I am not saying that AFC Wimbledon performed dreadfully, but the evening peaked with a supporter resting two stuffed toy Wombles on an advertising hoarding for a photograph before the game. Burton Albion vs Wimbledon was gently billed as an early-season relegation six-pointer. Wimbledon left it with two millstones weighing them down.

Johnnie Jackson’s side took the lead and then collapsed. They conceded twice in the first half, one more 18 seconds after half-time and completed their ignominy 30 minutes later. Wimbledon had conceded seven times in 189 away minutes and it would be a long season if that pattern continues.

The travelling supporters – a few hundred hardy souls on a Tuesday night in Burton – sang out of loyalty, not joy.

For all Jackson’s visible post-match disappointment, in broader strokes it is hard to know what else to reasonably expect. The following Monday, Wimbledon won at Bromley to go 15th in League One.

They were promoted back to this level in 2025 and finished 19th last season. Their last seven finishes in the third tier: 15th, 18th, 20th, 20th, 19th, 23rd, 19th. They can do little more than this.

The reason for the natural ceiling? Structure. Following Exeter City’s relegation, Wimbledon are the highest-ranked majoritively fan-owned football club in England.

As we will see, that is both a source of deep pride, a and a significant limitation. And that is why I am in Burton watching Wimbledon get thumped on the road.

Wimbledon’s last full year of accounts mostly suggested that they are doing a grand job.

They increased turnover by 13 per cent to a record level for the club. They got promoted from League Two with the 14th highest budget in the division. After player sales, they had an annual loss of around £600,000, which was £1.6m below the average loss in that tier.

The problem: Wimbledon got promoted. If moving up a league provoking reason for fear is proof of a broken landscape, here is the best example.

In League One at the last count, the average annual loss was £8m. That is predominantly funded by owners who are prepared to stomach losses in order to fuel promotion dreams. Fan-owned clubs do not have that same luxury.

The only option is this: you don’t get involved. Many of the players you want go elsewhere and earn more money. Some of those who do sign wait to see if anything else comes first. A football club that is different to the rest cannot simply choose to opt out of the ecosystem in which it exists.

Which is why, in March this year, Wimbledon changed forever. The club uses a one-member, one-vote system. Its members voted (with 90 per cent-plus approval on each vote) to reduce the Dons Trust ownership floor from 75 per cent to 50.01 per cent. They also removed a rule dictating that the maximum shareholding that one private investor could possess was 15 per cent of the total.

As a (admittedly) romantic, idealist neutral, this is a great shame. The fan-owned model is to be cherished and protected. Given Wimbledon’s reason for existence, it is particularly symbolic. This is, as they chanted at Burton and wherever they go, the club that came from nowhere.

The reduction of fan ownership here, even with a maintained majority, has to cause a change even if it is subconscious. Private investment means patience decreases because a) the progress of the club is less the responsibility of the supporters, and b) the question is always “Can this individual not spend more?”

An element of Wimbledon’s original motive has been eroded, I think that is undeniable. But it is also unfair to present this as a rapacious move from supporters to seize more financial weight with glee.

“I think it’s definitely true that many fans would have voted for 50.01 per cent out of a feeling of necessity rather than ideal choice,” says Tim Hanson of the excellent Plough Lane By Numbers.

“I think most fans want to remain majority fan-owned – and within that most would probably prefer in an ideal world for the percentage to remain higher.

“But the reality is there’s a tension between what you’d ideally like to do off the field and what you can do on it. The average League One club loses over £8m per year. As a fan-owned club you can’t sustain those losses so something needs to give.”

That flips the question from “Why have Wimbledon supporters done this?” to “What else could they have done?”

Think about the alternative: you limit spending and end with a budget that is towards the bottom of League Two. You are relegated to that tier and increase the risk of dropping out of the league, which hammers your revenue potential. You need to cover the costs of the stadium in the National League and so the viability of the entire club becomes more fragile.

In that scenario, Wimbledon would still stand out as a club with 75 per cent fan ownership. They would still be special, a paradigm of what the ownership of our social institutions should be, perhaps even a model of the future. They would also be at far greater risk of economic collapse.

It is also important to reflect upon what Wimbledon actually is and is not. It is a football club that was born out of disgraceful mistreatment and a lack of governance from those in positions of responsibility, but it is not a museum.

The formation can continue to act as a lodestar (which it will at 50.01 per cent), but it would be doubly upsetting if it became the greatest handbrake on progress. For all the complicated history, this is a football club and desire to compete is a natural – and appropriate – state.

“Wimbledon had top half League One revenues last season, which is a brilliant achievement given the size of some clubs we’re competing with,” Hanson says.

“But we could only afford the 23rd biggest budget while losing talented young players and still making a financial loss. I suspect this season we’ll have the 24th biggest budget.

“It’s tough to accept clubs that you consider to be smaller and are far less successful in bringing in revenues being able to outspend us because they have an owner who is happy to lose millions of pounds a year. That is the reality.”

The great lament, then, is not Wimbledon changing its fabric to account for the loss-making of others, but that the climate itself coerces that compromise.

The fan-owned model is right if the environment itself is healthy. But if the environment is unsustainable, the fan-owned model itself actually loses out first. And that model is already harder to maintain practically.

My nagging doubt: compromise is typically more of a spectrum than a line in the sand. The salient question is not whether 75 per cent fan ownership hampered progress, but whether reducing that to 50.01 per cent will make a great enough difference to please those who voted for it. That depends upon interested private investors but also the direction of travel for the finances of EFL clubs as a whole.

It is hardly unreasonable to suggest that the model itself is at risk. That has to be the fear: that a majority sale to private investment (because those investors seek greater control and thus security) becomes a consideration in the future. Then you really do risk becoming just another club.

Perhaps I am being too defeatist. For Wimbledon to even be competing in the third tier, given where it came from and the challenges along the way, is an extraordinary success worth celebrating. Standing with those supporters in the past has been an honour – they were leaders of a movement and their magnificent stadium is a community asset and legacy mark of the indefatigability of a very dedicated group of supporters.

Or maybe I am being too misty-eyed. Football clubs shift their identity to match the requirements of their situation. Arguing against capitalist football culture is a pointless exercise.

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If the ultimate aim is to provide sanctuary as a hub and joy as a team, Wimbledon can remain committed to those two ideals. Anything else is asking too much. There is a thin line between idealism and delusion – I may have stepped across it.

It still all leaves me feeling a little glum. It is not Wimbledon’s fault – this is a multi-faceted issue that starts way above their heads and drips down. The game is the game is the game and shouting at clouds achieves only madness.

But don’t ask me to celebrate the dilution of supporter power at a time when fans have never been subject to greater exploitation. This is a defeat, a shame and a sad indictment of a malfunctioning financial culture.