AFC Wimbledon’s potted history: from Bottom Meadow up, and up, and up. The club play their most high-profile fixture since their very first tonight when they visit Millwall in the FA Cup first round.

More than 3,000 Wimbledon supporters will travel to the New Den. There were more than 2,000 on a roasting-hot day in August 2002, when the freshly formed club beat Sandhurst Town 2-1 in the Combined Counties League at a quaintly named venue that is little more than a pitch ringed by railings. Since then, Wimbledon have been promoted four times and are mid-table in the Blue Square Premier, eyeing the Football League in the next couple of years.

Not bad for a club formed in only a couple of weeks as a defiant response to an FA commission’s decision to allow the original Wimbledon to relocate 70 miles north to Milton Keynes. The switch from South London to Buckinghamshire finally happened in September 2003, six years after Sam Hammam, the owner during the “Crazy Gang” years, sold the club and, having spent 16 successive seasons in the top flight, the decline had begun.

Wimbledon became one of the first leading clubs to be bought by foreign owners who cared more for money than heritage.

Milton Keynes Dons, the “franchise” offspring of the arranged marriage between a club in search of a home and a city looking for a club, may be prospering in Coca-Cola League One but Wimbledon’s crowds average more than 3,500 at Kingsmeadow, the stadium they own, six miles from their former digs at Plough Lane.

Their ascent has been as remarkable as the original Wimbledon’s climb from the former fourth division to the first between 1983 and 1986, a rise to fame that culminated in victory over Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup Final.

It is not surprising that Wimbledon are taking the FA Cup very seriously. This is a young club with a long memory. “The club’s got great tradition and history and we’re trying now to make our own history as AFC Wimbledon,” Terry Brown, the manager, said. He joined in 2007 after a successful spell in charge at Aldershot Town.

“There have been various stepping stones: going through the leagues in seven years, buying our own ground in seven years, it’s been a monumental achievement by the fans and by the club — it is a fans’ club. They started this club up to enjoy themselves and bring back some of that spirit of the old Wimbledon and I’m sure the old Wimbledon boys would look to go to Millwall and win and we’ll be no different.

“What makes it unique is we still have 250 volunteers who do all the work for nothing. How many clubs have that?

“Every shareholder has to pay £25 a year and before I came, we had the opportunity of a very rich man coming in, pumping loads of money in and taking us up quicker, if that is possible, than we’d been going. And the fans categorically said, ‘No, this is our club, it’s not what we want.’ It’s not about how quick we get there, it’s about owning it when we get there.”

Kingsmeadow’s capacity is about 4,800 and Brown says that if his young side continue to progress, it may soon prove too small. Wimbledon’s players are part-time, but will be fully professional next season.

“We certainly have League potential,” he said. “There’s no reason why we couldn’t be a top-four or top-five League Two side, and if you are that then you have the capacity to go up another level into League One.”

Millwall are seventh in that division and unbeaten at home this season. “All that goes out of the window on the night,” Brown said. “It’s the FA Cup and Wimbledon has been built on a tradition of cup upsets. And our fans love being the underdogs.”

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