With the play-offs coming up this weekend, EFL sponsors Sky Bet talked to our former striker Bayo Akinfenwa about achieving promotion with The Dons back in 2016.
Of course, ‘The Beast’ spent two seasons at Wimbledon, culminating in that memorable League 2 play-off final win against Plymouth Argyle, in which he scored the penalty to seal a 2-0 victory.
Recalling his time here, Bayo said: “I loved it at AFC Wimbledon. I remember that I kept on getting quoted about AFC Wimbledon being a unique club, where they had come from, with all the promotions after starting again. It was everything about AFC Wimbledon: it’s fan-owned and there was that determination. I liked that side of the club. I was like ‘I’m not the typical striker, a typical player, I think this is a good match’. When I went in there it was special.
“In the promotion season ‘Ards’ pulled me on the Thursday before the final and said ‘listen B, we are not going to offer you another contract’. To be fair, I knew from March onwards that I wasn’t going to get another contract. I finished the season pretty well, but I knew from March that he wanted to go in a different way. I knew that going into the final and I remember the night before thinking ‘there is no better way to leave than to win’. It wasn’t ‘I’m not going to be here so I don’t care’, it was ‘if you are going to leave this place, you are leaving as a winner’. For me, there was no better way to part.”
The extensive interview with our former striker is available to watch in full below. Bayo talks about his time at AFC Wimbledon from around 12 minutes.