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I hope you dont mind filthy, ive sent one of my own as well. You'll have to excuse the personal side of it. Please be sensetive in critique as its quite personal and took a lot to write and share. but if anyone is interested its as follows:
"Hi Andrew I just want to take some time to voice some concerns I have about the club. Not looking for or expecting a reply, just want to give my side as a fan regarding my view of what mk dons meant to me and what mk dons currently represents. This will be a long read but i'd hope you'd at least listen even if you can't necessarily answer my concerns or have the time to put my concerns to rest immediately.
So I'll start with what MK Dons meant to me and there will be some personal truths to be revealed. When I was 19 I became very ill with an onset of mental health conditions that manifested into travel anxiety. I had just become a father and lost my job in a short space of time and the sudden onset of stress triggered a change in my health. I was a west ham fan but travel anxiety meant I could no longer go to football, it was also around the time the new chairmen came in and there was a lot of trepidation and unease. Fast forward two years and I was lost and missing football and my only option was to find a club within reach to go and watch and hope it gave me the buzz i'd missed. I set about planning extensively what clubs I would visit in the local area, when and how i'd get there. I spent a good period trawling through the different clubs websites. I read about players, who the managers were, looked at history and club kits and all those things that give you a connection and excitement. I'd then planned the clubs i'd visit and first up was mk dons. The first thing that struck me about mk dons was before matchday and it was the black kit, it was beautiful and I could see myself wearing it. It came to matchday though and that was when the rest was history. I suffer with travel anxiety to this day and the hard part was getting the bus from my town to bedford and then switch to mk but that's where the difficulties stopped. I arrived in milton keynes and was made to feel welcomed and at ease by bill's mini bus shuttle run to the stadium, that was the first sign. I then arrived at the stadium and had forgotten for that drive my anxieties and all it was was now awe, welcoming and excitement as I saw the stadium for the first time and left bills exceptional service. I still fondly remember him chatting away and the gesture of not charging my daughter the pound to use the service. That then was a sign that family and kids came first at mk. I was at the stadium and a little early we had a look around, unbeknownst to us it was family fun day and exactly what that entailed was a welcome surprise to us. Another sign that families and kids come first at mk. There was plenty to pass the time and we looked in the club shop, we had to get our black kits and enjoyed all the fun activities put on. We then went to watch the football and it was a brilliant match, plenty of goals but it was the brand of football that stood out to me. It truly felt like watching a premier league clone of passing football and forward thinking entertainment at a fraction of the expense and disconnect of following a big london club or northern club. The football really stood out to me and the more I went the more I realised it was not a one off and that was the mk way. The game finished and I put aside my nerves and plucked up the courage to take my daughter over to try and get an autograph. The first person we met was local lad daniel powell and he was a gentleman and despite us not winning but salvaging a draw with a last gasp equaliser he couldn't do enough for us as fans. Later I grew to learn that was exactly what mk was about, local lads playing for a local club with pride, passion and a brand of football that set us apart from the other clubs down here and led by a manager that insisted on these values. Win lose or draw that appreciation between fans and club members was always prevalent and acknowleded and insisted upon by players and karl.
Needless to say I never went to watch another team again, I fell in love with everything about the club that day and as time went on that love and connection was only strengthened. From petes youthful exuberance in local media pushing our ethos and spreading our message as a club to robbos long summer interviews driving home that ambition and passion for the club.
Fast forward to now and that connection seems a distant memory and fan unrest seems at an all time high. What was a unified supporter base, a club with the spirit of us against the world seems to now be one pulling in different directions and such heightened trepidation and lack of transparency.
Purely from a football stand point we seemed to have lost our identity and brand of football.
From a fan and plater relationship it feels like our longest serving player and most committed stalwart who knew the club better Than anyone has been frozen out. As a fan I feel frozen out. There doesnt seem to be that passion coming from the head of the club. The leader doesnt seem to drive up passion and plays down so much of things that are of importance to us fans. Yes players come and go but dean is more than a player and is the heartbeat of the club with pete being the brain of the club and to have played that down in the media saturday was imo distasteful.
So aside from losing our identity, aside from losing the brand of football that set us apart, aside from an instance by past coaches that the players show appreciation and warmth to the fans despite the score, despie all that there in the face of adversity or at anytime the club needed a lift was pete with his rally cries but even that doesnt seem to be coming at the right times now.
As a fan that fell in love with the club I emplore we get our brand of football back, we get our fan/player relationship back, we get a manager leading by example that gets the mk way and understands what it means to be a don and at the very least we get some transparency from the club and our fears put to rest by peteand I hope the answers to the following questions:
Whats going on with the training ground?
Some answers on deans position at club?
Whats happened to our brand of football and is there an ambition to play the mk way again?
Whats happened to mike doves position at the club?
Whats petes understanding of the situations, whats his ambitions, and of mine and many fans concerns what does the club hope to do about them?
The fans want to be in this together but where possible there has to be a transparency and honesty thats accessible for all fans.
If you got this far I thank you for taking the time to read what it means to be an mk dons fan to me, the welcoming family element, the passion, the mutual fan/staff/player respect and understanding, the identity and brand of football and the community spirit led by a manager that understood and pushed home those values and a chairman that drove up the community sprit with an unrivalled passion for the mk way and an honesty and transparency.
Thank you."
Last edited by Beardhidesboy64 on Tue Dec 05, 2017 8:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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