WUP 8.8

This article was originally published in WUP 8.8, March ’11. With the playoffs looming, Terry Brown’s mid-season acquisitions were reviewed…

What a difference twelve months makes. This time last year, despite attending games left, right, and Gateshead, my mind was elsewhere. The sun had started to show itself and thoughts of beach BBQs and beer gardens were muscling out mediocre football, as the Dons settled for a mid-table finish. This column is written in part to publicise my ever popular and award-winning blog of the same name (for that’s where the good stuff lies… and this wouldn’t be one of those lame marketing plugs if I didn’t now request you ‘Search ‘Anonymous Don’ on Facebook’…), so I decided to check my archive and find out what I thought of the miserable end to the 09/10 campaign – only to find one post, a single line effort apologizing for the lack of updates. I’d never claim to be the most hardcore of supporters, I do a fair few away games and I can be bothered to keep a blog going about my beloved Dons for over two years, but it probably says quite a lot about the standard of entertainment at the time that, to be honest, I just couldn’t be arsed with it.

Flash forward a year, and I’m starting to hope football never ends. We have been richly spoiled this season by the standard of football – ok, not quite good enough to sustain a title challenge, but the sort of improvement we couldn’t have envisaged at the start of the season. The obvious explanation would be our move into the brave new world of professional football, but starting with such a young squad we were always going to be found wanting when the injuries piled up. Fortunately, thanks to ESPN and ITV (and to a lesser extent and entirely unintentionally, a franchise outfit in Buckinghamshire…), we found a bit of cash to supply Terry Brown with a January war chest to pick up the cream of available talent, supplement our threadbare squad and bolster our promotion charge. But hang on… Wasn’t the unsettling introduction of various journeyman loanees one of the reasons we slumped so badly towards the end of 09/10?

Certainly more than one Dons fan pointed out a sense of deja vu between last seasons recruitment drive and this January window, even if the only similarity was the number of bodies passing through the Kingsmeadow entrance. January is always going to be a much harder time of year to bring a player in, everyone who is anywhere near half decent will be on a contract and staying put elsewhere. On top of this, moving to a new side mid-season must be an unsettling experience. Having said that, how have Browns class of 2011 reinforcements worked out? I decided to run the rule over how they have got on so far – but bear in mind like the Man of the Match award announced with ten minutes to go, we still have the most important part of the season remaining…

James Mulley (Hayes & Yeading) – Non-contract

When I was a kid I remember reading a cartoon strip, perhaps in the boxes of old Roy of the Rovers comics my Junior School kept to keep the kids entertained when it rained at lunchtime. Anyway, the story revolved around footballs version of a ‘gun for hire’, a player available on a match by match basis to any club who could afford his fee. Mulley is a little different in that he doesn’t seem to be swayed by money (well, no more than anyone else…), his prime motivation appears to be to play in the Football League. The decision to bring in Mulley was described by TB as a ‘no-brainer’, in that his non-contract status meant he could be discarded if not required, yet it very quickly became apparent that if Mulley were to leave the Dons it would likely be his own decision. Fans were soon fretting he might be snapped up, the club mentioned most were Crawley, which was more an insight into Dons fans paranoia following the Kedwell bids in the summer than any realistic concerns. This wasn’t surprising as he fitted in immediately, and seemed an automatic choice for the rest of the season once Sammy Moore’s kneecap decided to relocate half way up his thigh. A brain-dead red card picked up at Crawley and resulting three match ban coincided with the return to fitness and form of Minshull and Wellard respectively. Will have a big part to play over the remainder of the season, whether he’ll still be with us next season is anyones guess and will probably depend on which division we find ourselves in.

Kirk Hudson (Aldershot) – Loan

On the face of it the loan of Kirk Hudson must have seemed a complete gimme as Brown saw it. With first year professionals Jackson and Jolley having been exceptional, but overdue a run of poor form, we needed someone to fill in for them when required. And Hudson seemed to tick all the boxes. He has pace, isn’t afraid to shoot and can put in a decent cross when inclined. Plus, he’s done it before in this division for this manager. And yet… it hasn’t quite worked out for him so far. I get the impression if he’d joined us in the summer and got the chance to settle in he might have had a storming season, yet joining in mid-season probably hasn’t done him any favours. Perhaps it’s because, mentally, dropping down a division is a step backwards for him? Or perhaps this division has moved on even in the two years since he played in it last? Either way, at the time of writing Luke Moore, Ryan Jackson, a fit again Christian Jolley and new signing Kaid Mohamed are ahead of him in the pecking order to flank Kedwell, and it seems unlikely he’ll play a major part in the remainder of the season. Stranger things have happened, of course…

