AFC Wimbledon supporters attend club’s open training day

Young AFC Wimbledon supporters watched first-teamers preparing for the 2018/19 season and even enjoyed a pre-season kickabout with the players.

About 200 fans attended the club’s open training day at New Malden last week, ahead of Wimbledon’s league opener at Fleetwood on Saturday.

After watching the first-team put through their paces at the training ground, children played in small-sided games with the players, participated in penalty shoot-outs, and took part in a Q&A with manager Neal Ardley.

Andrew May, AFC Wimbledon Foundation’s School Football Development Manager, said: “With the move to a new ground coming, as a Foundation we are trying to grow what we do.

“We want to grow the younger generation to be Wimbledon supporters.

We had kids at the event who are Arsenal and Chelsea fans, but hopefully with events like this they think Wimbledon is a great club and we can come along and meet the players.

It was very pleasing.” Neal Ardley said: “It was all a lot of fun and holding it on a beautiful day helped.

It was good to see the players do a little bit of coaching because it’s not as easy as the staff here make it look.

“It was good fun and everyone got to watch a first-team training session that was proper preparation for the games at the weekend.”