More than highly likely, relegation has been a very drawn out affair. The ability of the team to lose from winning positions is sensational. Defence splitting pass from the Centre Forward who received the ball on the halfway line / touchline on Good Friday. Problem was he was our player and he laid it on the plate for the striker to equalise. Even better on Saturday, leading in the 89th minute our goalkeeper was fouled. He took the free kick. To himself! His THIRD touch he punted it downfield. Free Kick in the penalty area and Fleetwood equalise. Comical.

Whether AFC Wimbledon want to end the agreement with the break clause I don't know. I'm sure the income is much less than expected, but there will be profit so is there any gain in terminating. The only alternatives would be a football team needing to relocate, and I don't know of any. The pitch wouldn't cope with Rugby Union, certainly not until the maintenance strategy is proven. Following the departure of the CEO, Head Coach and DTB Vice Chairman, the Head Groundsman has now left! In fairness I understand to move to Fulham, so a career promotion.

The non match day income is way below what it needs to be. So I don't think the club want to be seen removing an income stream.

What has changed in the last week, is that there is no debt secured against the £30 Million stadium. A 4.5M Bridging Loan had to be repaid in April which it has. At the start of 2022 there was no money, all that could be done was refinance under another secured Loan. Most (3.7M) has been covered by the latest Plough Lane Bond (unsecured). The remainder by a further equity investment and a short term unsecured loan from the Cherry Red owner simply to enable the April date to be hit without any risk by having any secured loan on the stadium. A cashflow loan really.

In the same period (2022) they haven't won a single football match! Even the match tomorrow has less than 40 seats available (all singles) and they are resells (so double income) from Season Ticket and/or Debenture holders who can't attend. Attendance will be down as Accrington will only bring a couple of hundred in the away end that holds 1,400+. And there will be lots of empty seats from fans who won't turn up.

The crowds in League 2 next year will likely be top 5, and other match day income probably top two. The biggest single risk is on the field as relegation to the National League would have big financial consequences.

So I think it unlikely AFC Wimbledon will activate the break clause (which I suspect is either after one or two seasons) as the Broncos are one of their income streams. Whilst the bottom line is its about money, I don't believe the club want to fleece the Broncos and would like to progress with them. The club won the English Football League Community Club of the Year award last week so want to be seen in a good light. Problem is so do the on field team judging by the fact that they last won on 7th December 2021!

In a genius bit of reverse psychology Rams have put the results of last 5 meetings with Broncos up on their Twitter feed. Without giving the game away they are all Broncos wins with a fair few spankings in the mix. What’s the possibility of a Rams win? At least through the wonders of London Transport Network most of their fans will be stuck nowhere near the ground trying to work out how to get there.

Once did a week as a turn at the theatre in Wimbledon (think it was in 1995) and don't recall any issues getting there every night. Mind you, whilst exercising said discipline, Bongser was very much a disciple of the Harris/O'Toole School of Theatre. Ol' Pa Bongser used to say, "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well!" His eldest son respected this but decided to append the word "pi$hed" to the end of said mantra. Bongser always knew that the "beer bus" would get him home. Maybe he trusted it to get him there as well?

Plough Lane (never been) looks reasonably near the middle of Wimbledon. Is it just that, as ever, progress has beggared things up?

As with inhabitants of all town’s /cities Londoners have their idiosyncrasies. One of mine has been rarely to travel South of the Thames. I had previously played football at a ground in Deptford in the late 90s and not enjoyed it. Since our ‘controversial’ move to Wimbledon I have been down Sarf more than in the previous 30 but still have no idea where I am I simply robotically follow Google maps to my destination. So long story short I don’t know where PL is in relation to the centre, the tennis ground or the Wombles but it doesn’t have the leafy suburban feel of those places more Urban so I’d say a bit of a distance.Mind I see they are selling fairly unremarkable flats there at £700k a pop so it must have something going for it.

Oh dear, AFC 3-0 down at h/t.

Making a bit more of a game of it now but relegation is a done deal I’m afraid. I blame Hughes.

Bolton did their bit taking the points off Fleetwood but it was always a forlorn hope that AFC could overturn the goal difference, even had they not had a 'mare of a first half.

NOW, when Dons fans are denied their fortnightly sporting fix for a few months, is the time to dust off the marketing machine - creaking though it seems.

The only bit of good news is the relegation of the team from Kent.

The first half was embarrassing and the team were booed off. At least they tried in the second half. And it was packed post match for the Player of the Year Awards. I think it should hurt a bit more, otherwise mediocrity/complacency becomes the norm.

The London Broncos now have 11 opportunities (home and away) to be the first Plough Lane based men's team to win a match in 2022. Surely that will happen, hopefully as early as tomorrow.

