Mad, Madder, Wimbledon: Alone Against All

Bojsi: A few years ago, an important client from Belgium came to me. I wanted to get him Wimbledon tickets, to impress him. You said, 'Leave it to me Boyce, I've got connections at Wimbledon.'

Del Boy: I got you two tickets.

Boyce: You did. They played 0:0 with Ipswich.

(Mućke, episode "He ain't heavy, he's my uncle")

They were not gifted with great talent. Skipping the middle and relying on long balls was the basis of their game. And the game was uncompromising - rough starts, elbowing, broken arcades, spitting... You could see all of that at Wimbledon matches, the popular "Crazy Party", in the late eighties and early nineties of the last century.

Since its foundation in 1889, Wimbledon has been contested at the amateur level. Until 1964, when the club was professionalized. Then, from 1978 to 1986, it jumped four ranks and entered the First Division (today's Premier League).

The name "Crazy Group" dates back to 1982. It was sponsored by Mirror journalist Tony Stenson.

The manager of the team that ensured promotion to the company of the best was Dave Bassett. The team did not shoot from individual quality, so the team had to manage in various ways in order to achieve the goal.

They were the laughing stock of the Island. They were criticized by coaches, journalists, football experts...

"The best way to watch Wimbledon is by fax," Gary Lineker once said.

Criticism strengthened the team spirit and unity among the players. The team seemed homogeneous. To become part of that team you had to go through all kinds of initiation. They would burn the clothes of newcomers or, when jogging in the park, strip them down to their bare skin and leave them to walk back to Plau Lein, a few hundred meters away.

"Locals, seeing that scene, would often say: 'Look at him, this one must be new,'" Vinnie Jones recalled.

Bassett's successor on the bench, Bobby Gould, said that new players came to his office with various complaints. On one occasion, Terry Filan came crying and complained that he couldn't take it anymore. That's when Guld came up with an idea - he knew that the player was fast, so he forced him to run for days in training. Filan was always faster than the others. That's how he won the trust of his teammates.

The team was brutal in those years. It was led by Willie Downes, a club legend. He spent nine seasons (1979-1988) at Wimbledon and played over 200 matches. After him came Vinnie Jones, Dennis Weiss, Laurie Sanchez, John Fachanu, Dave Besant. Lots of crazy heads in one place.

He was ahead of Fašana in brutality. He did not choose a way to hurt his opponent. He was well remembered by the Tottenham captain, Gary Mabat, who injured his neck and eyeball in a duel.

His actions also stood out off the field. The martial arts fan disowned his brother Justin when he publicly announced that he was gay. He also admitted that he had offered him money in exchange for his silence. When the younger Fašanu committed suicide in 1998, John regretted not supporting him.

He was followed closely by Vinnie Jones. The football bully, great provocateur and undisputed fighter did not choose a way to incapacitate his rival.

Rivals ran away from Jones like the devil from a cross. After a brutal start, Gary Stevens had to end his career. Paul Gascoigne still sweats a lot at the mention of the bone-breaker from Watford. Their duel from the late eighties is famous, when Jones grabbed the then young and talented Gascoigne by the crotch. It was long before the test of masculinity and the duel between Mirković and Jarni on Maksimir in 1999. In the photo, which recorded that moment, you can see Gascoigne screaming, and Jones concentrating all his strength in his hand, while grabbing Gaza by the genitals. Vinny was ruthless.

“He came up to me and said, 'My name is Vinnie Jones. I will tear your ear off with my teeth and spit it out on the grass. You are mine'. I felt my breath on my neck the whole time. He was like a dragon. I was never afraid of a challenge, but each of his starts was pure aggression against my body. The second time he addressed me with the following words: 'I'm going to the corner, but don't worry, I'll be back.' I will always remember the duels with him," Gascoigne recalled.

"The Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club"

The highlight of the Mad Company was winning the FA Cup in 1988. The opponent in the final was Liverpool. The Reds won the championship that year and the public expected them to complete the season by winning the double crown.

The night before the match, nervousness crept into the Wimbledon players. Then Gould came up with an idea - he let them leave the hotel and go to a nearby pub to relax. It was a wise decision by the manager.

"We were like cats on a hot tin roof. The thing was, we were all aware of how serious it all was. Now how are we going to go around smashing rooms in the hotel? We didn't know what to do with ourselves. Bobby noticed this and gave us some money to go to the pub, have a few drinks and calm down. It wasn't until we got down there that we realized how many fans we actually had," Vinnie Jones recalled.

Gould successfully implemented another idea. Before the grand final, his players did not have the opportunity to play at Wembley. He decided to bribe a stadium worker to let them smell the grass in the temple of English football. He was no different from the players either. Simply - who you are with, you are.

The public on the Island wanted Liverpool to win. It would be, like in fairy tales, the victory of good over evil, a story with a happy ending. But this time the fairy tale was written by the "bad" guys.

Before the match, the psychological games of Wimbledon football players began. First, the owner of the club, Don Sam Hammam, set all the clocks in the dressing room back a few minutes.

The Liverpool players were impatiently waiting for their rival, the officials were shouting, but the players were not worried. The beast in them awoke, they looked like wild animals.

"I saw the fear in the eyes of the Liverpool players. They knew what was going to happen," Jones recalled.

The match had just started, and Jones was once again in the foreground. Immediately, with a rough start, he welcomed Steve McMahon. The player took off, and it was later revealed that the start had been planned weeks in advance.

Lori Sanchez scored the winning goal in the first half, but goalkeeper Dave Besant became the hero. He saved John Aldridge's penalty in the 61st minute and became the first goalkeeper to save a penalty in the FA Cup final and the first goalkeeper to captain a team to the trophy.

"The Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club", exclaimed BBC commentator John Motson after the match. It was the swan song of a generation. Seventh place in the league was also won, which is a club record.

The dispersal of the team soon followed. Players went in search of new challenges. Wimbledon survived in the First Division, later in the Premier League. Until 2000, when he was relegated.

The following year, a request was made for the club to move to Milton Keynes, 70 kilometers northwest of London. The fans objected, but financial reasons prevailed.

Wimbledon Football Club officially went out of business in 2004. It became Milton Keynes Dons, collecting all the previous successes of the original Wimbledon.

The fans did not look favorably on those moves, so in 2002 they founded AFC Wimbledon, through which lives the spirit of the old days and the memory of the craziest team in English football.