Dons Discord: An Obituary, Of Sorts
Notes on a closure
There comes a moment in every Dons Trust Board Member’s time in office when someone, usually after a particularly tiring evening engaging on the members’ forum, mutters the cursed words: “Should we just get rid of Discord?”
That moment has arrived. And this time, they meant it.
On 24 April, the Dons Trust announced that Dons Discord will close on 31 May 2026. The board has unanimously agreed. The volunteers will be thanked. The server will go dark.
WombleWorld, it must be said, agrees with the decision.
Having a Discord is not a right. It is a resource. And a resource that requires a two-man neighbourhood watch to moderate, generates fewer than 25 active users out of a 7,500-strong membership, and exposes the Trust to the Online Safety Act every time someone types the word “Skiverton” in capitals just in case it triggers a complaint.
WombleWorld has also, if we are honest, been otherwise occupied. There has been cognitive dissociation to manage. A relegation scrap to not think about. A weekend fixture to quietly dread. When you thought we were safe when taking your holiday in March but find yourself scouring the League two table in April, Discord is not where your head goes.
What the Decision Actually Says
The reasoning in the statement is sound. It reads like it has been reviewed, approved, re-reviewed, and emotionally processed by multiple working groups. The kind of statement written by someone who has been in rooms with people shouting at each other for two years and has finally been allowed to file the paperwork.
Three things stand out.
Fewer than 25 regularly active members. The kind of participation rate that a community litter pick on Wimbledon Common on a Tuesday in February gets.
The Online Safety Act. Under-18s excluded. Risk assessments drafted. Off-platform policies created. All to prevent a members’ forum from accidentally becoming the dark web of South West London.
Email works better. You simply have to be on email these days. The unglamorous infrastructure that actually reaches and engages a significant number of members. Discord, for all its channels, slickness and GIFs, never did.
The Consequences:
Agreeing with a decision is not the same as pretending it has no consequences. None of what follows is an argument for keeping Discord open.
Consequence one: There is always a forum
When the only official channel for DT conversation shuts down, the conversation does not stop. It simply migrates back to where it used to live. Somewhere older, smaller, and considerably less moderated. Where the same thirty or forty regulars of the last twenty-five years will resume their positions like curators returning to a reopened museum.
Consequence two: the Kiosk.
The statement notes that members have always been able to engage “in person at every game via the kiosk.” This is technically true.
It is also true that WombleWorld has been to the kiosk and counted more DTB members than Members. At one game, a Board member was overheard asking another Board member what he thought of the budget.
The kiosk is a nicely decorated storage container, not a communication strategy. That is not a criticism. It is a description.
Consequence three: the Youth.
The June and August minutes had notes about younger members starting to engage through Discord. That now stops.
The message to the under-30s is, please find us on Facebook like it’s 2008.
What Comes Next
The statement promises drop-in meetings every two months, at the stadium, around Wimbledon, and online. WombleWorld will attend. WombleWorld will report.
We encourage every member to do the same, on the reasonable expectation that every two months will rapidly become once a quarter during the season.
Closing Thoughts
The club has real issues. Major ones. Budget gaps. Bonds. Training ground risks. Governance reform. Share allocations. Financial sustainability. A relegation scrap that WombleWorld is trying very hard to think about only between the hours of 3pm and 5pm on a Saturday.
Closing Discord does not cause any of those problems. It does not fix any of them either.
That is the DTB’s call to make. They have made it. It was the right one. They have limited time and they need to use that time effectively.
Discord closes on 31 May. The season ends a few weeks before that. Whoever mapped those two dates onto a calendar either has a dark sense of humour or was not thinking about relegation when they put forward the motion.
WombleWorld
Wesley will observe a minute’s silence on 31 May, broken only by the sound of a notification from a WhatsApp group he did not ask to be added to.