By Chris Slavin
Young AFC Wimbledon supporters enjoyed a summer holiday treat today as they watched players preparing for the new season and even quizzed manager Neal Ardley about tactics!
After watching the first-team put through their paces at the training ground, children played in small-sided games with the players, participated in penalty shoot-outs, and took part in a Q & A with the manager.
Around 200 people attended the event, which was staged just nine days before 2018/19 gets underway.
Take a look at our gallery above for a selection of pictures that summed up a fantastic day at our training ground in New Malden!
Neal Ardley said: "Today was all about everyone coming down and getting close to the players. The players put on coaching sessions for the kids and I did a Q & A afterwards. It was all a lot of fun and holding it on a beautiful day helped. It was good to see the players do a little bit of coaching because it's not as easy as the staff here make it look! It was good fun and everyone got to watch a first-team training session that was proper preparation for the games at the weekend."
Andrew May, AFC Wimbledon Foundation's School Football Development Manager, praised a good club effort with the Academy and first-team staff helping to organise the event.
"The Under-18s have helped with setting up the inflatable shoot-out and with selling raffle tickets and we must thank the first-team for being open to it all, so that the supporters could enjoy it," said Andrew. "With the move to a new ground coming, as a Foundation we are trying to grow what we do. We want to grow the younger generation to be Wimbledon supporters. We've got kids who are Arsenal and Chelsea fans here today, but hopefully with events like this they think 'Wimbledon is a great club and we can come along and meet the players'. It has been very pleasing."