Foot & Soccer

FA Cup kicks off first spherical with Wimbledon and MK Dons grudge match

FA Cup kicks off first spherical with Wimbledon and MK Dons grudge match

November 1 – Relocating a membership from one metropolis to a different might not be that massive a deal in the US, the place it is named a franchise, however within the conventional world of English soccer it’s thought-about anathema to followers.

Which is why Sunday’s FA Cup first-round encounter between AFC Wimbledon and MK Dons is taken into account such a grudge match.

Lots of the 32 part-time sides from outdoors the skilled pyramid have been drawn towards full-time opposition from the nation’s third and fourth tiers, League One and Two, all hoping to spring an upset.

Hednesford City from the English recreation’s eighth tier is the smallest facet left within the event however a lot of the eye this weekend focusses on the conflict between two full-time sides whose followers don’t have anything however contempt for each other.

All of it goes again to 2002, when the house owners of Wimbledon FC — shock winners of the FA Cup in 1988— uprooted from south London to Milton Keynes, a commuter city north of the capital, and switched its title to MK Dons.

The transfer was considered a betrayal by long-time followers of the unique Wimbledon staff, who responded by forming a staff inside weeks, AFC Wimbledon, which began out as a phoenix membership however now sits proudly alongside MK Dons in League Two.

Romantic Sunday’s conflict most actually isn’t.

“Rivalries are rivalries. There’s a uniqueness to this one that you just gained’t discover anyplace else on the planet of soccer,” says native BBC presenter Luke Ashmead

“It’s simply tempered hatred between the 2 golf equipment. Each units of followers need to tolerate it, there’s no pleasure there and it’s not a enjoyable rivalry.”

First-round motion kicks off tonight when Tamworth from the Nationwide League will attempt to knock out former FA Cup winners Huddersfield City. The 2 prime divisions, Premier League and Championship, enter the competitors in spherical three.

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