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2013-11-05 · John · watch on YouTube · Sports · announcement promotion

John retires his fired FIFA Swindon Town manager persona, explains English football's promotion and relegation and AFC Wimbledon's fan-founded rise, and announces that HankGames ad revenue from his FIFA 14 AFC Wimbledon videos will sponsor the real club with Nerdfighter-designed ads.

What is said

00:00:00 — John, fired as manager of the FIFA Swindon Town Swoodilypoopers, retires from semi-professional FIFA playing

  • ★ The description says the pitch-side ads are 16 feet long and 3 feet high, and tells ad designers to design accordingly. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ For the last couple of years John has managed a fictional FIFA team, the Swindon Town Swoodilypoopers, but got obsessed with recreating the past like Gatsby and was fired. (playful) — 00:00:01 · Swindon Town Swoodilypoopers
  • ★★ John announces his retirement from semi-professional FIFA playing: he will no longer partly support his family by playing video game soccer. (playful) — 00:00:18

00:00:28 — How promotion and relegation work in English football; falling out of League Two means leaving the Football League and FIFA

  • ★★ In English football, a Premier League team finishing in the bottom three is relegated to the league below, the Championship; every league promotes its top teams and relegates its bottom ones. — 00:00:31
  • ★★ A team relegated from the fourth tier, League Two, leaves the Football League and is no longer even in FIFA. — 00:00:52
  • ★★ John says relegation makes English football fun and also terrifying, because every team has a lot at stake every season. — 00:01:00

00:01:05 — Wimbledon FC's FA Cup, its 2002 move to Milton Keynes, fans founding AFC Wimbledon in the ninth tier, Danny Kedwell's 2011 promotion penalty, last year's escape

  • ★★ Wimbledon FC spent most of its history in the lower leagues, then had a run in the top flight and won the FA Cup in 1988. — 00:01:05
  • ★★ Unlike American sports, English football has no franchises, so rich owners cannot simply move a club the way the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, except occasionally. — 00:01:15 · Los Angeles
  • ★★★ In 2002 Wimbledon FC was moved to Milton Keynes, leaving thousands of fans without a club after a hundred years of history. — 00:01:26
  • ★ Wimbledon's stadium was torn down and its FA Cup sent to Milton Keynes, although the cup was later returned. — 00:01:36
  • ★★★ The fans responded by starting a club from scratch, AFC Wimbledon, which began in 2002 in the ninth tier of English football. — 00:01:41
  • ★★★ After an amazing run, nine years later in 2011, captain Danny Kedwell took one penalty kick to send Wimbledon into the Football League, and they became a League Two team you can play in FIFA. — 00:01:49
  • ★ Last season AFC Wimbledon almost got relegated, but won heroically in the last game. — 00:02:16

00:02:28 — Why AFC Wimbledon is extraordinary; John's FIFA 14 videos' ad revenue will sponsor the real club with ads designed by Nerdfighters

  • ★★ AFC Wimbledon is owned and run by its fans, with no big money behind it; its chairman is a retired accountant. — 00:02:32
  • ★★ AFC Wimbledon was the first club in England to show a 'Football Fans Against Homophobia' banner at a game. — 00:02:37
  • ★★★ John calls AFC Wimbledon a truly extraordinary club, the most awesome football club in the world, and says he wants to help it stay in the Football League. — 00:02:42 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ John will play as AFC Wimbledon in FIFA 14 but keep his vow not to be a professional FIFA player: all ad revenue from the videos will sponsor the real club. — 00:02:44 > «all ad revenue from the videos will go to sponsor the actual, real AFC Wimbledon team»
  • ★★★ The sponsorship will buy billboards in the stadium and ads in the match program, all designed by Nerdfighters. — 00:02:57 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ John hopes the sponsorship helps keep the club in the Football League so he can play them in FIFA 15, 16 and beyond, and maybe one day send them to the Premier League. (hedged) — 00:03:02 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John says that might be dreaming, but in 2002 AFC Wimbledon played away games in front of 80 fans, and it took dreaming to imagine them in FIFA. — 00:03:13

00:03:22 — Subscribe to HankGames, design ads together, sign-off

  • ★★★ John asks Nerdfighters who want to help to subscribe to HankGames and watch the videos, via his face or the link in the description. — 00:03:22 · HankGames, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John invites viewers to start designing ads together, with more information and videos of AFC Wimbledon's short but glorious history below. — 00:03:27

Humor (significant)

  • John describes the leadership of his fictional FIFA team. — 00:00:08 > «both named John Green, who are married to each other,»
  • Everything was going swimmingly for John's FIFA team, but then... — 00:00:13 > «then I got obsessed with recreating the past, like Gatsby, and I got fired.»
  • Announcing his retirement from semi-professional FIFA playing. — 00:00:22 > «I will no longer be supporting my family, in part, by playing video game soccer.»
  • The league below the Premier League is helpfully called the Championship. — 00:00:43 > «You know, because it doesn't feature any of the champions.»

Threads in this video

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