Jamie Stuart (Rushden) – Nominal Fee

Ed Harris and Fraser Franks hadn’t really done anything wrong covering for the perma-injured Johnson and Yakubu, but the signing of Stuart was a masterstroke. Stuart is a real pro, fitting in immediately, including a standout performance chaperoning a makeshift defence to a clean sheet against Luton. Of course, the irony now is that Johnson and Yakubu returned and consigned Stuart, somewhat unfairly, to a place on the bench. Yet we can be sure that if anything happens to either of them, we have a capable body standing by ready to fill in. In fact, it wouldn’t weaken us too much if it happened, and that’s what you need heading into huge playoff encounters.

Gareth Gwillim (Dagenham) – Loan

The loan signing of Gwillim probably says a lot about the state of football these days in that there are players operating in the two divisions below us who are professional in all but name, yet we find ourselves taking a League One fullback on loan and it turns out he spends most of his evenings maintaining the London Underground. I’m not sure whether Dagenham were aware of this when he turned out for them or if he was just moonlighting? Dons left-backs are going to suffer from Hussey-comparison for the forseeable future, and hoping Gwillim was going to compare going forward was always wishful thinking. What we have really needed, in fact have been crying out for since Hussey departed, was a solid, no-nonsense full-back whose priority is to get the defensive part of the position right, and we have that in Gwillim. A perfect example was his wonderful last-ditch block that prevented a certain goal in the first half at Cambridge – that we dominated the game for eighty minutes was in part down to a solid defensive performance, and we can ony hope Gwillim’s performances go from strength to strength moving into the playoffs.

Drewe Broughton (Lincoln) – Loan

I know he’s gone now, and the circumstances surrounding his departure will presumably be mentioned elsewhere in this esteemed publication, for now I just want to make the following point. Broughton was the perfect example of crap lower league target man (dire first touch, no positional sense, poor scoring record, no pace, etc), yet this sort of player seems to be de rigueur in League Two… perhaps Brown merely signed him six months too early? On the other hand, I have no idea who is responsible for scouting players in the north for us, but judging by the last couple of target men he’s sent our way you have to wonder whether he’s taking the piss…

Kaid Mohamed (Bath) – Permanent

It was nice to see Mo come in and make an impact on his debut. While Broughton appeared to be a square peg in a round hole, Mo is more our sort of player. Of all the new arrivals, Mo’s task must have been tougher than any. To walk into a squad challenging for promotion with little more than a month remaining, and be expected to turn it on immediately was a big ask of anyone, but it looks as though Terry has got this one right, touch wood. He could have added more goals in his first few games but we’ll forgive him for that, his bustling run into the box against Rushden and instinctive finish at Cambridge have shown us he has the potential to score a lot of goals for Wimbledon.

Overall?… There is a reason Steve Evans went out and bought three squads worth of talent was due to signing players not being an exact science. You can scout them as much as you want, you could have managed them in the past, it doesn’t matter… sometimes a move doesn’t work out for no other reason than it just doesn’t. Evans had the money to bring in as many players as he needed (the fact they were parachuted in from League One or the SPL probably helped too…) because he could afford to in order to pretty much guarantee success. Terry Brown didn’t have that luxury, we know he missed out on some of his top targets, so under the circumstances I think he’s done pretty well. Ok, Broughton was a throw of the dice that didn’t come up in his favour but we lost nothing taking that gamble, beyond a few hours lost debating the rights and wrongs of signing an ex-franchiser (and I still don’t think we’ll get over that until we sign someone who left them in acrimonious circumstances and goes on to be a success for us…).

