Twenty years after Wimbledon beat Liverpool in the FA Cup Final, one of the two teams who rose from their ashes – having first carted them 70 miles up the M1 - was back at Wembley in the final of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

Again, their goalkeeper saved a penalty, just as Dave Beasant had done in 1988, but this time they were the team in red with the reputation as a footballing side and they lived up to it. Even though many challenge the right of Milton Keynes Dons to exist at all, no one could complain at the justice of their victory yesterday.

Like the Crazy Gang of yore, the team from the town of the concrete cows also get up people’s noses, but for different reasons. One of them, perhaps, is the ceaseless crusading of Pete Winkelman, the Dons chairman, who was at his most buoyant after yesterday’s victory. “You’ll have to excuse me being a little over the top today,” he said. “It is a thrill. Everyone tells you what coming to Wembley is like, but to win something at the end of it is what dreams are made of.”

One of Winkelman’s other dreams is to see Milton Keynes hosting Coca-Cola Championship football and the potential to make it come true was hinted at when the club brought an estimated 33,000 of the 56,618 that, for a match between League Two clubs, made up the second-highest crowd of the weekend in Britain.

“We really do have to be promoted – that’s the burden of expectation that you can see with the number of people who came from Milton Keynes today,” Winkelman said. “I want to pay great tribute to our manager, Paul Ince. He’s introduced a football culture and when you’re trying to get an audience, attractive football does help.”

A Sunday newspaper suggested that Ince, a former Manchester United captain, could return to Old Trafford as assistant – and eventual successor – to Sir Alex Ferguson if Carlos Queiroz leaves at the end of this season. “When you’re as good as Paul, it’s not a surprise that people will come looking and there have already been a number this season,” Winkelman said. “I know it will take a particularly big job for Paul to want to go and we’re trying to make his job as enjoyable as it can be so that we can keep him longer than people expect.”

Ince admitted that some of the inquiries had been of sufficient interest to prompt discussions with Winkelman. “Days like this make it worthwhile that you didn’t go elsewhere,” Ince said. “At the moment we’ve got the momentum and you want to be part of it. Unless Manchester United came in for me – and I don’t think Sir Alex Ferguson is going to step down at this moment in time, is he?

“I am delighted to see the lads in the dressing-room taking pictures of the trophy and they are memories that no one can take away from them. We have finally created some history for this club, which is what we get rammed down our throats every time we play away from home, and this is the start of putting this club on the map.”

The match turned on two penalty awards. First, Willy Guéret, the Milton Keynes goalkeeper, charged rashly out of his goal to bring down Paul Bolland after 19 minutes. However, the Frenchman, who had saved the decisive penalty in a shoot-out against Swansea City in the Southern Area final, dived to his left to push away Danny Boshell’s kick. “You can imagine what sort of lift that might have given us, as the save did them,” Alan Buckley, the Grimsby Town manager, said.

The second award, which was less clear-cut, came in the 74th minute after Phil Barnes, the Grimsby goalkeeper, had made a series of excellent saves. Phil Joslin, the referee, ignored an assistant’s flag before judging that Nick Hegarty had pushed Danny Swailes. Keith Andrews swept the ball home from the spot and Sean O’Hanlon added a second seven minutes later from Colin Cameron’s corner.

“It doesn’t get better than this,” Winkelman said. The growing band of MK Dons supporters will hope that it does. Others not so much.