2023-24 Prediction League; Game 14 v MK Dons (home)

Div3North · 19-10-2023, 22:31

Accrington Stanley

V

Milton Keynes Dons

2023/24 Prediction League Game 14 v The Krispy Kreme Donuts

Three of our Trusty Band of Jouers (Chimer, Tom D and Watchdog) got Len’sTens last time, seven scored five points, AccyMad got one (the only Desmond of the week) and eight of us got none ….. table to follow (unless The Wombles on Tuesday and Colchester on Saturday get in my way)

One or two surprising results, as well ……… Vegan Greenpeace beat Colchester (who were the first side to beat Gillingham) 5-0, Walsall beat the self-same Gills 4-1, and the MK Donuts managed to snatch a draw from the jaws of a 2-0 win v Barrow, courtesy of giving them two TimeAddedOn goals (90+3 and 90+5); they're warmly invited to repeat the same process this week

Few teams have won the PrawnSandwich League (seven, being Man U, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Leicester and Blackburn) ………. Blackburn won it in 1994/95, and Leicester twenty-one years later in 2015/16 ……….. they’re the only former winners now playing in le Championnat, and will of course play each other this season ……….. Starter for Ten, then; what’s the shortest recorded time between two teams each winning the top League in their country and then playing against each other in their Country’s second tier?

Milton Keynes did not appear in the Doomsday Book, missing the publication date by around 900 years ….. In the 1960s, the UK government decided that a further generation of new towns in the South East of England was needed to relieve housing congestion in London. This new town , Milton Keynes, was to be the biggest yet, with a target population of 250,000 and a 'designated area' of about 22,000 acres; its planned area incorporated the existing towns of Bletchley, Fenny Stratford, Wolverton and Stony Stratford along with another fifteen villages and farmland in between. These settlements had an extensive historical record from the Norman conquest; detailed archaeological investigations prior to development revealed evidence of human occupation from the Neolithic period to modern times, including in particular the Milton Keynes Hoard of Bronze Age gold jewellery.

Milton Keynes is a sort of unofficial city, and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, about 50 miles north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was 264,349.The River Great Ouse forms the northern boundary of the urban area; a tributary, the River Ouzel, meanders through its linear parks and balancing lakes. Approximately 25% of the urban area is parkland or woodland and includes two Sites of Special Scientific Interest … It’s home to a shed-load of professional footballers, plus Fallon Sherrock (lady dartist), Pete Winkelman, Kevin Whately (“Lewis”), Jack Trevor Storey (writer), one ska band, one metal band, two djent bands (don’t ask) and a rock band called RavenEye (no, nor have I); also listed is Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong (born 19 December 1974), nicknamed "The Snow Leopard", who is/was a Ghanaian skier and the first person from Ghana to take part in the Winter Olympics, which he did in the 2010 Winter Olympics at Vancouver, taking part in the slalom. He finished 53rd out of 102 participants, of whom 54 finished. (So, last but one) … Alan Turing lodged there while working at Bletchley Park ……… and Freedom of the City (or Borough) has been bestowed on the aforementioned Mr Winkelman, Dame Cleo Lane and Leah Williamson (of the Lionesses)

Second Starter for Ten, then; in 1970/71, Fiorentina flirted with relegation from Serie A ….. the three sides that eventually went down (Foggia, Lazio and Catania) won, respectively, 6 games, 5 games and 5 games from a 30-game season ……….. so how many did Fiorentina win?

MK Dons were once Wimbledon FC; starting in 1997, a consortium led by music promoter Pete Winkelman and supported by Asda and IKEA proposed a large retail development in Milton Keynes including a Football League-standard stadium. The consortium proposed that an established league club move to use this site; it approached Luton, Wimbledon, Crystal Palace, Barnet and Queens Park Rangers. In 2001 the old club appointed a new chairman, Charles Koppel, who was in favour of this idea, saying it was necessary to stop the club going out of business. To the reported fury of most Wimbledon fans, Koppel announced on 2 August 2001 that the club intended to relocate to Milton Keynes. After the Football League refused permission, Wimbledon launched an appeal, leading to an FA arbitration hearing and subsequently the appointment of a three-man independent commission to make a final and binding verdict. The league and FA opposed, but the commissioners ruled in favour, two to one, on 28 May 2002.

