In part two of our special report into AFC Wimbledon's future, we speak to Kenny Cunningham about his experience as a Wimbledon player during a period unique in British football - the proposed move to Milton Keynes.

Kenny Cunningham arrived at Wimbledon in 1994, excited by an opportunity to play Premiership football that he felt might not come again.

What he found was a club of great character, where Crazy Gang notoriety was "on the wane". His tone suggests that the borderline-bullying of the team at that time would not have been his cup of tea.

Joining from Millwall with team-mate Jon Goodman, Cunningham thrived on the coaching by manager Joe Kinnear and coach Terry Burton but also took personal responsibility to improve.

“I grew up there myself a little bit, in terms of football education. Joe Kinnear was the manager and a very big personality, but I was getting to an age where I was more proactive in what I needed to do.

"Joe and Terry were great, but I was lucky to learn under a few good coaches,” he says. They trained on a public park, and lunchtimes were in a local cafe. Plough Lane wasn’t a realistic option for a team the club then.”

Cunningham thrived in a dressing room that he holds high regard, name-checking Robbie Earle as a great captain and fondly speaking of the skills of Oyvind Leonhardsen and Alan Kimble alongside him in defence.

Wimbledon FC torn apart

But footballers do not exist in a vacuum, as much as some players might like. Cunningham and other players tried to separate themselves from a pitched battle between supporters and the board that was getting nasty.

The Norwegian owners of the club - Bjørn Rune Gjelsten and Kjell Inge Røkke - were looking to relocate the club to Milton Keynes, sixty miles away from their home in south-west London.

Milton Keynes' eventual chairman, Pete Winkelman, had proposed moving the club there as part of a move that would see the town get a football boost and his retail empire get more footfall.

“At the very end, I remember lads protesting at the games, carrying coffins and the like. We were aware of what was going on, but - as a player - there is really very little you can do. There really was some distance between the players and those in the boardroom.”

A Wimbledon supporter makes his feelings known about the clubs move to Milton Keynes during the Nationwide Division One game at Selhurst Park, between Wimbledon and Leicester City.

Wimbledon’s dislocation has become the norm for most; no-one currently aged 30 or under will remember the Dons at Plough Lane. Fathers tell sons, as goes the oral history of football.

Cunningham only ever played at Selhurst Park for the club. They were ground-sharing with Crystal Palace; a situation that would become the norm for Wimbledon and begin to sow the seeds of its destruction.

“We were only renters, we didn’t have our own ground. A few people were saying that we should go back to Plough Lane, but I don’t think it was a realistic option,” he says.

“That was dead, but then you were talking about relocation to Milton Keynes, the retail aspect - the whole shebang. I could understand it from a business point of view, but I never bought that this would be the same club when you are moving them sixty miles up the road.

“To my mind, it would have been more honest to come out and say ‘Look, the club is dead, if you want to come on board then great’. When they tried to sell it as ‘It’s still Wimbledon’ - I wasn’t having it.”

Pete Winkelman, the Chairman of Stadium MK outside the National Hockey Stadium.

Once the club had been officially moved, the supporter-owned Dons Trust declared the club "dead" and established AFC Wimbledon in the Combined Counties League - the ninth tier of English football.

Cunningham regrets the club’s fracture and - understanding of the fans’ decision to found AFC - he feels the ‘unique’ feeling of the old club with AFC’s fans.

“AFC Wimbledon is a far bigger and better story than anything we did with Wimbledon, or even the FA Cup-winning team, even though I have a lot of admiration for them. From where they were to where they are is just absolutely amazing.

“I hope they get the financing right because that would help complete the circle. I would like them to be back at Plough Lane, but back there without an anvil around their neck.

"Not in the pockets of the banks of some cowboy investors. Hopefully, if people do put in, they have the best of the club at heart.”

AFC Wimbledon: homeward bound?

With the crowd-sourced Plough Lane Bond, that is nearly guaranteed.

The club has managed to raise nearly £5.4m of their eventual £7.5m target from small loans from fans - with the rest to be made up by traditional lenders. In under two months.

In just nine years, the strained sinews of fans and players promoted the club to the Football League, in an astonishing display of what is possible off the pitch. On it, AFC Wimbledon are within three points of Milton Keynes in League One.

The more they can raise, the less reliant they are on outside help. The closer they are to returning home.

AFC Wimbledon's Scott Wagstaff celebrates scoring his side's third goal of the game during the FA Cup fourth-round match at Kingsmeadow, London.

Cunningham is one of a relatively small group that has played at Plough Lane - and he has great memories.

“I always played for Wimbledon at Selhurst, but I remember playing a reserves game at Plough Lane. The tunnel was so tight, but the playing surface was absolutely gorgeous.”

It is a different kind of beauty that Plough Lane would represent, should it come to pass.

A new generation of Wimbledon fans will feel a sense of place. Plough Lane will stand as something more than a stadium.

They have belonged since the beginning, but they will have somewhere to call home.

Part one of our special report into AFC Wimbledon can be found here.

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