A special moment last Saturday is a proud one for Tomlinson

Taking the captain’s armband from Dean Lewington in the final home game of his career was a proud moment for Joe Tomlinson.

With the 40-year-old hanging up his boots at the end of the season, he passed on the MK Dons captaincy to fellow left-sided defender Tomlinson when he was substituted against Grimsby Town last week.

While it has been Alex Gilbey donning the armband for the majority of the season, Tomlinson has taken over the duties with the 30-year-old having surgery last week on a long-standing issue. And taking the armband from Lewington, who has captained the side since 2008, was a special moment for the ex-Peterborough man.

“That was pretty cool, having him hand it over to me on the pitch,” said Tomlinson. “There’s not much better than that. It was a bit ceremonial, it was lovely and a very proud moment for me. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.

“I’m really happy I get to wear the armband, I love it. It’s representing a fantastic club, and a real honour for me and my family.”

Having led the team in each of Paul Warne’s three games so far, Tomlinson has been a part of three consecutive clean sheets - which could have been four barring Gillingham’s 95th minute goal prior to Warne taking over.

Dons take on one of Tomlinson’s former club’s Swindon Town on Saturday in the final game, and the defender is eager to continue the positive start under the new head coach.

He continued: “Swindon had a tough start but recently they’ve done really well. We’re going there with one more game to go, we’ve got to go and win. We’ve had a good week training, we want to go and impress the manager so we’re ready. It will be a great final game.

“We have to work on the other end of the pitch now, but we’ve sorted out the back end of the pitch with those three clean sheets. It could have been four but for that late Gillingham goal too which is really annoying. We’ve improved a lot on that side. Now we need to go and score some goals.”