The Diary

30 December 2003: Don Doom, Or Jolly Hockey-Sticks?

Right, then. Straight to the point, no messing. That bloody Wimbledon game tomorrow night. As we?ve only won one out of the last five, there?s quite a lot hanging on the way the National Hockey Stadium scoreboard will read come the end of the allotted span. Remember, we registered our last win whilst enveloped in a classic pea-souper at Valley Parade, Dobes being our saviour with that totally-undeserved late, late strike which saw us smash and grab all three points. The trouble is, since then, none of our forwards have managed to earn their corn in similar fashion; the closest approximation to such as a state of affairs we?ve seen was the successful co-opting, more in hope than anything else, of Thomas Gaardsoe into the strikeforce during the closing minutes of the Derby imbroglio. Our underserved late equaliser subsequently proved even more embarrassing when Norwich, currently our main rival for the end-of-season honours, managed to stick no less than four goals past the poor Rams on their own muck-heap yesterday. That total blitzing of the East Midland side that caused us so much grief has now seen The Canaries flutter a significant six points clear at the top of the table. Doubly-annoying, since despite their well-publicised financial problems, they were still able to secure the services of Darren Huckerby ahead of us.

As far as tomorrow goes, on paper, it should be a no-brainer, but bearing in mind what happened when we played them at our place not so long ago, I?m not that sure. On Boxing Day, they managed to turn over Reading, who harbour upwardly-mobile aspirations of their own; the way things are looking right now, if The Dons apply their usual formula of trying to stop the opposition playing, then we might have a problem on our hands. The niggling worry I have nestling at the back of my mind about this fixture isn?t helped one little bit by the news that the fitness of Greegs and Paul Robinson may be in doubt tomorrow. Clem? The mystery is now solved: the club say he?s contracted a bug of some sort or another, consequently, he?s hors de combat. We?re also temporarily losing the services of Bernt Hass, who is, of course, suspended. Options? Could we go 4-4-Shhhhhh?? and use Sakiri on the left, and Hughsie on the right, with The Horse in the middle to latch onto the crosses? If the worst comes to the worst about Clem and Robinson, then there could well be a great gaping hole in the left-back position. We do, however, have people like N?Dour and Lloyd Dyer lurking in the wings, but even to postulate the possibility of either one being given a run-out would be a heresy akin to Galileo telling the Inquisition that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice-versa, so I won?t.

I have to declare something of an interest at this stage, though, because, last night, I had a dream. Not the sort that brought squillions of black people to Washington to listen to the words of Martin Luther King, but something rather more mundane. Last night, I dreamed that we drew one apiece at Milton Keynes. After the fiasco of the Derby game, I?d take the point and run, quite honestly, because I hate to even contemplate the thought of us dipping there. Until now, despite our worrying home form, our superb but occasionally fortuitous away record has kept us nicely among the pace-setters, and sometimes ahead of them, but the Coventry reverse, allied with our failure to get points on the board over Christmas, genuinely worried me. Should we succeed tomorrow night, then the myriads of questions every Baggie must be asking right now will fade once more into the background. A draw, as per my nocturnal ?revelation?? Worrying, but not time to ring the alarm bells ? just yet. Defeat? We might well live in interesting times. Insert your own scenario.

Before I turn to other matters, a quick word about what?s popularly known in football supporting circles as ?The Franchise?. As you may know, the reason Wimbledon now play at MK and not London is because when the new owners took the place over, they decided that in order for the club to flourish, it needed to move around 65 miles away from its normal supporter-base, and to a place that had hitherto never known the joys of the round-ball code at senior level. What the League and FA were thinking of when they finally sanctioned what happened, I really don?t know. Sure, clubs have changed location before to give them better survival prospects ? Man City, Derby, Bolton spring readily to mind, here ? but not to a completely bloody different town miles and miles up the motorway! There are precedents for such a drastic move, but they?re all American, and involve mega-rich club owners uprooting entire clubs to totally different locations. The fate of the New York Dodgers (moved to somewhere in California, I believe) is typical of what happens over there: the ?genuine? Dons supporters call the whole concept a ?franchise? and who can blame them?