Game day.....has there been a more important one in the 40+ years?
Good luck London....but relying on beating dewsbury for a hope of survival is a depressing scenario......
London by 10.
COYB

There have arguably been more important games but it certainly seems like a must win. Let's hope it is a turning point.

Worth saying that we are in a position now where even if we win we stay 13th. I think this and the game against a very much weakened Newcastle have to be assessed together. That is the point of no return. Either way after that I expect to hear a state of play message from the management. As others have said they have been very quiet. In one way the almost complete absence of anything about Leigh shows a certain level of self awareness, on the other hand we feel rudderless. I assume after Newcastle the management will need to consider next season. I don’t expect them to tell us what they are up to but I do expect them to make key decisions as it would seem highly unlikely we’d remain a Championship side. 1) do they accept that or are they going to throw money at it-probably too late 2) do we fold 3) if not, what type of L1 side will we be? Bottom 4 or pushing for promotion. If the former where will we play? If the latter is PL suitable (probably not). Then we need to identify 4/5 players who can deliver and offer them what they need. 4) Develop some kind of local engagement/marketing g strategy that would keep us with gates around where we are now (growth at this stage would seem unlikely).
Anyway I’m hoping we’ll win today. As we score so infrequently I’m not sure what is giving me the hope we’ll do that but if not now then when? I hope it’s a decent attendance, we don’t have a range of second stringers playing (who knows as they haven’t announced their squad!) and that Bank holiday/weekend transport system manages to get us there in a relatively timely fashion.

Good start 12-0

Hope they don't get nosebleeds!

18-0 looks like something has clicked

Do not adjust your set- it’s 22-0 with 30 minutes played!
COYB!!

Dane chisolm show so far.

Looks like it's starting to unravel due to indiscipline

Is Sykes on commission ?

Macani looks absolutely shot

30-12
Looking safe now but we’ve made very hard work of it

Phew, hopefully we can kick on from here and get more points.

Just back from my first match at Plough Lane

First half London completely on Top, Dewsbury did not look like they had got off the coach, as first 3 attacks, London scored and 18-0 up. Then some good defence before fourth try, and going in at half time 22-0 seemed surreal (this was my first game this season, but London completely on top and playing well).

2nd half was 100% reverse, London hardly touched the ball first 20 mins (plus going down to 12 men), and dewsbury scored 3 tries down both flanks (london looked shot). However luckily all 3 conversions missed, so still a 10 point lead, before they managed to quell the storm and score 3 late tries.

A win is a win, but if the rams had got it back to even scores, would have been different result, but the broncos did deserve the win.

PL is a nice compact ground, but too big for London right now, was about 700 or so I would guess tonight, looking at 3 empty stands does not look great. Also catering was abysmal (I assume this is as normally you would have the south stand open). My dad is Veggie, and all they had was a pie nothing else (not even chips), and no burgers either (although we did not go into the bar, maybe they had more food there).

Also playing in Warrington tops really does not sit well, if they want to be blue and yellow, do not have a chevron, have something original and not an old warrington design. I would prefer they go back to black asap tbh.

I think they will stay up, but only because they are better than Dewsbury and Workington.

I took a slightly more upbeat take on that match,
I never thought the result was in doubt although I accept Rams’ failure to convert was really helpful in just maintaining distance. We started really well. Chisholm’s try is easily the best thing we’ve done this season, he basically chipped their line and followed through to score. Bienek played very well in the first half and made a number of really impressive charges where he just knocked players (multiple) on their backsides. This really lifted the crowd. I’m not sure whether Walker makes many metres but he is very, very secure under the high ball and that helped. 2nd half we started very flat and they began to look dangerous. I agree we did look a little shot. We went down to 12 men when Albert took a 10 minute bath for a high shot. We conceded 3 in quick order but the clock was ticking. Slowly we began to defend stoutly and push them via kicks back deep into their own half. Basically we ate up the clock and made them work hard. They then tired and we scored a couple and a penalty. Chisholm and Bienek were very good. Walker and Lovell made contributions and I thought Foster had a good game. Macani works hard but I’m not sure he has the explosive pace needed for a winger. Ulberg is better in attack. Gahan did well, Parata and Leyland a little quieter.
On concessions only one counter open but then crowd was low. I’d have said around 500 myself. Decent atmosphere though Overall I think we could do something against Newcastle if we really want to.

With the conversions being so important I don’t understand why they don’t have a right footer curling in from the left and vice versa. Some, of course, are deadly from both sides but after the 1st miss out on the left I was pretty certain he would miss the 2nd and he did by some margin. Not at the same level as misses by young Coates but not great and slightly deflated Rams.