Milton Keynes Dons fans, we welcome you to Football FanCast’s brand new MK Dons transfer rumours portal dedicated to keeping you all up to date with everything that’s going on with your favourite League One club in the world! And trust us, you will definitely enjoy your stay!
There are various different content strands here for you to read on a daily basis – from those juicy new transfer rumours, original opinion pieces, exciting updates and hilarious social media interactions all the way to in-depth analysis pieces of the team and the players, we have it all! Join us as we delve deeper into the world of the Dons.
The late ‘90s were an extremely exciting time for the Dons, for sure. Back then, they were splashing the cash left and right, buying expensive players every single year from 1996 all the way to 1999.
In the season of 1996/97 they bought Ben Thatcher from Millwall for a reported fee of £2.3m and that was a huge sum, especially for the market back in the day. But interestingly enough, it didn’t really stay on the top for too long. A year after that, they bought Gareth Ainsworth for £2.7m from Port Vale and also John Hartson from West Ham United for £10.1m with the latter still being the biggest purchase in the club’s history.
But they weren’t exactly done with big-money signings even though they wouldn’t eclipse that record for the upcoming 20 years. In the 1999/00 season, MK Dons purchased Hermann Hreidarsson and Martin Andresen for £3.3m and £2.7m respectively and those two are their second and third biggest transfers to date, only behind Hartson. The situation is quite similar when it comes to departures.
In 2000/01, they made two huge sales, sending Ben Thatcher to Tottenham Hotspur for a reported fee of £6.7m and Carl Cort to Newcastle United for £9.4m. Those two are still their top two departures in their history and a year later the Dons also moved on Jason Euell to Charlton Athletic for £6.7m, which rounds off the top three.
It’s quite clear that with the price tags they demanded even back in the old days, both Hartson and Cort are the two players that definitely have a place on the list of the famous transfers of the club, the former with his arrival and the latter with the departure.
But we also have to mention Ben Thatcher whose arrival was quite expensive as well but since he was then sold for an even bigger sum a couple of years down the line, the Dons still managed to make quite a bit of profit on him.
It’s also interesting to note that MK Dons were actually the club who sold Dele Alli to Tottenham Hotspur back when he was only an 18-year-old lad in 2014/15 and that transfer definitely deserves to be mentioned as well.
But there are more, like Stephen Gleeson, Dean Lewington or Izale McLeod for his two different stints with the Dons. All of them can get in with a shout and were surely among their best and most famous signings ever.