This isn’t ever going to be a blog about football but something happened in the world of sport this weekend that made my heart sing. AFC Wimbledon were promoted to the football league and in doing so, set an example of how community values can triumph in the face of big business.

9 years ago, Wimbledon Football Club were given permission by the English FA to relocate to Milton Keynes. This kind of move was unprecedented in English football and motivated purely by money - the club’s owner Sam Hammam who had bought the old Plough Lane ground for a mere £50,000 profited personally to the tune of £8 million when he sold it it to supermarket chain, Safeway’s. None of the money went into building a new ground in Wimbledon because Sam put it in his back pocket and ran off to buy another club in Cardiff.

There was also big money motivating the move from the Milton Keynes side. Rather than cultivate its own team from grass roots, Milton Keynes council saw an opportunity to buy one ready-made. A multi-million pound consortium representing the town as well as Ikea and ASDA-Walmart proposed a new retail park complete with football stadium. They had the money. All they needed was a team.

And so the deal was done. In August 2001, despite fierce objection from the people of Wimbledon, their club was sold from under them to new owners 50 miles away on the other side of London - the first big business led football franchise was created and renamed MK Dons.

So what did the disenfranchised football fans of Wimbledon do? Well they didn’t start commuting 100 miles every Saturday to watch ‘their’ team, that’s for sure. Instead they founded a new community owned football club, AFC Wimbledon.

As Milton Keynes would have known, had they ever tried to grow their own team, you have to start a new club from the bottom - the very bottom - so AFC Wimbledon began with try-outs on the local Common to recruit local players, a ground shared with local neighbours and a position at the foot of the Combined Counties League. But eight seasons later they have been promoted five times, most recently, last week when a win over Luton saw them restored to the Football League.

This is a wonderful riches to rags to riches again story of a community that wouldn’t be beaten. During their re-building process, AFC Wimbledon have been watched by average crowds of nearly 5,000 supporters. The community has engaged in continuous fund raining that culminated in them finally buying their very own ground again in 2006. The Wimbledon community, by acting together, have demonstrated that football, at its best, can still be an expression of community and not simply a money making exercise controlled by Russian oligarchs and Saudi sheiks.

Now they need only one more promotion and a corresponding bad season for Milton Keynes to get the match they’ve been dreaming about since 2001 - the two Wimbledons facing each other is a real possibility for 2012. And no prizes for guessing whose side I’ll be on.