Callum Kennedy gave a heartfelt salute to AFC Wimbledon teammates and fans alike after ending his Dons career a League Two playoff winner.
The 26-year-old left back knew prior to yesterday’s Wembley heroics he wasn’t part of Neal Ardley’s plans for next season, but it didn’t stop him signing off with an assist an almost a penalty in the Dons’ 2-0 win over Plymouth.
You sensed he was going with a heavy heart , reluctant to leave behind teammates who had pushed him to a new level in writing the latest chapter of AFC Wimbledon folklore.
And he hailed Wombles’ fans who he knows are the heartbeat of the meteoric rise of the 21st century club.
“We came here with all respect for Plymouth and we knew it was going to be a hard game, but it was done in my eyes,” he said I couldn’t see anything but us going on to win. I’ve never felt so sure about anything in my life.
“We had faced too much adversity throughout the season and there had been too many key points so we just believed. I can’t begin to tell you how much it felt like between the lads we were going to do it.
“That self-belief comes from hard work. Every day everyone is in early, leaves late, that’s the team spirit and the work ethic that we have.
"It has been about the lads egging each other on to be the best they can be. I’ve been at other clubs where if you go in the gym you get called names for doing a bit extra, or for trying to get in the gaffer’s good books, but at this club everybody wants to be the best they can be.
“And when you have got a nucleus of eight or nine who want to go in the gym and do extra and be more that spreads and is contagious.
“But do you know what it is not even the lads. The fans have created the folklore. They are incredible.
"I have been at other clubs before and you talk about the fans and stuff, but to decide you are not happy about something, make your own club and then to be going up today into League One 14 years later it is unheard of and it does rub off on the players.
“I’ve never felt as much of a connection between the fans and the players as much as I have here."
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There was just one test of that famous team spirit when, after Kennedy set up the crucial first goal for Lyle Taylor, he was denied a poignant final moment in more ways than one when he lost out in a three-way debate with Adebayo Azeez and Adebayo Akinfenwa - the latter also having his Dons’ swansong – over who would take the stoppage-time penalty which added gloss to a historic day.
Kennedy, who wanted the spot-kick not only as a farewell to the fans, but a salute to his late father who passed away earlier this year, ultimately gave way to the Beast and later insisted there were no hard feelings.
“B’ (Akinfenwa) came over and said he wanted it because it was his last game. I was like it is my last game too and I want to take it for my dad,” he added.
“It was a heat of the moment thing everyone getting caught up in the occasion, but as long as we scored and we won I could not care less.
“I’m over the moon he scored because he is leaving and he has been a great servant to the club.”