The latest is that plans are now afoot to shift from their present ?temporary? location at the National Hockey Stadium to a permanent 27,000 capacity location elsewhere in the city. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of Dons supporters have completely split the blanket with the parent club over the initial move, never mind the proposed one to more salubrious surroundings. One of the reasons is that their own organisation commissioned a feasibility study into The Dons returning to their previous Plough Lane abode, and those undertaking the work could see no reason as to why it couldn?t be done: even the council said they?d assist in any way they could, but that wasn?t good enough for the new owners, who clearly had an agenda of their own to pursue. The ?proper? supporters wouldn?t have any part of it, and broke away to form their own football club, which is going great guns in a much lower league, but even so, they still get gates that regularly better those the ?franchise? get by a country mile. At the time of writing, they?re top of their own league, and heading for promotion at a rate of knots. As they?re so well-blessed, financially, how long will it be before we see them knocking on the door of the league proper? Don?t laugh, these people mean business: when a group of determined but angry people get together for a common cause, anything can happen. As for the ?official? lot, the only place they?re headed is downwards, at a rate of knots.

And now, to my usual spot prior to an away excursion: a little bit of information about tomorrow night?s destination. Milton Keynes may be associated with zillions of traffic islands, concrete cows ? I?m dead serious about that one, by the way! ? and Americanised blandness, but, believe it or not, it does have a Tourist Board! I know, because I spent quite some time looking up info the other day. As you may know, the place is an amalgamation of lots of little places, all brought together to form the city. The growth of Milton Keynes was controlled under the benign dictatorship of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation which, under the overall powers of the New Towns Act of 1946, took control of about 34 square miles of north Buckinghamshire with a brief to provide jobs and homes for about a quarter of a million people. The designated area had within it a number of villages as well as the towns. These villages have kept much of their individuality whilst becoming part of the new city. Work started in 1967 and will not be completed until the early years of 21st century.

An overall Borough Council was created in 1973 to provide representation over the designated area within Buckinghamshire. In April 1997 the new unitary authority of Milton Keynes was created: the new city had come of age. Tony Greenwood announced the name, though Lord Campbell claimed Dick Crossman (famous Labour minister, now deceased) actually came up with it. He used to say that it combined poetic vision and economic realism. It was thought that if any of the three towns - Bletchley, Wolverton or Stony Stratford had been used, the remaining two would have been most offended. The term of city is said to have been used as it was the most appropriate title for an area that included both towns and villages, yet lay within a county and not to assume any title above itself. Its present population is around 220,000, and plans are afoot to accommodate around 250,000 terminally-bored souls eventually.

Believe it or not, though, it does have a history! Milton Keynes is the name of one of the villages that were in the original designated area of the new "city" of Milton Keynes. This had the name Mideltone (middletown) in the Domesday Book and by 1422 the name of Kaynes had been added after the feudal family name Cahaignes. Long before all that happened, Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples hunted and settled in the Ouse Valley and its tributaries. Stone and bronze axes have been found and Bronze Age burial sites have been excavated Milton Keynes Village, whilst in the meadows near Tyringham a cemetery of this period has been identified by aerial photography. The remains of a nationally important large circular timber house dated 1000 BC were excavated nearby.

By the time of the Roman conquest in AD 43, the area was extensively settled and farmed. A major Roman villa, containing some of the finest quality mosaic floors, was excavated at nearby Bancroft Park. The occupants erected a large stone mausoleum on an adjacent hilltop, on the site of an earlier cemetery. If you want to be facetious, you could say that was the ?dead centre? of Milton Keynes in those days. The remains of the villa have been preserved, though. Shame about the rest of the place! The first Saxon settlements in the area were at Pineland, Milton Keynes Village, Great Linford and Bancroft. These date from the 6th and 7th centuries. In the 9th century the borough area was contained within the Saxon Hundreds (a Hundred was an administrative area made up of units of land known as hides). The elders were entitled to gather outdoors at a special meeting place, usually a specially-constructed mound, to discuss land management, collect taxes and dispense justice. As far as the rest goes, apart from the Industrial Revolution, which saw the building of the railway line, and the London to Birmingham Canal, that was about it until the second World War.

