Champions Elect – MK Dons 0-2 Imps

If 5,600 fans turning up all likely to be content had given us a great atmosphere in the first half, the same number suddenly believing a win was on the cards ramped it up even more. I’ve been to a lot of away games, some where much has been a stake but I’ve never known anything like that yesterday. That number is usually associated with big cup games, but for a league game in early April, it was utterly ridiculous.

The game didn’t surprise me in the second period either, but I spent as much time looking up at the clock as I did the pitch. It seemed to take an eternity for the minutes to count down and every half chance for them had me wondering if we were going to have that ‘draw that feels like a defeat’ syndrome on the way home.

That said, when we did come forward there was a slight feeling we could cap the afternoon off nicely. John Akinde was excellent once again, putting in a huge shift and almost giving us that two-goal lead on 51 minutes. That was six minutes into the second half and it felt like we’d been playing 60.

In September against anyone, a match is just the early building blocks of a full season, but this was different. We know what’s needed now, we know exactly how close we are. This fixture in particular has always been the one that stood out as key, it was always likely to be pivotal, but leading 1-0 as we were made it even worse. Did I feel as focused as at Turk Moor? Yes, I think so. The result here didn’t just matter as a standalone win, it mattered in context of a whole season. It wasn’t an ‘all comes down to this’ moment but it was a game that you knew was the most important we’ll play all season.

Courtesy Graham Burrell

If it was a game of poker, MK blinked first by bringing on big Chuks Aneke for David Wheeler. They had to chase the game and we know that when that happens, we’re at our best. When teams have to come at us, we deliver. Our ‘problem’, if you can have such a thing when you’re eleven points clear, has always been breaking down two banks of four. MK couldn’t settle and that played into our hands.

They did play their role well though, with both Agard and Aneke on the pitch they had much more threat going forward. Nothing truly looked like going in, but they were the better side for a good period. Aneke had given their attack a lift and if they were going to get back into the game, this was the phase to do it. Instead our excellent back four remained calm and when needed, Matt Gilks took command.

The little coming together in front of the dugout on 64 minutes finally gave the game some passion, rather than the tactical battle it had been. Big John picked up a yellow card, as did one of their lads, but the game finally had the needle to go with the size of the occasion. Fire up our players and they only become stronger.

It might be an unpopular decision, but I thought MK were the better side in the second half. We sat back, soaking up their pressure like a sponge, but not really offering much of our own. They came through the middle, from the left and from the right and couldn’t ever get through the brick wall we’ve built our successful season on. With ten minutes to go they seemed to run out of ideas and we got our spell.

A few corners here and a deflected effort there signalled the end of the encounter, surely? MK looked tired, finally realising they were going to concede the match. We stood firm, dead on our feet having given everything we had stopping them having anything clear-cut. The board came up signalling five minutes and after what seemed like a week, the clock showed 90 minutes. We were surely home and hosed.

Enter Chuks Aneke. Enter Matt Gilks. Cue the defining moments of our enter season.

A quality delivery into our area would usually have been gobbled up by Bozzy or Shacks, but this one time it wasn’t. This one time the ball found the head of Aneke and the big striker got a good header at goal. It wasn’t unlike one of Bury’s goals in our 3-3 draw and even from the other end of the field my heart sank as he rose. Surely, this was 1-1, the draw that would feel like a defeat.

Matt Gilks, positioned centrally, had little time to react. Good keepers do it instinctively though, they make the right shape and jump as an inbuilt reaction without thinking. That’s what the he did, parrying it not back to Aneke, but with such force it bounced off their lad for a goal kick. It was one of those saves every bit as good as a goal. I grabbed my phone to Tweet something along the lines of ‘If Matt Gilks calls round mine tonight, he can have whatever beer is in the fridge.”

I hadn’t typed the word fridge before all hell broke loose. I’d anticipated a slow, protracted goal kick and some game management from our boys. Instead, we got the second goal. It was fitting that Akinde, so often maligned as not being a poacher, provided a superb pass to Bruno Andrade. It was typical Akinde, big and bullish with energy left in the tank despite a gruelling ninety minutes. Bruno, as energetic as the first minute, did what we know he’s capable of. He picked it up, went this way and that before finishing with aplomb.

Game over.

Courtesy Graham Burrell

In those moments, the ones that you know will stay with you forever, I don’t go mad. I can’t. I feel that to truly enjoy the scenes, to absolutely get out of them what I need to make the memories everlasting, I watch. Sure, I hug my Dad tight, sure I celebrate a bit too, but I spend a few seconds turning on the spot and watching the people around me. Some, I know. Some are strangers to me. Yet that collective joy, that one moment where anything and everything else doesn’t matter, they feel spiritual to me. I’m getting goose bumps writing it now.

