Four days before the new season, and it looks like a certain outfit from Sussex is continuing to win friends. From the OS:
The club has rejected a bid from Crawley Town for captain and top Conference striker, Danny Kedwell.
Manager Terry Brown said “Danny is our skipper and our leading player. He is an integral part of the future of the team and he is not for sale. Danny is aware of the situation and he has made it clear that he is very happy here.”
Chief Executive Erik Samuelson said “quite often these bids get out in a distorted form and we thought our fans should hear it from us. To be clear, we are not a selling club – and certainly not to other clubs in this league.
“As I’ve said before, at the time we sign them we tell each player that we are looking to get into the Football League with them – we also say won’t stand in their way if a good offer comes in for them. We also explain that ‘a good offer’ does not mean a club in our league or, indeed, from most of the clubs in the two leagues directly above us. So, he isn’t for sale.”
Hmm, unusual to have an approach dismissed in such a public manner. But then, one suspects we wouldn’t have done this if it was somebody like Luton or Grimsby approaching us. A little bird told me they were particularly obnoxious and provocative towards our directors at their place last season, so I expect we released the above statement for that alone.
DK himself has laughed off the approach. From the SLP:
DANNY Kedwell has re-affirmed his dedication to AFC Wimbledon after Crawley Town failed with two bids for the star hitman.
The big-spending Broadfield Stadium had an offer rejected by the Dons this morning and came back with an increased bid, which was also dismissed.
And Kedwell says he has no plans to leave the South Londoners.
“I love the club and I’m happy here,” he told the South London Press. “I’m here to get AFC Wimbledon into the Football League – not anybody else in this division.
“Crawley are trying to buy everyone and I’m flattered but I’m captain of this club and hopefully next season we’ll be in the Football League instead of them.”
Ouch.
To be honest, I think Crawley may find this happening more and more. Nobody likes them, that’s obvious. But more damagingly, nobody respects them either.
Whether you like the team/club/fans or not, you respect Luton and Grimsby and Mansfield and York. You also respect people like Alty and Barrow because they do pretty well with far less resources than we have. If you’re feeling benevolent, you probably have a little bit respect for the Axewounds (remember them?), simply for being the size of RPV and yet still in the BSS.
Crawley? Just another Withdean 2000 or AFC Coldseal or Fi$her, only with a bigger lottery win. They’ll be gone or seriously depleted within five years, just like Boston United. Seen it before, will see it again. They may want Keds because he’s a good player – which he is – but also because to unsettle us at such a critical point in the pre-season. You watch them make a public bid for somebody like Richard Brodie soon.
Players seem to have a sixth sense about this, which is I expect why DK has gone on record and said the above. Why else would anyone want to play under Steve Evans if it wasn’t for the money? It’s the respect thing again – let’s face it, if he wasn’t in football Evans would be a nightclub owner in Glesga known for murder/drugs. And if Crawley financial bods released their books showing nothing untowards, everyone would think that they’d ripped out a few pages…
Remember the video clip of Ben Judge at the End Of Season Dinner in 2009?
What this does mean is that things just got a little bit more interesting. Already, you sense that we want to go down to Sussex this evening just to put them in their place (and it is a lower place than us – I used to cover games at Crawley and I certainly wouldn’t put their future above ours). OK, Crawley want people talking about them, and I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes on them. But I would also spend half an hour on a man who fucks a 9 year old in the middle of Morden High Street. Making people sit up and take notice only works if you’re not farting in their face first.
It also demonstrates the iron will that AFCW has. I saw DK last night at the Walton Casuals game, and he looked like a pig in the smelly brown stuff. He is the top dog, player wise, and he knows full well what happened to him at Grays (another club who splashed the cash without having the pedigree to do so).
I mentioned a little while ago about how much of a team we looked, namely that we seemed to get on well together. There does seem a bit of a positive vibe around the squad, which even a loss at Southport wouldn’t dent. And with that vibe comes a bit of confidence and a dash of brashness. Our statement on the OS becomes more ballsy the more I read it. If the idea was to unsettle us, it hasn’t quite worked. In fact, one feels the opposite.
Will we win the league? Probably not. Will we get in the playoffs? Maybe. Are we a selling club? Every player has his price, ours included. But if we do achieve something tangible this season, at least it will genuinely mean something.
But then, that’s what happens when you have a bit of class.
EDIT: Forgot to put this in – the SW19 Twitter feed is now working again. Also, I’m considering switching from WordPress to something like Serendipity – anyone who has had experience of this, will be interested in your thoughts…