THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

I find it incredibly difficult to elicit sympathy for either the club or, more importantly, their odious support.

When sanctions on Abramovich were first muted, they thought singing his name was a laugh. They sung it again only last Sunday. The war had already began, his name was mentioned in The Commons in regards to why he actually wasn't being sanctioned, and some their knuckle-dragging, moronic supporters sang his name from the stands. The same support prevented a person of colour from boarding The Metro in Paris. The song they sang that day went along the lines of... "We're racist, and we know we are". They've benefited from the ill-gotten gains of an oligarch for twenty years. They were arguably the first super-club. They've seen their club win everything. They were happy enough being the beneficiaries of a £1.5bn loan, which has no prospect of being called in. I've seen their support descend into full blown conspiracy theorists in the space of a weekend. 'It's the BBC's fault'. 'The government want us gone'. 'Be careful what you wish for'. Full on tinfoil hat nonsense.

As for the club. When they played Newcastle at the weekend, a club backed by the public investment fund of a nation which executed 81 people only the day before, there were still banners hanging from the stands in support of Abramovic. Their quite simply childish request to play the forthcoming FA Cup game against Middlesbrough behind closed doors in the name of sporting integrity beggars belief. They're trying to portray themselves as the victim here. Irrespective of the actual victims of old Roman's pal. The Ukrainian people.

They're owned by an individual with extremely close links to The Kremlin. It's been alleged that the steel used to build the tanks currently pounding Kyiv was supplied by a company owned by Abramovich. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has publicly stated that he's “Involved in … undermining and threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine". He's far from the only owner however that may be viewed an unpalatable. But he is the one currently in the headlines.

So there it is. No sympathy from me. I know that my childhood club are slowly descending back into sectarian territory. I get that, and they'll be rightly punished if it continues, but it's a million miles away from being owned by someone like Abramovich. As for MK. Lewis Baker! Or our current first team 'keeper. Are we guilty by association! Or what about our bastard cousins. The sale of Kingsmeadow to, yep, Chelsea Women. How far down do you go?

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For those that like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.

I know I'm late to the party and that this point has already been pulled up on but I think it's worth pointing out that whilst the vast majority of our home game fan base do this regularly, it really isn't a normal thing.

There's someone that I sit with who was brought up on Wimbledon FC. Their dad took them I presume and he loved it too. When the split happened, the dad simply couldn't bring himself to go to either us or AFC and instead just chose to not bother with any of them. In his eyes his club was dead and nothing else would be able to fill that.

Even to bring it back to a personal point of view. I'm younger than most on this board I'd wager and I was 6 when the move was agreed, 7 during the first Wimbledon game so MK is mostly all I know. I groundhop as regularly as I can because I love football and I've been to games as varied as Manchester United v Wolves and Sutton United v Port Vale. I go to watch a football match and to tick off another ground in the list off but I don't actually care about the teams involved and every single time I'm groundhopping I feel like a tourist, not a football fan.

That being said, I would definitely stop going to football regularly if the worst case scenario happened to MK. Chelsea have been around for 118 years. That's a minimum of around 4 generations that could have been brought up on them. For the overwhelming majority of football fans simply going to watch another one and expecting to gain that same passion is just impossible.

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Cuboid of bum fluff

Fair enough. I guess we all see it differently. For me, the game itself is the bit I enjoy the most.

Chelsea fans love the RA. Probably the last English club I would expect to do that.