We can look back on a top three league finish with pride, and the knowledge that a fairer promotion/relegation system (such as exists between L1/L2…) would have seen us involved in a scramble for automatic promotion. As it is, it’s the playoffs, a completely different type of challenge. We might be promoted, we might be beaten by the better side, we might perform poorly and look back on what might have been, but the one excuse we no longer have is a lack of depth in the squad – they take us into May carrying hopes and dreams so important to us that to be honest, I’m finding difficult to even visualise right now…

Further WUP articles can be found in the Features Index

WUP 8.7

This article was originally published in WUP 8.7, March ’11. With the Dons title chances disappearing over the hill fast, we turn our attention to the playoffs…

By the time you read this, there is a very good chance we will no longer be top of the league. Even if the team that have become not-so-affectionately known by Dons fans as the Gatwick Globetrotters (I love that nickname) managed to slip up during the week, they will surely take enough points from their remaining four hundred games in hand to overcome our slim advantage. Of course my presumption is you will be reading this before, after, or quite probably during the Kidderminster game so apologies if this issue was put back a couple of weeks – I wasn’t actually planning on writing anything this month, but I got a text message from everyone’s favourite Polish blogger telling me WUP were a few articles short of a full issue… I took this as meaning WUP were desperate for articles but it could equally be a comment on the WUP team themselves – Maliniok is a relatively recent addition to the fanbase so could it be it just took a little while before the penny dropped?…

Over the course of the last week, as I write, the opinion of the average Dons fan has gone from ‘Crawley have all those games in hand but stranger things have happened, you never know…’ after Altrincham, to ‘Oh well, playoffs it is…’ within the space of seven days. As everyone who has ever watched the Tour de France will testify, once a long time leader is caught and sucked back into the pack the danger is they could end up nowhere, and Wimbledon now desperately need a character-defining finish. And preferably we need second place. On current form a quick glance at the table suggests depending on our position the playoffs will pan out as follows;

2nd – Second leg at home to A.N. Other

3rd – Second leg at home to Wrexham

4th – Second leg away to Wrexham

5th – Second leg away to Luton

Which emphasises the importance of at very least a top three finish. If we are on our game I fancy us to turn over anyone at home so long as we haven’t given ourselves no chance with a heavy first leg defeat. Our away form hasn’t been as great and finishing outside the top three and having to build up a lead at home could be too much pressure on what is, despite recent additions, still a young squad with a good few years learning ahead of them. Yet if we do make it to Manchester, regardless of who we play, all bets are off, it’s a ninety minute cup tie, anything can happen, and other such clichés…

Last season must have come as a bit of a culture shock to some of our younger supporters. There wasn’t a dramatic and/or triumphant finish, for the first time since the ‘glory’ days of the mid-table Premier League finishes of the nineties. You get the impression that defeat in the playoff this time around is going to be a lot harder to take than Fisher or even Bromley were, the flip side of the coin is success will top anything that happened at Staines or Hampton. I’m reminded of the later every day now I actually live in Hampton, just a few minutes walk from the Beaverdome. My journey home from work every day mirrors our walk back to the station on that magnificent afternoon. If I close my eyes I can still see the throng of Dons flooding the streets… every time I pass St Johns convenience store I remember being caught behind someone trying to pay for a couple of bottles of champagne and a fistful of cigars by credit card, causing me to leave a two pound coin on the counter to pay for my celebratory can of lager and I’m half tempted to pop in to see if I could reclaim my change.

Sometimes I allow myself to imagine what could have been if that game hadn’t gone in our favour (and I’m sure we all remember how nerve-racking it actually was). We might have gone on to claim promotion anyway, but then we might not. I believe we would have gone up the next season anyway, but that would have put us a year behind where we are at the moment. You can take those kind of ‘what if…’ questions to the extreme – after all we could have found ourselves in the BSS as early as our third season had we won the CCL first time out, then made it up through the complicated playoff system that was in place in the Ryman League the following year (as Yeading eventually did). On one hand that could have been too much too soon, but on the other we could already be a Football League club had we not had to compete against a ridiculously cash rich short-term vanity project… plus ca change, as I’m sure the more pretentious of us are currently thinking…

Naturally I hope we don’t find ourselves spending the summer wondering what could have been, but if we don’t go up, how will history judge our season? Without a doubt, I would have taken a place in the playoffs back in August, the vast majority of us would. Yet recent results have left me feeling flat, genuinely disappointed. My reaction to the Wrexham defeat, of example, was similar to the sort of behaviour you would see from your average seven-year old at Christmas upon being presented a new bike when he wanted a Playstation… The dog that I don’t have was feeling pretty relieved his non-existence cause him to avoid a kicking that evening…

But we are still in it. Our fate will now be decided by three games in May, possibly even ninety minutes in Manchester. One can only speculate as to how many supporters will make the journey? 8,000? 10,000? How many neutral supporters will turn up, knowing our story and how we were so badly screwed over (and I don’t just mean FCUM…). It’s like Millwall, like Hampton before, and Staines before that. Another step forward for our football club. We can ask for no more than improvement, year on year, yet we still have a chance of taking the giant leap we all want. For the last few months this season, now unrealistic dreams of actually winning the title have died and the pressure is off, let’s see what our team are really capable of.

