Marked for Alistair Smith
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match5 Sep 2026
4 matches without a win for AFC Wimbledon
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around AFC Wimbledon are no longer polite ones.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ante Crnac in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market7 Sep 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. AFC Wimbledon have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ryan Johnson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match5 Sep 2026
Rotherham United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The captaincy has been taken off Nathan Bishop. AFC Wimbledon will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at AFC Wimbledon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Marcus Browne was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ryan Johnson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Charlie Lakin dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Match22 Aug 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Wycombe Wanderers defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Wimbledon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Alistair Smith
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Antwoine Hackford falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and AFC Wimbledon are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
AFC Wimbledon turn down the training-ground plan
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
Market17 Aug 2026
Ed Leach is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at AFC Wimbledon has been clear about where Ed Leach stands, which is more than many ever get.
Match15 Aug 2026
Point won or two lost for AFC Wimbledon?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Barnsley? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Market17 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.