DOWNES WAS A WALLY BUT DIDN’T DESERVE THE AXE

AFC Wimbledon like to be known for their craziness. They still milk the Crazy Gang era for branding and marketing purposes, as is their right. it was the players, however, not the club, who created the Crazy Gang and one player more than most: Wally downes. He was sacked as Wimbledon manager on Sunday, having first been suspended for betting on football. There were eight wagers considered in total, amounting to £600.71 and placed over a period of six years. included in this was a sixbet accumulator that included two football matches, and two four-bet accumulators that included two and one. There is a double on mlS games and a £1.95 treble on women’s football matches in Paraguay, mexico and the United States, placed by downes’ partner as a response to a sequence of small losses on horse racing. it was a joke. ‘See if you can do better.’ betting on football is illegal, it was a huge mistake, and regretted. Some of the accumulators included QPR, where downes (below) was coaching at the time — but only to win. That the consequence is the loss of his job, then, seems utterly disproportionate. much like the FA punishment — £3,000, five times the value of the stake, plus a 28-day ban. it is hard to imagine they didn’t know it would lead to the sack, too. Still, that’s the great strength of the FA. They’ve always got a hammer ready in case any nuts need cracking. At first it looked as if downes would be dismissed for misconduct but now Wimbledon have won games under caretaker Glyn Hodges in his absence, their statement got nearer the truth. ‘The boards believe that a change of first-team manager is the best option to help the club maintain its recent upturn in performances,’ AFC Wimbledon said.

So it’s a football decision. no-one will know if that corner would have been turned anyway but Wimbledon simply ran out of patience and wanted a change. downes kept Wimbledon up by three goals last season and his reward was to have his budget cut by £1million. A relegation battle can hardly have come as a great surprise, but managers are always easier scapegoats than the real decision-makers. ‘Wally leaves with our sincerest best wishes for the future and his place in our club’s history, as both player and manager, assured,’ a rather corporate and not-at-all-crazy statement concluded. Wimbledon might continue to make money from the spirit of a bygone age but, deep down, they’re all the same these days.

IN WHAT must be an utterly mystifying development to all those at World Rugby bemoaning the freak weather that has befallen Japan and its Rugby World Cup in October, guess what is heading our way and in time for the weekend, too? That’s the problem with attributing a man-made calendar to a natural phenomenon. Typhoons don’t measure their existence in months. They just turn up when they want, like relatives at Christmas.