Further WUP articles can be found in the Features Index

WUP 8.6

This article was originally published in the Womble Underground Press fanzine 8.6, January ’11.

As some of you may recall, in a recent edition I wrote a long, elegant and mostly funny account of my plans to move to the States. As is normally the case when I make dramatic announcements, said plans go to shit within weeks and I end up with egg on my face. A combination of economic factors on both sides of the Atlantic means I will be around for a little longer than I expected… in fact emigration plans are now on hold indefinitely which means it might be 4-5 years until we try again. So you’ll all have to put up with both my ugly mug and inconsistent blogging for the foreseeable future. Sorry.

I’m trying to look at the benefits of the move breaking down. With holiday reset at work, and five weeks to fill, I know employment in the States would have been a huge culture shock with an average of ten days annual leave, and would significantly have cut down my opportunities to return to my homeland and watch the Dons. Oh, and maybe visit family and stuff while I’m here… There are other factors too. We might moan about our NHS for example, but you only realise how important it is when you don’t have it to fall back on anymore.

But for all the things wrong with the USA there are a million things they do right, and one of those things is the organisation of major sporting leagues. Whatever your opinion of the big four sports in North America, the administration is second to none. Of course, they have good reason to be so efficient. I’ve heard it said that the NFL is almost communist in its commitment to equality among its teams, but at the heart of it is the desire to accumulate that most capitalist of commodities, cold hard dollars… Here in England, clubs are given carte noir to invest how they see fit, regardless of the effect it might have on skewing the competition in the short-term.

But is there anything we can learn from American sports? Our top division is dominated by the same old clubs year in, year out. Certain clubs have broken into the Champions League moneypit simply by throwing vast amounts of cash into the playing budget – and anyone wondering how all this affects the Dons will probably see where this is going… It’s hard to imagine a club rising from non-league football to the top flight of English football in the manner the Dons once did – with financial prudence and good management. In that respect the Crawley model of throwing seemingly infinite amounts of cash at the problem is the quickest method of rising above your station. And I know they are supposedly paying all the bills up front which has resulted in them getting some positive press, that’s all well and good, but the point being missed is this funding needs to continue far longer, decades even, in order for there to be even a chance that the sustainability of the club catch up with the elevated position it finds itself in.

If Crawley find themselves in League One in a couple of years, and the money men decide to walk away, all that leaves is an uncompetitive club trying to exist on sub 3000 crowds. At that stage the board will spend its way into trouble in a desperate attempt to remain competitive, or take the hit with an inferior budget and weak playing staff, thus dropping down the divisions, perhaps even plummeting beyond their current level. As newly acquired supporters are normally the first to abandon ship, they’ll find themselves in a much worse situation than they started, as presumably a portion of the pre-existing fanbase will have been driven away, alienated by the whole experience. Or so we hope.

The only example of such spending, ignoring a few non-league sides who shone brightly before imploding (some of whom we encountered on our own journey…), is Chelsea. Ten years on, are they really sustainable yet?  While Abramovic is still paying the bills, Chelsea will remain competitive. In fact, you get the impression that the speculated situation they now find themselves in, that Abramovic is slowly losing interest, is their best possible outcome. Rich enough to continue signing away cheques in absence, Chelsea now have a period of warning rather than the money just drying up out of the blue. Some Chelsea fans I know are already looking forward to returning to 20,000 crowds and no ‘tourists’, although I get the impression there is a fair amount of self-defence behind such comments, as they return to their typical position in footballs history, a mid table top flight club, equally capable of getting relegated to winning anything…

And if Crawley are lucky, they’ll return intact to the fifth tier of English football unharmed. In the meantime however, ourselves, Luton, in fact all well run Conference clubs with ambitions to escape the division, have to compete in an environment where one side has a ridiculously unfair advantage, skewing the competition accordingly. Of course, you don’t need a rich benefactor to achieve such results, you could simply borrow a unsutainable amount of cash. Or why not just avoid paying your tax bill for a few years? Football authorities are catching up… Michel Platini might be unfairly demonized by certain UK tabloids for the perception that he is anti-English football… for all I know he might be, but the fact is he seems to be committed to levelling the playing field by introducing a salary cap based on turnover, at least as far as entry into European competition is concerned.

