Supporters
Due to Plough Lane's modest capacity and Wimbledon's unprecedented rise from non-League football to the First Division in under ten years, the club had a much lower level of support than its top-flight rivals. During Wimbledon's first season in The Football League, Wimbledon's average attendance was only 3,135 – however, by the club's appearance in the top flight nine years later the average attendance had risen by 149% to 7,811. Attendances did not immediately change much following the move to Selhurst Park in 1991 – however, the larger capacity gradually started to be used. Average crowds peaked at 18,235 in 1998–99, and during the next season, the team's final year in the FA Premier League, home crowds averaged 17,157. With relegation, attendances dropped catastrophically to an average of only 7,897 during 2000–01. Wimbledon averaged 6,961 during the final season before the club's relocation to Milton Keynes was confirmed.
Following the sanctioning of the move, most of the team's support left to AFC Wimbledon, the new club founded by Wimbledon supporters in specific protest at the club's relocation. During the 2002–03 season, AFC Wimbledon's first and Wimbledon's last full season in south London, average crowds at the new club were actually higher than those at the original, though still lower than those taken at Wimbledon matches before the relocation's confirmation. Attendances during the 2003–04 season, Wimbledon's last, were higher than those at AFC Wimbledon: Wimbledon averaged 4,751 at the National Hockey Stadium, compared to AFC Wimbledon's 2,606.
The club had two main supporters groups – the Wimbledon F.C. Official Supporters Club and the more radical Wimbledon Independent Supporters Association founded in 1995. The WISA was instrumental in the formation of The Dons Trust in March 2002; this trust, created in part to attempt to prevent the move to Milton Keynes, helped the WISA to found AFC Wimbledon months after its own establishment. Both the WISA and The Dons Trust from this point became affiliated to AFC Wimbledon.
Read more about this topic: Wimbledon F.C.
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“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)