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AFC Wimbledon Community Report 2013 AFC WIMBLEDON COMMUNITY REPORT 2013

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AFC Wimbledon Community Report 2013 AFC WIMBLEDON COMMUNITY REPORT 2013 AFC Wimbledon Community Report 2013 AFC WIMBLEDON COMMUNITY REPORT 2013 The Launch of the AFC Wimbledon Foundation Foreword by Erik Samuelson The AFC Wimbledon Foundation (Chief Executive, AFC Wimbledon) The AFC Wimbledon Foundation Welcome to AFC Wimbledon’s Community Report. is a charitable organisation whose overriding objective is to operate for The story of AFC Wimbledon is widely known, not only the benefit of the public generally and within football circles but also by people who may not be Merton residents in particular. It will very interested in football but who love a good story about be responsible for bringing under one overcoming adversity. But my guess is that a much smaller roof the many and varied activities number of people realise the full range of activities we carry described in this report. out in our community. This report sets out to remedy that. The Trustees of the Foundation are: A football club is diminished unless it is an active part of the community in which it operates. So from the very beginning Erik Samuelson, Chairman we have sought to establish ourselves as a community club. We are owned by our fans, and our parent company board is Baroness McDonagh, life peer and elected by those fans, so our very ownership is rooted in the former General Secretary of the community. And, despite limited resources, we have always Labour Party sought to be active in the community and to be good citizens. Mick Buckley, Dons Trust Board As you will see from this report, we have had many successes. member and chief executive of Some are public, like the Merton Partnership Volunteering MB Comms Award from Merton Council and a Big Society Award, while others are less public, but just as valued by us. The list is long Nigel Higgs, AFC Wimbledon Youth and and varied, and many of the projects are run by volunteers. Community Director And now we are about to take another giant step. As I was The Patrons of the Foundation are: writing this foreword, we received official notification that the newly-formed AFC Wimbledon Foundation had been accepted Sophie Hosking by the Charities Commission. As a result we can now bring Sophie won gold in the London 2012 all our many projects under one roof, with a clear identity and Olympic Games in the lightweight ambitious objectives to build upon our work to date. double sculls. She is an avid Wimbledon fan and played for the girls’ team We hope that in the not-too-distant future we will be able to before switching to rowing. She lives in base ourselves in a new stadium, back in Wimbledon, which Wimbledon. will put us at the heart of our home community and enable us to open up our facilities in ways that aren’t possible Alun Armstrong at present. Until we can do that, the AFC Wimbledon Best known for his role as Brian Lane Foundation is a clear statement of our enduring commitment in New Tricks, Alun is a multi-award- to extending our role as a community club. winning actor and won the coveted Olivier Award for his role as Sweeney Please do read this report – I thought I knew everything Todd. He also starred in Patriot Games, we’ve been doing, but even I have been astonished at the Braveheart and Van Hesling. He is a range and scale of our activities. regular at AFC Wimbledon games. 1 AFC WIMBLEDON COMMUNITY REPORT 2013 AFC WIMBLEDON COMMUNITY REPORT 2013 The Dons Trust Wimbledon & football: The Dons Trust is the club’s Supporters Trust and owns AFC Wimbledon. AFC Wimbledon is also keen to make young people familiar with the idea of It’s a Community Thing Vision Aims club ownership. The Junior Dons were “To maintain supporter ownership The Dons Trust’s aims are: set up in 2002 to encourage under-16s of a successful, financially stable, • continued Trust ownership to become a part of the club and of the professional football club playing at the • to ensure sound financial Dons Trust. Membership costs much less heart of our communities.” management and governance than the adult rate for Trust membership, • to operate as a genuine and brings a number of benefits, including Values community club birthday and Christmas cards signed To support this vision, the Dons Trust • to deliver a “one-club” approach to by the first-team players and free entry has developed a number of values by player development and progression to selected events, including the Junior which it operates: • to continue work to obtain a new Dons’ Christmas party. The hope is that, • passion and commitment stadium by establishing a connection with the club • integrity • to improve communication and Trust at an early age, many Junior • open and honest communication • to improve fundraising. Dons will continue with Trust membership • involving people in decisions and become active members of the Trust • respecting other people’s opinions. after their 16th birthday. I started volunteering just before the meeting at “Wimbledon Theatre in February 2002, at which it was decided to set up the Dons Trust – I organised the stewarding at the event. Once the club was up and running, my wife Linda and I organised the he Dons have been central to Wimbledon’s cultural Forced to relocate to Selhurst Park by the demand in the Golden Goals competition, which has now raised heritage for nearly 125 years. Ever since a group of Taylor Report for all-seater stadiums, the Dons continued close to £150,000 for the Trust. I also administer Told boys from the Central School started a team to play reserve-team games at Plough Lane until just before the Junior Dons section of the Trust. In my view, back in 1889, the club has been proud to be associated the Millennium. with Merton and the surrounding boroughs. The first sides owning a football club is a bit like owning a house: played on Wimbledon Common and changed in the Fox With Wimbledon’s proud reputation for developing ownership brings with it obligations that don’t and Grapes pub, before successive moves to pitches off local-born players and its award-winning Football in otherwise apply. While not everyone is in a position Worple Road West, Pepys Road, Merton Hall Road and, in the Community programme, the connection with the to be actively involved, the more supporters that 1909, Burlington Road. local community continued to flourish until the Football Association allowed a town in Buckinghamshire to can help meet those obligations, the better. It’s Eventually, Wimbledon Borough employees found the club take Wimbledon’s Football League place. Formed by its rewarding to help the club you part-own. I have an a ground on the site of the modern-day greyhound stadium. supporters in response to that uprooting of Wimbledon FC excellent team of Golden Goals ticket sellers, and Shortly before the start of World War I, the club moved a from its community, the newly formed AFC Wimbledon was there is a real spirit of comradeship among us. That’s few hundred yards along Plough Lane to a piece of swampy determined to keep its roots in the area. It is a commitment land just north of the River Wandle that had been used as that is enshrined in the aims of the Dons Trust. true for most of the volunteers I meet. a refuse dump. Over the years, fans developed the facilities ” there as the team progressed from the Athenian League up Since then, the club and the Dons Trust have been hugely Roger Dennis through the Isthmian and Southern Leagues, until Football active in the local community, from village fairs to school AFC Wimbledon and Dons Trust volunteer League status was achieved in 1977. literacy projects, from holiday football programmes to elite youth development, and from hospital visits to social During the next 25 years, the name of Wimbledon FC inclusion projects. became synonymous with achievement. The supporters who had cheered the club to success in the amateur game Football has the ability to inspire all types of people in a way Our volunteers watched as the team rose up through the divisions until, that is true of no other sporting activity. As Prime Minister on 14 May 1988, the world looked on as the Dons won the Margaret Thatcher put it in a speech in 1986, “If we can sell AFC Wimbledon has 300 active volunteers who fulfil a remarkable variety of roles: from architects to accountants, from FA Cup at Wembley Stadium. Even more astonishingly, Newcastle Brown to Japan, Bob Geldof can have us running child protection officers to classroom assistants, from design to data entry, from finance to first aid, from photography within four seasons they had become founder members of round Hyde Park, and if Wimbledon can make it to the First to pitch maintenance, from social media to sound engineers, and just about everything else you could imagine. the FA Premier League. Division, there is surely no achievement beyond our reach.” 2 3 AFC WIMBLEDON COMMUNITY REPORT 2013 AFC WIMBLEDON COMMUNITY REPORT 2013 Wimbledon in the Community FC Wimbledon’s work in the community has gone from strength to strength since the club re-formed in 2002. A combination of dedicated volunteers and the club’s CommunityA Football Scheme (CFS) has helped deliver a wide range of projects in Merton and the I firmly believe that the surrounding boroughs. club“ has a responsibility to In the case of the CFS, it all began at Wimbledon Park in its community and everyone 2003, when a few volunteer coaches worked tirelessly Sports Participation who lives, works or goes to to convince local parents that AFC Wimbledon’s scheme school in that community.
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