AFC Wimbledon stay upbeat as relegation threatens to sour Football League dream In May 2000, Wimbledon went into their final Premier League fixture knowing a win at Southampton, or a defeat for Bradford City against Liverpool, would ensure their Premier League survival. They lost. Bradford won. It was, in many ways, the start of the decline. "I didn't play much of that season under Egil Olsen," he says. I came in late on, when the proverbial hit the fan. That was a team that had slowly been deteriorating. Terry Burton came in with three games to go and tried to turn it on its head, but it was too late. There was too much negativity, too many players not in any sort of form, mentally, physically. Here, I don't see that. I see a team more than capable of holding their own in this league. It was Ardley's good fortune that he had a lot more than three games to turn things around. He took over in September after a wretched start to the season and the sacking of Terry Brown. "A month into my tenure, I realised how much work needed to be done," he says. The fitness levels of the players were really poor, there was an injury list like you've never seen and we were relying on emergency loans. We needed to get through to January and stay in touch. Bottom at new year, Wimbledon have finally begun to show a little spirit, not least in coming back from 2-0 down to draw against champions Gillingham last Saturday. But financially, they have always been punching above their weight. In terms of wage spend, Wimbledon rank 21st in the division. While Fleetwood's surge into the Football League has been funded by the largesse of millionaire Andy Pilley, Wimbledon have no benefactor but their cast of thousands. "Eventually that catches up with you in terms of results," Samuelson says. The foundations of the club remain strong. Relegation would see a significant but not debilitating drop in revenue, and would not affect plans for a new stadium on the site of the old Wimbledon dog track, next to their former Plough Lane home. "Not until we get into this new stadium, a better ground with bigger crowds," says Samuelson, "will we really be a League Two club." But Wimbledon are the sort of club where success has never been measured from the balance sheet, or even entirely from the league table. Samuelson added: "One of our founders, Marc Jones, once said that one of the points of having a football club is that agony on Saturday mornings. Not knowing what the score's going to be. This is what it's all about: having a club to support. At the end of it, whatever happens, it's still our club.