Kingsmeadow - History

History

The stadium has been the home of Kingstonian since 1989, when they built the entire complex on the site following the sale of their traditional Richmond Road ground. Kingstonian opened the ground with a friendly against Queens Park Rangers. Following relegation from the Conference National, Kingstonian went into financial administration and both club and ground were purchased by Rajesh Khosla and his son Anup. A large part of Kingstonian's support were alienated as they believed the Khoslas were business rather than football oriented.

After one season as tenants of the Khoslas, Wimbledon undertook to buy the leasehold to the ground. The club's owners, The Dons Trust, launched a share issue to finance the purchase, which was closed the following summer. The club subsequently arranged for a commercial loan to clear the remaining debt to the Khoslas. Upon taking over the ground, its name was changed to The Fans' Stadium.

Wimbledon kept Kingstonian on as tenants and charged them a lower rent than they themselves had been charged by the Khoslas, with both gate receipts and bar takings at Kingstonian games being retained solely by Kingstonian (which continued to be Khosla-owned until 2005). An annual friendly between the two clubs is also intended to defray the cost of the rent.

AFC Wimbledon have played at the stadium since they were founded in 2002, after the original Wimbledon club was given permission to relocate some 56 miles from South London to the town of Milton Keynes. They were in the Combined Counties League at this time, but in 2011 reached Football League Two.