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Pre-announcement about friendlies

Pre-Season Friendlies

All the outlandish rumours can be put to bed, as we will soon start making announcements about other pre-season friendlies to add to the game at AFC Wimbledon already scheduled for 4 August.

We thought supporters might like to know some background to how our programme of pre-season friendlies is being planned.

The following factors are considered when agreeing to games:

- Football considerations, i.e. will the match provide a good opportunity for the management team to assess our players?
- Charity requests for fundraising.
- Honouring obligations to teams that have given us specific help or have similar fan-based ownership.
- Attractiveness of the match for our fans.
- The willingness of the opponents to cover our expenses and share gate receipts
- Getting a mixture of local games alongside more distant travel, which may give an opportunity for teambuilding.
- Being invited! We have to play friendlies at away grounds; therefore we’re dependent on finding opponents who are prepared to host a game.

As we’ve already seen with the emergence of some home-grown youngsters, our first and reserve team squads are becoming more integrated. We may often play two friendly games a week and even on the same day or same weekend to ensure all squad members benefit from a complete programme of pre-season games. Some supporters might feel that we are playing too many friendlies, but Karl and TC need enough games to assess all players fully. We’re reluctant to schedule too many games behind closed doors, because we know people like to watch the team, so wherever possible friendly games will be open to supporters.



First Posted ~ 13:26 Fri 25 May 2007
News ID ~ 974
Last Updated ~ 01:52 Tue 16 Feb 2021