The Football League also has plans for a cap, in fact League 2 clubs are currently restricted to spending no more than 60% of turnover. While this was introduced as a protection measure, and may well reduce the number of clubs losing ten points through administration, it could have the effect of curbing Crawleys spending plans if they gain promotion. Yet I’m not sure I’m personally keen on an arbitrary cap on spending based on turnover either. While it might have the effect of preventing short-term vanity projects such as our Sussex rivals, surely in the long-term it will only ensure a return to the historical problem that larger clubs will always have an advantage… bigger crowds = higher gate receipts = larger turnover.

Naturally US sports have tailor-made solutions to these problems, which work because the leagues are either completely closed shops (such as the NFL) or sit atop a world game as by far the dominant market (i.e. basketball, hockey). Implementing, say, a luxury tax on English club would just lead to a migration of talent to clubs in nations or competitions not restricted in such ways. For an easier way to level the playing field, yet still reward clubs for higher attendances, we need only search our history. As late as the mid-eighties, gate receipts in the Football League were shared equally, less 4% which went into a pot for distribution to all the league. Perhaps returning to a system of gate sharing will go a long way towards levelling the playing fields. Maybe such a move will allow a well run club to progress through the pyramid once more, without the need for vast and unsustainable investment?

Since this article was written, the Football League agreed to extend its cap to 55% turnover for League 2 clubs, and 60% for League One clubs as of the 2011/12 season.

Further WUP articles can be found in the Features Index

WUP 8.3

This article was originally published in the October ’10 issue of WUP, as I pondered my (now abandoned) plans to relocate to New Hampshire, and the quality of media our far-flung fans rely on…

I’m writing this safely ensconced in my temporary home in Kingston, surrounded by black plastic sacks filled with a combination of clean clothes, dirty clothes, kitchen utensils, DVDs and god knows what else, all jumbled together in no particular order, with the pleasant task of finding a home for everything being put off until I finish writing this. It’s just a temporary move, because it looks very much as though come January I’ll find myself heading over to New Hampshire to join Mrs Anonymous Don, currently doing up our US residence and trying to find gainful employment. Naturally I’m looking forward to it, in every direction I look my life in the UK has become less and less appealing over the last few years – career heading sideways (then backwards, then sideways again…), lifelong friendships turning to dust (mainly thanks to the twin evils of women and kids)…

Yet there is one part of my life where everything is pretty frickin’ sweet at the moment… watching the Dons. Some of our football this season has been a joy to behold, almost ridiculously composed considering we barely have a player over the age of twenty-three (we already supply three England C regulars, if any more get called up they may as well play home games at Kingsmeadow…). So while my family, remaining friends and work colleagues first instinct when I told them my plans to move across the Atlantic were along the lines of ‘Good luck, we’ll miss you but it’s going to be an adventure, you go for it!’, the reaction of those who share my love of Wimbledon has been an almost identical – ‘What do you want to move there for?!’.

I’m kind of understanding where they are coming from – the timing isn’t great. At the moment nothing is set in concrete, so mid-January could turn into late-January, which in turn could become February – but I know the missus patience won’t stretch to the playoff final in May. I could face the horrific scenario of the Dons getting promoted to the League and not being there to celebrate, in fact being thousands of miles away. And much as I love my friends and family over the ocean, it won’t be the same. Still, I’m missing my wife more than I thought I would, for a thousand reasons, the overriding one at the moment is that for the time being I have to WASH MY OWN FUCKING PANTS…

I’m not even sure what I’m going to do with myself when I’m over there. I presume I’ll somehow integrate myself into the New England Revolution fan base. Although their supporters group is known as the Midnight Riders, which kind of sounds like a gang of stereotype gay bikers – I’m fairly sure they featured prominently in the Police Academy movies… presumably they meet at the Blue Oyster? I could change the name of the blog to The Anonymous Revs, maybe contribute if they have a similar publication to WUP? Although as my columns are largely self-indulgent it will presumably resolve around regular misunderstandings caused by the mid-Atlantic definition change of words such as ‘fanny’ (embarrassed apologies… police were called… had to sign a register… banned from all branches of Dunkin Donuts… that kind of thing).

