"IT'S wrong" fumed Stan Ternent at Saturday's post-match press conference. "You know it and I know it."

As it happens he was talking about David May's sending off, yet he could just as easily have been referring to Wimbledon Football Club's shameful relocation to Milton Keynes.

For those who care about football, Saturday, September 27, 2003 will go down as one of the darkest days in the domestic game's history. It will be remembered as the day football's soul was sold, its past was betrayed and the fabric of its integrity was ripped to shreds.

There are a number of guilty parties in this sorry, shambolic tale of football franchising.

Step forward, Pete Winkelman, chairman of the Milton Keynes cosortium behind the movee. Prior to kick-off Winkelman and his ridiculous mullet haircut, took to the national hockey stadium pitch to address what passed for a crowd, telling them that this was the proudest moment of his life.

Somebody should ask him exactly where the pride lies in uprooting a football club from its community and erasing its history in one fell swoop.

It is instructive to remember that Winkelman's background is in the transitory, here today, gone tomorrow world of pop promotion, where the moment is everything and history counts for nothing.

And what are we to make of the people of Milton Keynes, the people whom Winkelman is literally banking on to make his vile scheme work?

Encouragingly, the signs are not good.

Milton Keynes City, formerly known as Bletchley Town, folded because of local apathy. And given Northampton and Luton's modest gates (both within 30 minutes drive of Milton Keynes), the only conclusion to be drawn is that football in this part of the world is about as welcome as a Genclerbirligi shirt in Blackburn town centre.

Only 5,639 could be bothered to turn up for Saturday's game -- ironically against Burnley a founder member of the Football League, steeped in history and tradition and an integral part of the town's community.

Once the novelty has worn off and the cold winter nights set in, it is to be hoped that Franchise FC will shrival and die faster than a salted slug.

Yet special contempt must be reserved for those who administer the national sport -- the Football League.

They are supposed to be the guardians of the game we love, the upholders and curators of the tradition, the roots and the proud old history and heritage of English football.

But instead of serving and protecting the game, they are now complicit in the murder of one of its own members. It will take much more than soap and water to wash the blood from their hands.