twitter.com/a2rJGInAm3
— The Football League (@football_league) May 30, 2016
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You might be wondering where Adebayo Akinfenwa is. He’s on the bench press . So too, for Plymouth, is Reuben Reid, who has scored 20+ goals for Argyle in the past two seasons but has struggled with injuries this year and has struggled to get back into the team since Jamille Matt’s arrival in march, on loan from Fleetwood. Matt has been a revelation, scoring seven times in 13 matches.
The two teams have met three times this season, twice in the league (each time an away win) and once in the Football League Trophy. Plymouth won that one 3-2. Wimbledon finished seventh in League Two, grabbing the final play-off spot, while Plymouth finished fifth, six points above the Dons.
Sky pundits, among them former Argyle manager Ian Holloway, have been banging on about playing the game, not the occasions. Pfffft. Naaaaa. Listen to AFC Wimbledon manager Neal Ardley instead, I reckon. Here’s David Conn’s interview with the former player, 11 years a player with the old Wimbledon.
I don’t buy into that idea that it’s only another game, that you don’t play the occasion, you play the game. Nobody can replicate Wembley. When we walk out, I’ll be proud, my emotions will be all over the shop. I’m going to be feeling the butterflies and the players will feel the same. But once we’ve walked out, put our shoulders back, smiled, gone ‘wow’, we’ve got a job to do. We’ve got to take all of that in, embrace it, accept it and then go and play the game.
It’s been more than two weeks since Plymouth saw off Portsmouth in the League Two play-off semi-final. The league season is so often dependent upon momentum, could some of that have been lost?
Manager Derek Adams: “We needed a few days off because of the magnitude of the victory over Portsmouth.” A few ciders perhaps, lads?
Here’s one for the superstitous among you: Plymouth are in the same dressing room as Hull and Barnsley.
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Today’s teams
AFC Wimbledon: Roos, Fuller, Kennedy, Robinson, Charles, Barcham, Bulman, Reeves, Elliott, Taylor, Smith
Subs: Shea, Akinfenwa, Rigg, Meades, Azeez, Sweeney, Murphy
Plymouth Argyle:
The way the #PilgrimsAtWembley line up this afternoon #pafc pic.twitter.com/GDXFzM9N0z
— Plymouth Argyle FC (@Only1Argyle) May 30, 2016
Preamble
I was raised in Wimbledon in the late 1980s, in a house about half a mile from Plough Lane Stadium. Born to northern parents, who had no affinity to the nearby football team, I grew up a Blackburn Rovers fan. But my entire family quickly fell in love with the club. It was impossible not to. The club was everywhere. Every other weekend, our street would be awash with blue and yellow as supporters made their way to the rickety old ground. When Wimbledon reached the FA Cup final in 1988, and fans were instead asked to travel 14 miles north to Wembley to watch their team, flags hung outside every building, from the mosque at the end of our road to the local Young’s Brewery. When the Dons actually went and won the thing, the area went, er, Crazy. Ivor Heller, who would later go on to co-found AFC Wimbledon, and is still the club’s commercial director having lost his wife, house and business supporting the club, insisted that there was no beer left in the town centre that Saturday night, or at the parade on the Sunday. My dad said he didn’t pay for travel the following week, such was the mood of the station master.
Wimbledon was a local, community club, in every sense, which made their departure from Plough Lane to Selhurst Park in 1991, and ultimately to Milton Keynes in 2002, all the more painful. Even now, with AFC Wimbledon’s ground five miles from the town centre in Kingston, there are those that somehow still see a slight disconnect between the club and the area. But should AFC beat Plymouth in the League Two play-off final today and gain promotion to the same division that MK Dons play, there will be only one place that the Dons will head to from Wembley: SW19. Regardless of the result, it’s good to know the old station master is still enjoying his job.
Spotted at Wimbledon train station today nice touch by South West Trains @AFCWimbledon pic.twitter.com/9oY7oZshDz
— Callum Putney (@CallumPutney) May 29, 2016
Of course, AFC Wimbledon are only half of the story today. Plymouth Argyle have their own story to tell – eloquently told by Nick Miller in this interview with the club’s 23-year-old captain Curtis Nelson.
Three years ago, Plymouth Argyle survived relegation from the Football League on the last day of the season, relying on results elsewhere to save them after defeat to Rochdale. That was their second successive finish of 21st in the bottom division, the lowest in their history, but in the scheme of things mere poor results on the pitch and the threat of relegation were small fry compared with what had come before.
The club very nearly disappeared entirely in 2011, after debts of around £17m led to administrators being appointed, their bank account frozen and players sold off for a fraction of their value. During those straitened times, wages went unpaid and the manager Peter Reid dipped into his own pocket to pay heating bills, even auctioning his FA Cup runners-up medal to raise funds.
Romance is a word that is used far too often in sport, in football. But whatever happens, we are guaranteed a cracker of a game, high on emotion. These are two huge clubs – Plymouth have sold 35,000 tickets for this match. It’s impossible to tell how many Wimbledon fans will dust off an old yellow-and-blue scarf, but the total attendance today will almost certainly surpass League One play-off final total of 52,000 and could even beat the Championship play-off final attendance of 70,0000. That’s bonkers for a League Two match.
Kick-off: 3pm BST.
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