sufficed regardless of whether the club subsequently found itself in the Fourth or First Division. However, following the Hillsborough disaster and the subsequent Taylor Report, the football authorities introduced far stricter safety rules, which gave top-flight clubs specific deadlines by which to redevelop terraced grounds or to build new all-seater stadiums. The board of the club decided that Plough Lane could not be made to comply with these new requirements economically and, in 1990, they announced plans to temporarily groundshare with Crystal Palace at their Selhurst Park stadium. Given the location of the Plough Lane ground, at the junction of two major roads and beside the River Wandle, major redevelopment of the site as a modern all-seater stadium might have been difficult, though not impossible. The club's board of directors maintained that it had "searched exhaustively with Merton Council" for a site in or around Merton on which to build a new stadium, looking at "14 different sites over a period of five years", in addition to commissioning feasibility studies for redeveloping both Plough Lane and the neighbouring site at Wimbledon Stadium. Despite this, nothing ever became of the board's continual promises to redevelop the site or to build a new ground within the borough, and the club remained as tenants at Selhurst Park for twelve years. Wimbledon's first match at the National Hockey Stadium in Milton Keynes was played on 27 September 2003. The club remained there for the rest of its final season, and the ground became the first home of Milton Keynes Dons. Supporters Due to Plough Lane's modest capacity and Wimbledon's unprecedented rise from non-League football to the First Division in under ten years, the club had a much lower level of support than its top-flight rivals. During Wimbledon's first season in The Football League, Wimbledon's average attendance was only 3,135 – however, by the club's appearance in the top flight nine years later the average attendance had risen by 149% to 7,811. Attendances did not immediately change much following the move to Selhurst Park in 1991 – however, the larger capacity gradually started to be used. Average crowds peaked at 18,235 in 1998–99, and during the next season, the team's final year in the FA Premier League, home crowds averaged 17,157. With relegation, attendances dropped to an average of only 7,897 during 2000–01 as organized supporter boycotts of matches in protest at the proposed relocation