MK Dons vs Chelsea preview: David Martin keeps the faith at Dons Mk 2

Stalwart has watched Milton Keynes come a long way since ‘Franchise FC’

MK Dons goalkeeper David Martin (Tom Pilston)

In many places, especially a corner of south-west London, they are still reviled as Franchise FC, a plastic football club among the concrete cows who claimed the birthright and honours of another.

As time has gone on, however – and it has been almost a dozen years now – MK Dons have taken on an identity of their own, helped in particular by two episodes in the past 18 months and hoping for a third this afternoon when Chelsea’s team coach negotiates the local roundabouts and grid system.

Any club that inflicts a giant- killing on Manchester United immediately wins points in the popularity league and to do so by four goals to nil in Louis van Gaal’s third match as manager shot them up the table. In that Capital One Cup team in August 2014 was a teenage midfielder called Bamidele Alli, whose apparently effortless transition to the Premier League and national team suggested that Milton Keynes may even have something to offer English football.

Goalkeeper Dave Martin, son of the former West Ham and England defender Alvin, was part of the original furore back in 2004, his CV officially listing a home debut for “Wimbledon” at the National Hockey Stadium on Silbury Boulevard in Buckinghamshire, and 15 appearances the following season for “Milton Keynes Dons” in front of crowds at the same venue which frequently failed to reach 4,000.

“I’d been through the transition of doing my youth-team days at Wimbledon and then being part of Milton Keynes and it was strange,” he recalled at the smart new 30,000-capacity stadium:mk.

“I was only 17 or 18 so you don’t really grasp the magnitude of the situation. It was a tough time. I remember the chairman standing out there with a spade saying ‘look, this is where the centre spot [of the new stadium] is going to be’ and there was just mud as far as the eye could see. I must admit I had my doubts, but the chairman believed in the idea and if you look around now, the stadium, hotel and the shops, it’s a great achievement.”

While the new stadium was being built, however, Martin was elsewhere, a reputation as a goalkeeper for England’s under-age teams having earned him a move to Liverpool for “the hardest time of my career” before returning after four years without a single first-team appearance.

“It was like a medium-sized fish going into a massive ocean. The highest I ever got there was third choice, [competing with] people like Pepe Reina, Scott Carson, Jerzy Dudek.

“With two goalkeepers ahead of me, I’d be playing centre-back in the practice games, marking Fernando Torres or Peter Crouch, which was tough, I have to say. Running after Torres was like running after a horse.”

Just as well, perhaps, that as a youngster on Tottenham’s books, he had originally been – like father, like son – a centre-half. As someone who “always liked diving around at people’s feet” he eventually pulled on the No 1 jersey instead and was able to use his dad’s connections to secure a six-month trial at West Ham, where the advice was to concentrate on goalkeeping.

“That was one of the advantages of having a famous dad. He knew Les Sealey at West Ham. I think some people thought I was there only because of my dad, but from then on I was on my own, either good enough or not, and Wimbledon took me.”

The other benefits of a footballing father, he believes – which also apply to younger brother Joe, a Millwall left-back – are having advice on tap from “someone who’s been through it”, and in his particular case in hearing about what a centre-half wants and needs from his goalkeeper.

Interestingly, Alvin Martin now accepts that at times his paternal input may have been too fierce. The most important thing, he says, is “knowing when to shut up”.

“I’ve only really got to grips with that in the last two or three years. You don’t want to be saturating them. It used to get quite intense. I used to go to every game, home and away. Now I go only if they want me to, if they want an opinion. I won’t go to the Chelsea game, I’ll just let him focus and get on with it.”

After having two years as manager of Southend United, Alvin Martin works mainly as a media pundit, trying to avoid falling into a familiar trap: “A lot of ex-pros have been outfield players and now they’re commenting on goalkeepers – it drives me crackers,” he said. “Players don’t really know about goalkeeping.”

Aged 30 and with the experience of the Manchester United game behind him, Dave Martin sounds mature enough not to need any further advice about how to approach a game as big as today’s fourth-round tie.

“You can feel the buzz around the place but it’s important for the players not to get too overwhelmed and excited,” he said. “You want to treat it like Northampton in the last round.

“We’re expecting that Chelsea are going to put all their big guns out, so it’ll be a tough one. The main aim for the club is trying to sustain Championship football this season but the glory of winning would be an amazing thing.”

And win a few more friends as well beyond the boulevards of Milton Keynes.

Top of the class

Alli the best of a fine bunch

(Getty)

The MK Dons academy has produced Dele Alli (right, now at Tottenham), Brendan Galloway (Everton) and Sheyi Ojo (Liverpool). Still at the club is midfielder Giorgio Rasulo, an England youth midfielder who made his first-team debut in the FA Cup aged 15 on the same day that a 16-year-old Alli scored his first senior goal.

Goalkeeper Dave Martin says: “We’ve got a young squad. The next thing for the chairman to do is upgrade the training ground to make it a Category 2 and then hope to replenish the ranks every year with Milton Keynes talent. The philosophy right through the club is trying to play football the right way.

“When you see how well Del’s doing this year, you realise how important he was to us last year going for promotion.

“I think everyone knew the quality he had. It was just whether he was going to take to the Premier League and how quickly he was going to do it.

“Nothing fazes him, he just goes on from strength to strength. The things that he’d do sometimes in training... he could score goals, of course, but his engine was fantastic. He’d be heading a ball away on our six-yard box from a set-piece and within seconds he’d be down the other end and scoring.

“To have someone in your team with the ability to do that, plus the quality he had in the final third, makes a massive difference to your side.

“It’s hard to find gems like that.”