I had a tear in my eye, that’s the truth. I didn’t cry, that’ll be reserved for the next couple of weeks, but I had that special feeling in me. That moment, from Gilks’ save to Bruno’s finish, will be talked about just as much as Nathan at Ipswich or Terry Hawkridge against Macclesfield. It wasn’t just special, it was the very definition of ecstasy.


It wasn’t the moment we won the title, but it was the moment I knew the title was won.


Courtesy Graham Burrell

I’m going to produce another article about the away day from morning to night time, so for now this will be the end of the article. I’ve dealt with the game, an engrossing encounter that summed up the reasons we’re top of the table. I’ve said it before we’ve not been the best at going forward and at time we’ve not even been the best defensively, but we have been the best team this season. We succeed on work ethic, belief and attitude.

We will win the League Two title, our third trophy in as many seasons. We are on the cusp of a new era, one that beckons competitive third-tier football for the first time since I started watching. We are on the edge of a completely unknown adventure, one that will test us as fans and the club as a whole. it’s going to be new ground and I feel honoured and privileged that my club is having this journey. It’s what I used to dream about as a kid, it’s what I saw happen to other clubs, making me feel jealous.

Now, it’s happening to us. Now, the dreams come whilst we’re awake. This is our time and thanks to yesterday’s win, I can enjoy the final five matches of the season. Never too high?

Balls to that.

8 Comments

  1. Have to admit i relaxed after the draw at Mansfield realising it was a case of when not if we got promoted! Wanting the title as well, after yesterday i realised that is a case of when as well.Fantastic times to be an Imp at long ,long last, Enjoy Everyone Old and New fans for however long it lasts.
    Thankyou Danny and Nicky Cowley and of course Sir Clive and the board.

  2. And if you can get access to the iFollow replay Gary, about 2 mins before kick off and the camera lands on the Imps fans, it centres in on you – singing your heart out. Brilliant!

  3. It was a true team effort everyone contributed, MOM for me O’Hara, Bozzy or shacks. A true reflection of the game Gary a great day that will be remembered for many a year

  4. Fantastic occasion! I left it too late to get a ticket posted so sat with MK Dons supporters half-listening to Radio 3 Counties commentary. I thought they summed it up well. It was nip and tuck but we just had an edge somehow. Our organisation and togetherness was top notch, and we clearly aren’t just a long ball team. Effort was heroic but so controlled. They kept referring admiringly to the “black arts” (game management). Pett is on great form and his partnership with O’Hara so effective. Akinde was immense and McCartan had one of his best. I totally agree about the end. The Gilkes save to the Bruno goal via the Akinde pass. Wow! I heard the collective groan around me as people stood up to leave en masse. Magic day! Up the mighty Imps!

  5. Gary, you are right. This was just wonderful. MK just didn’t have a chance. With 6000 Imps fans in one mass, chanting throughout and 10,000 MK fans scattered around the rest of the ground like sheep in a 100 acre field – after the first 10 minutes the ‘Force’ was with us. I just relaxed and enjoyed it – first time this season – and 5 more games to soak in the pleasure of it all!

  6. Result never in doubt , we just looked like a complete unit from start to finish. Dark arts indeed 9 fouls by MK in the first 12 minutes. Everyone contributed all a minimum of 7 with Akinde, O’Hara , Pett and Bozzie the standouts for me.
    You could clearly see we had been working on shape and set up during the week and I for one were disappointed in the Dons thought they might have gone for it a bit more with their selections.
    On a stadium layout point being up in the gods ( due to a change in numbers in the party – additional tickets required ) why could they not have had all the Imps in the lower tier and curved them into the corners to create an even better atmosphere.
    Was the ground at half capacity? I don’t think so !
    Just one of those incredible away days that we are getting used to under the Cowleys.
    Footnote – more Imps travelling away yesterday than Mansfield had at home and they are second in the table. Just a great Journey at the moment with much more to come, absolutely brilliant to see the look on Danny’s face at the end as he surveyed the masses.

  7. Well written, Gary. Watching the match on iFollow here in the US, when I saw the size of Cissé and Aneke, it concerned me because that is the one aspect that no other squads seemed capable of serving up against the Imps this season. It isn’t that Shackell, Bostwick & the fellas can’t handle the opposing bulk, it was more a concern that they might have to shake a rust from the sheer time it had been since they tangled with a couple of mooses of that skill level. Frankly, I’m grateful MK didn’t trot them out to start the second half.

    But that’s enough about that: it was a brilliant win. The traveling contingent were absolutely electric on the telly, and you are right: they do the things that other teams seem to strain to do with such seemingly clinical ease. One thing you didn’t mention that was easier to see on the broadcast: Andrade was really in a tremendous amount of pain all day. The fact he was out there in added time to score the clincher showed what a tough son of a bitch that kid is.

    Let’s make everything official this coming Saturday so Danny can share his thoughts on what we already know to be fact.

Comments are closed.