AFC Wimbledon – Plough Lane

Written by Max

Ground #28

Plough Lane – AFC Wimbledon

Tuesday 23^rd November 2021 – League One

AFC Wimbledon 3-2 Crewe Alexandra

Attendance: 6,943

Entry: £22

AFC Wimbledon were formed just 19 years ago in 2002 by the fans of Wimbledon FC after the old club had been moved 60 miles away to Milton Keynes. I’m sure the majority of you reading this will know the story so I wont go into it here, but the club have since risen from their non league step 5 beginning to become the first side formed in the 21^st century to make it into the football league.

Today they came up against struggling Crewe Alexandra who currently sit at the bottom of the league. Going into the game we were only expecting one result, but as with the game we saw at Field Mill just 3 days before, the underdogs took a surprise lead early on with a neat finish into the bottom corner from Chris Long.

After that though the usual story began as the Dons quickly equalised from a dubious freekick. After being down injured and getting abuse from the travelling Crewe fans, striker Ollie Palmer got his own back with a brace before half time as The Alex fell apart.

The second half was a bit of a non event as far as we were concerned. Wimbledon being the better side but with the 2 goal lead were happy to knock it around as Crewe looked weak going forward. Just as we were about to give up all hope and the decent number of travelling fans began to contemplate leaving early, a counter attack from nothing saw veteran striker Chris Porter do what he does best poaching an 89^th minute goal. From then on it was attack after attack from the Alex but in was in vain as the Dons took all 3 points.

As Crewe fans it was almost more frustrating to see how good we played in the last 5 minutes of the game and it made you wonder why we didn’t try pushing for a goal earlier on. In fairness though Wimbledon completely dominated the game and deserved to come away with the win.

Now to rate our experience at Plough Lane:

Location: 3/10

Plough Lane is located around a 35 minute walk from both Wimbledon and South Wimbledon Tube stations and as we found out after our long walk, there are no pubs or take aways near the ground with it being surrounded by car showrooms and brand new flats which were built alongside the new ground.

We noticed after the game a lot of home fans having to get the bus back into central Wimbledon to get back home which obviously isn’t the ideal way to get to and from what should be your local team. Despite this though, the ground is much closer than the previous ground at Kingsmeadow and (I’ll say it quietly) a lot closer than Milton Keynes!!!

Kit: 6/10

This years Wimbledon kit is their usual shade of dark blue with yellow sleeves, blue shorts and socks. A pretty basic design but smart. I love the fact the club are sponsored by Football Manager but I feel using a gold/yellow font rather than the white would have looked much nicer and fit in more with the rest of the kit.

Facilities: 3/10

The stand in which the away fans are housed is currently temporary and you can tell this most by the concourse behind the stand. You enter through the turnstile and are immediately into a large open courtyard which contains the food and drink kiosks as well as toilets. There is plenty of space within this area but it is all uncovered so on a rainy day would be very unpleasant to use.

Look: 6/10

The ground, as you would expect from a brand new build is all very clean and tidy looking once you get inside. The grounds most striking feature is an impressive looking permanent main stand, which includes a number of corporate boxes. This is the only stand that includes a proper concourse as the other 3 are currently temporary and will be completed in the future when demand requires, and money is available. I think this is a great way to do it as it has meant a quicker return to their own ground whilst also not bankrupting the club.

The other 3 sides, which included the away end where we sat, are made of temporary metal terracing with around 10 rows of seating. This means the only way to currently get a decent birds eye view of the pitch is by buying one of the brand new flats which over look the ground. If anyone has a spare 500k lying about then they could get themselves the best seat in the house!

Currently the outside of the ground is pretty bland looking and as we walked a lap of the ground to find the entrance to the away end, we both commented on how it didn’t look like we were at a football stadium. It’s early days so something might be in the pipeline, but I think it would make it look a lot nicer if they stuck a couple of club badges or the name of the club on the temporary stand to improve the look of the ground from the outside.

The ground itself holds just over 9 thousand supporters and was pretty full for today’s game which was ‘only’ Crewe on a Tuesday night. This makes me think that the demand is there and it will be interesting to see what the ground looks like once all 4 sides are permanently in place

Food and Drink: 2/10

If we were rating food only we would have struggled to give this section a score at all! Possibly the worst burger either of us have ever tasted and has probably put us off ever ordering a burger from a football league ground again! £4.50 for the smallest, driest, most over cooked burger I have ever had with a tiny slice of flavourless cheese on top.

We had seen photos going around on Twitter of the food at Plough Lane and had been excited to try something different all day. To make matters worse, as we were leaving the ground we passed a group of home supporters leaving the ground with fantastic looking gourmet burgers with brioche buns and all the trimmings. We were gutted and felt a bit disappointed that as away fans we had been fobbed off with cheap rubbish while home supporters had a vast array of high quality options to choose from .

The only real positive, and reason that this section has any points at all, is that fact the bar served a decent selection of beers including Stella and Camden Hells. Sadly though, as is common with most of London, no dark fruits was available so no bonus points today!

TOTAL SCORE 19/50

Another away day with The Alex, another loss, but another new ground ticked off! Plough Lane, or ‘The Cherry Red Records Stadium’ as it is officially known, was a little bit underwhelming in truth. As I mentioned above the stand we were in was temporary and therefore we will have to return once the ground is completely finished, although that could be decades away! The whole experienced seemed a little bit below what we expected and that all started with the food!

We wont be forgetting that burger for a while, but sadly for all the wrong reasons!

If you would like to see where this places The Dons in our Football League leader board click here: THE 92

If you’d like the non-league grounds we have visited click here: NON LEAGUE