Milton Keynes is an 84 mile trip from Nailsworth that takes just over a couple of hours by road (it’s about 50 miles north-west of London).

By Supporters Club Coach.  For full details of Away Travel including pick up times: – look at FGR Away Travel – Forest Green Rovers Supporters Club (fgrsc.com)  For further information, including pickup point locations see Away travel arrangements 22/23 – Forest Green Rovers Supporters Club (fgrsc.com)

Book your coach ticket with your match ticket from FGR (£5 adult discount for FGR Supporters Club members) but note that you need to call FGR Reception to get the coach discount (phone 0333 123 1889 Monday to Friday, between 9am and 3pm).  Please try to book early.

By Train – Quite apart from any possible RMT industrial action, this is an awkward rail journey.  It takes over 3 hours, you will change at Cheltenham & Birmingham or, alternatively Paddington & Euston.  This will bring you to Bletchley, the closest mainline station, which is still a mile and a half from the ground.  On the plus side, there seem to be reasonable same-day return choices.  An adult fare is just over £60 when I last checked.

By Car If you are driving, MK1 1ST is the stadium postcode for Sat Navs.   There is parking for 2000 cars at the stadium (at a slightly pricey £7) or for free at the  Denbigh West Industrial Estate (postcode MK1 1AX) – beware of parking in Asda here – some have been fined for this apparently!  It’s about 0.7 miles from the stadium.  Generally, this isn’t a stadium where parking is too tricky.

Stadium MK is big and pretty new (MK Dons moved in in 2007).  The capacity is over 30,000 (with potential to take this up to 45,000, hence the high roof).  It can feel a little empty because of its size – the Dons average gate this season is about 8,500 (this is slightly down on their League 1 gates).

However, the stadium is a really good stadium to watch football.  It is very well appointed and the seats are padded!!  There is loads of legroom and you can continue to watch the game from the concourse as you queue for food or drink.  Facilities for supporters with disabilities are probably the best in this league.  One fan’s description – ‘the seating is marvellous both for comfort and leg room, the concourses very impressive and the sight lines fantastic.  The food was the standard football ground offering but at least the serving areas were plentiful and well organised; there wasn’t a bad atmosphere either from a crowd of 6,500 (though the PA system is deafening) and I can’t end without a tribute to the bogs – separate, wide entrances and exits, plenty of space, soap and hot running water – luxury!  A cut above almost all of the modern football stadiums’.

Pubs in the local area are few but there are quite a number of food outlets close by.  The stadium is about 4 miles from the centre of Milton Keynes.

Ticket prices are Adults £22 Over 65’s £17 Under 18’s £7.

Away fans are in the North Stand behind one of the goals and there is plenty of space.  Views of the pitch are very good.

The stadium was built as a multi-purpose centre with a top-flight football team as its foundation.  But top flight football has eluded Milton Keynes so far.  The club figured in the Championship for one season in 2015 and this is their 3rd spell in League 2 following relegation last season (the other 2 spells in League 2 have been pretty short).  Other than this they have consistently been a League 1 club for the rest of their 20-year existence.

It has been something of an up and down season for MK Dons so far.  A good start was followed by 9 games without a win – a run that cost manager Graham Alexander his job in October after 5 months in charge.  The club then appointed current manager Mike Williamson, who was previously in his first managerial position in charge of Gateshead.  Williamson is the 6th MK manager in the last year (albeit they have had 2 interim managers in that time).

Williamson’s appointment has meant an upturn in fortunes for the side.  After losing 1-0 away at Accrington, 4 days after he took charge, Williamson has 3 wins and 2 draws to his credit in MK’s last 5 matches.

MK’s home record was especially poor – at one point they had the worst home record in the league (a position now held by FGR!).  However, this has now changed with 7 points from their last 3 home games.  Like Rovers, their last league game (away at Mansfield) was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.

MK have moved up to a fairly comfortable 13th place in the table and have moved from worrying about survival to dreaming of a play-off push.   Last season, MK finished 3rd, narrowly missing out on automatic promotion to the Championship.

Stadium MK

Rovers fans will remember Sudanese forward Mo Eisa (number 10).  Eisa played for Cheltenham in 2017/18 before moves to Bristol City then Peterborough.  This is his 3rd season at MK.  Injury held him back in 2022 but he is back and is MK’s joint leading scorer with 5 goals.

But the striker in form at the moment is teenage striker Max Dean.  Signed from Leeds, the 19 year-old has begun to hit his stride, with 5 goals in his last 7 games

Mo Eisa

Max Dean is MK’s striker in form.  

Check out the thoughts of MK Dons fans on the forum mk dons forum

MK Dons were formed in 2004 in controversial circumstances.  Wimbledon FC relocated to Milton Keynes, having had to play their league games at Selhurst Park for a while, following them going into administration in 2003.  Wimbledon fans mostly refused to follow the club to Milton Keynes and the acrimony has increased over the years with many urging the EFL to do something to prevent the ‘franchising’ of clubs out of their local area.

MK and the resurrected AFC Wimbledon were both in League 1 last season before Wimbledon were relegated to League 2.  The London club refused for a long time to recognise the ‘Dons’ part of MK Dons (only ever publishing or announcing their name as ‘Milton Keynes’).  Eventually, the EFL stepped in to insist that they used the full name.  Stadium announcers at Wimbledon seem to have found a workaround recently.  When half-times and results are being announced, and you hear that ‘Doncaster are winning 2-0’, you’ll have to work it out for yourself that they must have been playing MK Dons!  Bitter memories run deep!

MK Don’s greatest Academy product, Dele Alli, was sold to Spurs for an initial £5m in 2015.

Donny & Mooie, the MK Don’s mascots.  Stadium MK’s South Stand is also known as the Cowshed.  Milton Keynes is also known for an artwork of 6 concrete cows installed on one of its roundabouts in 1978.

The only other professional football club in Buckinghamshire is Wycombe Wanderers.

Milton Keynes was formed as a ‘New Town’ in the late 1960’s and has now grown to have a population of 250,000 people.  The town, which became a city in 2022, is built on a grid system of streets surrounded by ring roads and (many!) roundabouts.

The stadium is very close to the village of Bletchley and less than a mile from the WW2 codebreaking location of Bletchley Park, now home to a wartime museum.

Bletchley Park, where the enigma code was broken in World War II.

Concrete cows in Milton Keynes!