arrived at Wimbledon in the 1928 pioneer season, and a team was entered in the league competitions from 1929 to 1939. The team was re-formed after the war and the Dons raced in the top flight National League Division One from 1946 to 1964. The Dons were multiple winners of the league in the 1950s, and were founding members of the British League in 1965. From 1946, reopening after the war, average weekly attendances were in excess of 30,000, until the early 1950s, when the sport declined rapidly in popularity. However, Wimbledon remained one of the top teams, with healthy crowd figures, and upon the closure of Wembley in 1956 were the only team in London (excluding sporadic appearances by New Cross in 1959/1960 and 1963) until 1963 when Hackney entered the Provincial League, and 1964 when West Ham reopened in the National League (now known as the 1st Division Elite League). Wimbledon's tenure in the top flight came to an end in the 1980s and the Greyhound Racing Association, the owners of the stadium at the time, decreed that speedway would end at the end of the 1986 season. However, David Pickles, a London stockbroker, gathered together a consortium in the 1986/87 close season that ensured that the Dons would continue to run. They employed the ex-England team manager John Berry, and enjoyed reasonable success on and off the track in their first season. After a disagreement with Berry and the other members of the board, Pickles dramatically resigned as chairman of the club during the match with Exeter in September 1987, selling his shares back to the other members. With a few reshuffles at board level and the leaving of Berry, the remaining members eventually took Wimbledon back to the British League Division One in 1991, but the move proved disastrous and with only a couple of months of the season having been ridden, the financial losses proved to be so great that they were forced to disband the team. In June 1991 Wimbledon rode their final meeting, which was eventually curtailed due to the weather. Although there was no longer any league racing at the Plough Lane stadium, the team continued their league fixtures for the 1991 season, moving to Eastbourne, and were known during this period as the Eastbourne Dons. Having been defunct for eleven years, the team were then reopened again at Wimbledon Stadium in