Having campaigned against the move, a group of disaffected Wimbledon fans reacted to this in June 2002 by forming their own non-league club, AFC Wimbledon, to which most of the original team's support defected. AFC Wimbledon entered a ground share agreement with Kingstonian in the borough of Kingston upon Thames, adjacent to Merton. The original Wimbledon intended to move to Milton Keynes immediately but were unable to do so until a temporary home in the town meeting Football League criteria could be found. The club remained at Selhurst Park in the meantime and in June 2003 went into administration. With the move threatened and the club facing liquidation, Winkelman decided to buy it himself. He secured funding for the administrators to keep the team operating with the goal of getting it to Milton Keynes as soon as possible. The club arranged the temporary use of the National Hockey Stadium in Milton Keynes and played its first match there in September 2003. Nine months later Winkelman's Inter MK Group bought the club out of administration and announced changes to its name, badge and colours—the team was renamed Milton Keynes Dons Football Club.

They’ve been Up and Down the City Road and In and Out of The Eagle a few times since 2004/5, when their existence began ………. they went up to the Championship in 2014/15, but only lasted one season before GreasyPoling back, courtesy of no wins in their final eleven games …

MK Dons suffered relegation to League Two in the 2022–23 League season. Liam Manning was replaced as manager in December 2022, but successor Mark Jackson registered just six wins in 25 games and was sacked after the side were relegated following a final day goalless Desmond at Burton Albion. On 27 May 2023, MK Dons appointed Graham Alexander as their new head coach. After an eight match winless run, Alexander was sacked with MK Dons in 16th-place. On 17 October 2023, MK Dons announced they had appointed Gateshead manager Mike Williamson as their new head coach.

Chairman Comrade Winkelman said that he felt Graham Alexander was not the right fit for MK Dons. The former Motherwell boss lasted just 142 days in charge at Stadium MK after taking over, but after taking the club to the top of League Two in August, the drop to 16th six weeks later was enough for the chairman to pull the trigger.

Alexander was the third manager sacking there in less than a year, following Liam Manning and Mark Jackson out the door since last December, and though the 51-year-old had experience and promotions on his CV, Winkelman felt he didn’t ‘fit’ with the club.

“We want to be a powerful club at this level, but this is the lowest we've ever been, I don't think I had a choice,” he said. “I don't think Graham got anything wrong, I think it was the fit of the manager with the club. Graham is a winner, he knows what he's talking about and has been there and got the t-shirt. But as the weeks went on, I felt maybe he wouldn't be successful at this club.”

Alexander was the twelfth sacked manager this season, but there have been two more - both on 18th (Wednesday last) - they being Gary Rowett at Millwall and Mark Kennedy at Lincoln ………… I might do an “In Memoriam” at some stage ….

They came down with us, Morecambe and Vegan Greenpeace last season, finishing 21st on 45 points ……. one more point would have seen them safe, because they had a better GD than Cambridge, but their last eight games only harvested six points from six draws, and two losses …. they beat us 1-0 at ours, and we drew 1-1 at theirs with a 78th min penalty by SuperSean …. 14 left, including non-flameproof Will Grigg (now at TwistySpires Utd), LW Sullay Kaikai (to Cambridge), GK Franco Ravioli - sorry, Ravizzoli - to Wycombe, DMF Matt Smith to St Johnstone via Dr Who, and CMF Josh McEachran to Oxford ……… 10 signed on, among them Burton’s GK Craig MacGillivray, CB Tommy Smith from Colchester, LW Ashley Hunter from Morecambe, striker Ellis Harrison from Portly Value (also Brizzle, Pompey, Fleetwood and Ipswich), and Carlisle’s Irish GK (called Michael Kelly, so he is) …. Season so far is pretty average - P13 W4 D4 L5 GF19 GA20 for 16 points and 16th place ……. arguably their problem is that the four wins (including Wrexham by 5-3 away on the opening day) were in their first 5 games, so they’re eight without a League win; they play Reading in the FA Cup Round One (away) on 4th November (expect fireworks there!), and left the EFL Cup without a whimper, 0-2 to Wycombe in the first round …….If they were up for an Ofsted Inspection, they’d get “in need of improvement” - let’s see what the Gateshead manager has to input …

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pm on Saturday 21st October Storm Babet permitting (sound like Stormy Daniels' BFF) ……. We face “New Manager Syndrome”, of course, and Ellis Harrison has a proven track record, but we’re unbeaten in four (counting Harrogate away in the Trophy), so all to play for …….. And the answer to “win the League, then get relegated, then play another team who’ve also won the League and then gone down” is actually Finland; TPV won the top division is 1995 and were relegated the season after (1996), and FC Haka won in 1996 and were greasypoled the season after (1997), so the winners from 1995 and 1996 played each other in Division Two in 1997 ……….. can you see that happening to Chelsea and Man City? And Fiorentina in 1970/71 won just 3 of their 30 League games, but stayed up in Serie A on GD, largely because they drew 19 of the other 27 ….

Good luck to everyone! ….. Keep the Faith! …….. And thanks for playing!