Summit Spotlight : New Season, New Stadium and New Opportunities – The ‘Wombles of Wimbledon’ journey home to a brand-new Plough Lane stadium

AFC Wimbledon's return home to a new stadium offers great scope for local businesses including innovative SW19 based Sign and Print Company. We speak to Ivor Heller, Commercial Director of AFC Wimbledon and Ray Baxter, Commercial Director from Insite Graphics.

Even people with little interest in football will probably have heard of the trials and tribulations of AFC Wimbledon and the history of the famous club.  

In 2002 a FA commission shocked football fans everywhere by allowing the old Wimbledon FC to be franchised and to relocate to a Buckinghamshire new town 60 miles away. Determined not to let a proud 104-year history die, Dons supporters organised themselves to create a new team to represent their town and their history.

trials were held to find players on Wimbledon Common and within just six weeks of the commission’s decision, AFC Wimbledon - a club the commission had declared would be “not in the wider interests of football” - was born.

AFC Wimbledon have begun their 19th season as a League 1 football club and on November 3rd hope to play Doncaster Rovers in their new stadium. A meteoric rise up the leagues in the noughties brought unprecedented success. From playing against Walton Casuals in the Combined Counties to teams like Sunderland and Ipswich Town in League 1 – Wimbledon will be finally be returning home to Plough Lane.

So, tell us about the facilities at the stadium and how you will begin to show these to the world?

Ivor : Well, a brand new stadium has been built in less than 6 months with amazing facilities offering Conference and meeting rooms for hire. Opportunities for 7 days a week use, both on and off the pitch. We expect to hire out to conference organisers, to decorate the stadium with some amazing graphics and murals, but nothing is ever easy with Wimbledon, as we decide to build a new stadium in the middle of a global pandemic. But opening day is just around the corner, so fingers crossed.

Ray Baxter - Insite Graphics

Ray : Yes as a local print and sign business that is pleased to be AFC Wimbledon’s print partner based 300 yds from the ground, we have been brought into help Ivor to decorate the stadium,  We specialise in these kind of jobs, decorating events and conference space, whether it be the Grosvenor Ballroom, Munich Messe or Wimbledon’s stadium. We are able to offer signage on board and fabric, lightboxes, display signage, pop up displays, feature walling, media back-drops whatever fits the situation.

Ivor : We have also opened new shop has opened in Centre Court shopping centre and it has been decorated with ‘Yellow and Blue’. And Insite have covered the walls with fantastic graphics. It all helps to create a buzz around the town. We are really pleased to be back in the community, and this connection with the community is so important at this time.

Ray: Yes, we are really pleased to have helped decorate the shop, as well as other local businesses that are all trying to get back open after the Covid Crisis.

Loads of opportunities for graphics

Being a small to medium sized company we have been able to adapt to the current environment quickly. With our Zund 3m cutter and the Mtex we have ability to do floor graphics or sustainable wall coverings, responding to the situation.

Ivor: One of the other important things we are dovetailing into the launch of the new stadium is the development of the AFC Business club which Insite Graphics and a number of other businesses are part of.

The stadium is near completion.

We wanted to encourage local businesses to keep talking and so we have set the club up to keep people connected – whether through a curry night, a breakfast meeting, informal drinks whatever, it helps to keep business connecting with each other.

We believe the club should be at the centre of the business community and bringing people together helps them to strengthen their relationships and develop new ones.

Ray: As a business based in London, we find that we have a mixture of 50% local and 50% international business. For many they like to feel assured that we can deliver quickly and on time. And that we can respond to changing requirements. We can turn jobs around quickly and have them out of the door.  We pride ourselves on being in tune with our customer’s needs, and being able to go that extra mile, in fact it’s a clear USP for us. So, having a solid relationship and a good understanding of your customer is important both near to home and also on an International level. And this continues to be important in more challenging times.

Just as we start to wrap up the interview Ivor turns to Ray and says ‘before we go Ray, I want to discuss with getting printed graphics of each fan for the seats, similar to the ones in Germany’. The first few games maybe limited on fans attending, so we want to have graphics in the seats, to fill the stadium!

AFC Wimbledon want Fan graphics for the first few games…

Just another opportunity for the Sign and Graphic industry.

The session will be broadcast on Wednesday 14th October 11.45 am - so register here : https://virtualsummit.futureprint.tech/talks/afc-wimbledons-return-home-to-plough-lane-with-insite/

Stay connected and work with you community

And with a good start to the season, we hope for a great day when they play at the new stadium for the first time - good luck !