What happened to Miilton Keynes during those dark days? Bletchley Park, situated near what is now the city, was the British Military Intelligence headquarters during the Second World War, and still contains some of the top-secret equipment used to crack enemy codes. The famous Enigma coding machine was taken there after its capture (by the British, not the Yanks, despite recent attempts by Hollywood to claim otherwise!), and its secrets cracked by some rather brainy boffins, one of whom was Alan Turing. Who was he? Only what you might call the ?father? of the modern computer, that?s who. He was the one who devised what is now known as the ?Turing Test?, a way of determining whether a collection of electronic gunk is actually able to think and reason for itself, or not. Further info on application to this site. By the way, Bletchley Park was the site of the world?s first fully-operational electronic computer, used, as you may have guessed by now, to further crack those pesky German U-Boat codes. Incidentally, so secret was the work undertaken there, the full story didn?t come out until the eighties.

Famous people? Oh dear, Bletchley Park and Alan Turing ? who wasn?t a local, so he doesn?t really count ? apart, I really struggled on that one. There?s a famous organisation there, though, and that?s the OU, one of Harold Wilson?s better ideas, which he came up with during what was termed then, ?the white heat of the technological revolution?. First opened for business in the sixties, and initially regarded as something of a joke in academia, it?s now well and truly acknowledged as a pretty serious seat of learning, and whatever is your bent, you can pretty-much find a degree course in it, part-time, as well. And, you don?t need formal qualifications to get in either, something which greatly benefited those who?d gained their qualifications at what?s popularly termed ?The University Of Life?. Thanks to the OU, many people who?d left school having been told by their teachers they were complete duffers were proven delightfully wrong. Other claims to fame? Benjamin Disraeli, 19th century politician and Prime Minister, hails from those there parts, as did John Milton. Who? Think back to distant school English lessons, and dull discourses about the book ?Paradise Lost?, and the ?sequel?, ?Paradise Regained?. Sounds a bit like our own football club?s recent history, but Milton wrote both books, and he hails from the area, so there!

And finally?.. Blimey, Tel, that bang on the head you got from that Russian cannon-ball at Balaclava must have done more to your brain than even we?d suspected! That?s the probable reason as to why I now present the sorry tale of a fanzine editor, a new holdall, a floppy-disc, and a Number Eleven bus.

Very chuffed, was the Old Fart, with his recent Christmas present. A spanking-new bag, it was, fully-equipped with lots and lots of little zipped and buttoned pockets both inside and out; just the thing for storing all the bijou nick-knacks one finds absolutely essential to the success of any lengthy away trip, but even before that, our hero decided his pride and joy needed a ?test-run? out. Where better, then, to take it than to GD Towers, a few miles across town. The reason? The Fart had been sent a floppy disc by a Dick reader, but owing to his disc-drive being gummed up by some foreign object or another (don?t ask!), he couldn?t relay the contents to us in the normal fashion, so a short trip by omnibus was called for, a number 11, to be precise. The trouble was, he got as far as about halfway, delved casually into the various recesses of his new pride and joy to make sure the object in question was still there ? only to find it had now disappeared without trace! The first I knew about it was when I got the anguished phone call from The Fart around lunchtime, two days ago. My reaction, predictably, was, ?Oh, whoops!? (Bowdlerised version!)

The problem was, we needed that material like now, as we were shortly due to go to press, and needed the contents to fill the space specifically allocated to it. Once I ?d given ?Im Indoors the bad news, much dark muttering ensued that evening, as he frantically tried to jury-rig the rest of the new Dick around the gaping hole the non-appearance of the disc had left. And, to give my other half his due, he eventually succeeded, although we were both at a bit of a loss as to what to tell the contributor, mainly because his name was on the disc, The Fart couldn?t remember who had sent the bloody thing, and without the disc ? aw, you guess the rest! Then, yesterday, came The Fart?s second call. No, he hadn?t lost it after all ? the problem was, he?d stuffed the disc in such a safe place in his new bag, it was so safe, he hadn?t been able to find it for love nor money! Until now, that was. All that, interspersed with many apologies, and all with his missus Dot in the background not-so-softly calling her husband all the amnesiac idiots under the sun! Still, our hero did deliver the missing item today, complete with a conciliatory note explaining that so mistrustful was his other half of Tel finally completing his mission without mishap, she came along as well just to make sure the wretched thing arrived through our letter-box in one piece!

 - Glynis Wright

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