My attachment to AFC Wimbledon is becoming more emotional because of the move. I found myself entering the Minithon in a desperate attempt to Do My Bit. I always imagined that in later years I’ll do my stint as a volunteer, now I can’t be certain I’ll ever get that opportunity. So while you roll out of bed tomorrow morning, I’ll be dodging dog poo over three laps of the park. Unless of course you read this on Sunday night when I’ve probably finished/collapsed. Or you found this in a box of your grandparents old stuff in 2067, if so can I just take the opportunity to say how fantastic it is the robots haven’t taken over yet? Back in the present day, I managed to raise a bit in sponsorship, but in reality I’m only doing it largely because I want to be a part of a Dons fundraising event like this before I leave. Although perhaps next year I’ll be running in the sister event in Boston along with a handful of ex-pat FCUM fans…

I’m also hoping the run will kick-start my dream of getting fit(ter) before I emigrate. As those who know me can attest, I could probably do with losing a few pounds before I head to the land of IHOPs and 20 oz. steaks. If you don’t know me, imagine someone who, while by no means obese, obviously has no idea of the concept of ‘leftovers’ – and you’ll be half way there. If I just left without any attempt to shift some weight they’ll be making documentaries about how a crane had to be employed and a wall knocked through just to remove me from my house within six months of landing… I will of course be getting fit the manly way by maybe cutting a beer or two out of my daily diet (I think I’ll opt for ‘the last one of the day’), and perhaps some kind of exercise that involves punching things. I don’t want to come across as being a misogynist so I’ll just say you’ll never catch me failing like certain sections of society seem to – namely eating nought but grapes and celery for three months before cracking and being found sobbing hysterically at 2am on the kitchen floor surrounded by empty cartons of Ben and Jerry’s… well, I won’t fail in that manner this time, at least…

I’m starting to realise just how big a deal it is giving up what I consider my given right to watch Dons games at the ground, in the flesh. Of course its a lot easier these days thanks to AFCWTV and WDON… we can relive the events of a game mere days later just by firing up our computers – hell, we can even watch Dons goals at work (provided the boss isn’t looking… or you work as a bus driver where I presume its frowned upon by Health and Safety jobsworths – such as your passengers). Even as early as the eighties there were individual match videos on sale at the Club Shop, but when I was a kid if you wanted to relive the action you pretty much had to wait for the end of season video. Which lead to disappointment on one occasion as a much-anticipated routing of Norwich was lost to technical difficulties…

Things improved slightly in the Premier League years thanks mainly to Match of the Day’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Dons coverage, and the realisation that regular videos could be a cash cow. I remember being disappointed that my VHS recorder failed to capture the Football Focus rerun of an early season Dean Holdsworth curler into the top corner against Ipswich (you know, ex-franchise Newport manager Dean Holdsworth…), only to find a pre-Christmas video round-up scratched that particular itch. Then a boozy teenage trip to Tenerife coincided with missing a couple of victories that lead to one of the most watched videos in my collection – Seven Deadly Wins. Yes, the production was poor even by todays non-League standards, but the action wasn’t, and on football videos at least that was all that really mattered.

The first few seasons of the AFC era saw two-part season reviews produced, but over the past few seasons we seem to have moved towards regular ‘Matchday Magazine’ productions – a kind of bi-monthly round-up. Yet how popular these are is open to speculation – why buy a DVD for a tenner when you can watch the highlights online, for free, whenever you want to? We were spoiled by the Dons Online website in the early years, but regular linking on the Official website to AFCWTV opens that kind of service up to even the most detached of Dons fans. Naturally it is going to be invaluable for me over the coming years – but what of the future of this type of service? Well, ironically, returning to the League could see things become slightly more problematic for far-flung Dons. Goals are available on the BBC website – but only if you are based in the UK. League clubs provide a video service on their website, but this normally requires a subscription. The day of free internet highlights could be over, sadly just as we (or more accurately, I) begin to realise what a valuable resource they are.

And yet… I could bypass the whole problem by simply not moving abroad start with. I’ve been told about this thing they have called ‘divorce’ which I think might just solve all my problems…

Further WUP articles can be found in the Features Index