There are many who still bemoan was has happened at Wimbledon, and I must admit if Southampton packed up and moved to Basingstoke, I would be one of many who would be more than a little upset, but it was a long time ago now so we will let it lie. The MK Dons, stands for the club’s step townhome of Milton Keynes, and the don in Wimbledon. Alright, lads, I know that it’s obvious, but you never know, your mum might be reading this and although your girlfriends maybe football savvy, mums still have some catching up to do.
The badge is a business logo, and it looks like a business logo. (PIC 1) A business logo is copyrighted, and only a person holding the copyright can earn money from it. Whereas the majority of football badges started out as the city coat of arms, or emblems derived from those arms, and as such they cannot be copyrighted as they belong to the city. Commissioned by Chairman Pete Winkelman, it has a circle behind the initials MK for Milton Keynes, and the circle represents the beautiful game. The K is lying on its side under the M, making a stylised logo for the club. At the bottom of the K are the Roman numerals, MMIV, or 2004, the year of the club’s rebirth in Milton Keynes, and the only part of the badge that remains Roman. (Wimbledon’s badge has a Roman eagle. I’m sorry, I said I will let it lie and now I will) The club’s name in full runs down the length of the left side and the red dot is a promotional tool used as an identification symbol throughout Milton Keynes. You will find it on road signs and the like, as well as in local business. (PIC 2)
I would like to thank, Media and PR Manager Simon Heggie for his help and assistance with the badge, I mean logo. This is a fairly new club compared to Notts County, and it is the only badge they have sported so there is little I can add. You may be fooled into thinking this new town which was established in 1967, was named after the actor Milton Johns and economist John Maynard Keynes, but it’s not, the name Milton Keynes dates much further back than them. The town was built near the village of Milton Keynes, whose name dates back to the 13th Century. Its first mention in the Domesday or Doomsday Book was Mideltone, Anglo-Saxon for middle farmstead. By the 13th century this had become Mideltone Kaynes, after the village’s feudal masters, the de Cahaignes. In a feudal system, a peasant worker received a piece of land in return for serving a lord or king. So, the town is fairly new but the village and name are not. As far as local rivals go Milton Keynes is in the middle of Northampton to the north and Luton to the south. “The Dons” play at the 30,000 capacity MK Stadium. I know that’s a lot of room for an average attendance of about 10,000, but they like to stretch out a bit, much like the K in the logo. To find out more on the MK Dons then lie back and think of www.mkdons.com
