Wesley’s Post Bag
Summer Edition.
In Football, the summer is traditionally a time of rest, reflection, and pretending you’re not at all interested in the up-coming World Cup.
For Wesley, it is a time when the post bag becomes feral.
Letters arrive. Emails. DMs. Notes passed via friends of friends who “don’t want to be public but have thoughts”. They all insist on the same thing.
This is important. You need to cover this. Why is nobody talking about this.
In season, fans write about what happened. In summer, fans write about what hasn’t happened, what might happen, and what a bloke from Tooting has heard from his cousin’s neighbour who works “in football ”.
Below is a selection of correspondence received by WombleWorld during the close season.
Dear Wesley,
I’ve supported this club for 40 years and I’ve never known it like this. Nobody listens anymore. There is a divide. Everything is decided behind closed doors. Fans are being shut out.
Regards,
Still Standing By The Kiosk
Wesley replies:
Thank you for writing in. Everything has always been decided behind closed doors. The only difference is that now you are also allowed to watch it happen on a glitchy YouTube stream.
Dear Wesley,
I have heard from a reliable source that the new home kit is going to be mainly blue with a bit of yellow.
I have emailed the club. No reply. I have submitted an URGENT Ask the DTB on Discord. No reply.
Why is no one answering me. I thought we were a fans’ club.
Concerned Member
We have read this letter several times, slowly, in case we were missing something.
The home kit of AFC Wimbledon has been mainly blue with a bit of yellow for the entirety of the club’s existence. The same was true of every Wimbledon side preceding it for the past fifty years.
You are not describing a rumour. You are describing the colours.
To the wider question.
A fans’ club means fans own the club. It does not mean fans are entitled to a personal reply within four working hours from a volunteer board about a rumour that turns out to be a description of the existing kit.
Nobody is ignoring you. Nobody has noticed you. There is a difference, and we mean it affectionately.
If the new home kit launches and it is mainly blue with a bit of yellow, we will form a view at the appropriate time, which is at the point of the launch, alongside everybody else.
If it is mainly anything else, write back.
Dear WombleWorld,
I don’t always agree with you but I enjoy reading it. Is there a way to buy you a San Miguel or support you directly.
Cheers
Firstly, thank you. Secondly, we would not recommend buying anyone a San Miguel under any circumstances.
If you wish to support WombleWorld, WW+ exists. Minimal perks. Some exclusives. But the reality is just the quiet knowledge that you enabled this nonsense.
Think of it as buying us a drink we didn’t really want but will consume anyway.
Dear WombleWorld,
I’m not anti anything, but I do think the board need to explain themselves properly. A simple graphic would help. Possibly a flowchart. Or a video.
Anonymous
Wesley replies:
If the board produced a flowchart, it would immediately be accused of patronising the membership. If they produced a video, it would be paused at 0.37 seconds and analysed for hidden meaning.
There is no format that can save us now.
Dear Sir,
I voted against the thing because the thing was bad. But now the other thing has happened and I don’t like that either.
Yours,
A Concerned Member
This is the most honest letter we have received all year.
Dear Wesley,
Quick question. Do you have your season ticket on the app or do you use a physical card. Just curious what you find easier on matchdays.
Cheers
Ticket Office Tom
A fair question. A normal question. The sort of question that should have a simple answer.
I have it on the app.
And to be clear, before anyone writes in, the app works perfectly. It scans every time. I have never once been delayed at the turnstile. I can send tickets to friends without issue. Functionally, it does exactly what it is supposed to do.
I have no practical use for a screenshot whatsoever…..But that is not the point.
The point is that I cannot screenshot it.
I own the ticket. I paid for the ticket. It lives on my phone. And yet my phone, at the instruction of an app, has decided there are things I am not allowed to do with my own screen.
I understand fraud prevention. I understand anti-touting. I even understand why screenshots are blocked. All of that makes sense.
What I do not understand is why AFC Wimbledon, via a ticketing app, has any say in how my phone behaves at all.
At what point did my device start taking orders.
Today it is screenshots. Tomorrow, what. Are they reading my emails. Checking my photos. Monitoring my screen time. Flagging my tone on the WombleWorld WhatsApp Community (WWWAC).
I have found myself outside Plough Lane tilting my phone, adjusting brightness, briefly attempting to photograph my own screen like a Victorian trying to capture a ghost. Not because I need the image. But because I should be allowed to.
Physical never did this. They existed. They scanned. They looked nice in my wallet.
So yes. I use the app. It works absolutely as intended. I have no actual complaint of substance.
And yet.
I object.
Dear Wesley,
Are you doing the Wombles Walk 2026. Everyone should be doing it. It is for a good cause. It builds community.
Hope to see you there.
We are doing it. A column will follow.
The challenge, and we acknowledge this is entirely a problem of our own making, is how to participate in a public sponsored walk involving several hundred fellow supporters in broad daylight while remaining anonymous.
Options under review include a large hat, a slightly different large hat, and walking the route on a different day and writing about it as if we had been there.
Dear Wesley,
About that, why are you anonymous. If you really stand by what you write you should put your name to it. Also people are saying you might be DTB or at least close to them. Can you clarify.
Just Asking
WombleWorld is anonymous because it is funnier that way and because it allows us to write without needing to preface every article with our LinkedIn profile.
We are not the DTB. We are not close to the DTB. We are not secretly influencing anything other than our own blood pressure.
If Wesley ever decides to stand, you will know about it. We will work out the anonymity question then.
Hey WW,
The fans online are unbearable. Someone should say something.
Sent via DM
(Followed by six more DMs saying the same thing)
We have said something. Repeatedly. Loudly. It has not worked.
Dear Wesley,
No question. Just Come on you Dons.
No name given
COYD
That’s all for the summer edition of the post bag. Please continue writing in. Wesley has nothing else to do and the football does not start for some time.
WombleWorld