Seb Got Wimbledon Roaring On Their Road To Redemption

Now imagine you save two penalty kicks to return your club to the Football League, nine years after it was packed up, shoved in the back of a lorry and transported 60-odd miles up the M1 to Milton Keynes. Imagine righting one of the game’s most hideous wrongs.

If Sunderland are worthy of a two-series story, they could really write a feature-length Netflix film about Seb Brown and his friends.

AFC Wimbledon’s road to redemption wasn’t quite paved with goals when they played Luton Town in a drab 2011 National League Promotion Final, but proof was at least provided that sport still retains its soul.

The goalkeeper hadn’t just been in floods of tears when the original Wimbledon were relegated from the Premier League 11 years earlier down at the Dell. He’d been on the frontline a few years later - protesting with his family and friends against his club’s imminent relocation.

They stood by his side ever since as he lived out his dream at one of only a few places this type of thing can happen.

So a week before the Promotion Final at the City of Manchester Stadium, he popped to the bank, withdrew as much money as he could carry, returned to the club and bought 35 of them tickets to the big game.

“It was actually more than I earned that month!” said the 30-year-old, now bending his time between roles as a goalkeeper coach. “I did ask the club about the situation with comp tickets but for some reason they wouldn’t let me have 35.

“I’ve always been a Wimbledon fan. I remember the day the club were relegated from the Premier League down at Southampton. We were due to be staying with friends down in Andover. We lost, I cried, and we got in the car after and called them to say we weren’t coming.

“Bradford sent us down that day but last season the club completed the Great Escape at Valley Parade. My dad was there but I couldn’t go - I was sat in a car with Jordan, another fan, refreshing Twitter every second. When the result came through we went crazy!

“It’s about at this time every year I think back more to 2011 and what we achieved. It’s good to transport yourself back from time to time. Clearly it was a big thing for me. It took the club nine years to get back from the Combined Counties League.

“It’s an incredible story, and AFC Wimbledon is still fan-owned and in a few months going back to Plough Lane.

“I actually don’t remember much about the Luton game. It wasn’t a classic, but little parts of the whole experience keep coming back. The bowling alley before and certainly the night out after!

“We went out in Manchester and a load of fans found us in some club. As the lights came up we were in the middle of the dancefloor screaming ‘we are going up’ all together. You don’t forget things like that.”

He certainly doesn’t need to write down any of his memories.

But a little piece of paper helped create them, penalty shoot-out saves from Alex Lawless and Jason Walker set their King Danny Kedwell the task of sending the club into League Two from 12 yards.

Study paid off for Seb - and it was all thanks to his sports science course at Roehampton.

“A part of my uni assignment was to look closely at Notational Analysis, and that is studying critical patterns and events in a performance that lead to a successful sporting outcome,” he said.

“In 2011 we didn’t have the technology we do today - especially the clubs at our level.

“I studied and studied their penalty takers for a long time. I had to rely on YouTube. I worked my way down though every squad player and made sure I knew where they like to put it, and where I should be going. Hours and hours it took.

“I took out the famous piece of paper that some fans speculate had nothing on it. It did! Even if it didn’t, how would you feel as a player lining up and wondering ‘am I on that bit of paper’?

“I won’t profess to be the first person to do something like that, but I think it really helped. We actually knew we were going to be in the play-offs about six weeks before. So Browny (Terry Brown) had us practicing penalty kicks every week in the build up.”

The keeper, just 21 when he helped his club complete part one of their journey, thinks the famous Wimbledon under-dog spirit of old was behind a club which certainly didn’t play the Crazy Gang’s grizzly way.

He added: “Crawley were the team with the money, Luton were the big fish in the division and we were the upstarts who a lot of people didn’t fancy.

“We were young with the odd bit of experience dotted around. The pressure wasn’t on us and when that’s the case you can be more relaxed. A wave of calm came over me, it came over us all.

“There’s very little I actually remember about the game but one thing I will never forget. I had the ball in my hands and the plan early on is to go long before then going out from the back.

“Sam Hatton was free, so I rolled it to him. Jamie Stuart, our centre-back, screamed at me! The barrage worked - I didn’t make the same mistake again!”

The Dons earned their place in the final in stunning fashion, defeating Fleetwood Town 8-1 on aggregate after a six-goal second leg deomiltion job.

The Hatters were nearly as good, thrashing Wrexham 3-0 away from home before making it safe with a 2-1 win at Kenilworth Road.