Game Fifty Nine - Millwall away

14 March 2009

Millwall, Millwall, Millwall. One of those games that everyone seems to scan the fixture list at the start of the season for without any real idea why. This was one of those fixtures that seems to bring that special kind of old school fans from the woodwork who still believe that football violence is around and people meet on the terraces for a punch up, the complete opposite of the people who turned up for the fixture at MK Dons a few weeks back. As things have turned out, a trip to the New Den is now no longer the intimidating threat that people associate with but it is instead probably one of the most secure grounds in the country. The policing levels are so high that these days it's rare that you even spot a Millwall fan in the streets of London as we all get ushered away at the final whistle. On my last visit to the ground, I did the journey on fox travel and remember the streets being empty of any life at all as the Police closed off all surrounding roads as if they were anticipating trouble along the way. Having seen that side of the trip, I was keen to make a day of this one and experience the other side to Millwall and make my own way there.

The plan was simple for the day. Travel down to London, meet up with Helen and her mum and enjoy a random day of being tourists and just relaxing before heading over to the ground in good time to meet up with people and catch up before kick off. As it was I arrived at Leicester station and bumped into Little Dave and Mikey who thought they were on the same train as me only to realise that they were in fact booked on the later one instead. Would this deter them? Would it heck and they jumped on the same train as me to save them waiting. It seemed that this one be their undoing as a rather camp conductor threatened them with having the Police waiting for them at St Pancras when they wouldn't buy new tickets only to come back 30 minutes later and tell them that he knew they were "good boys really". Clearly not the brightest of people if he thought that!!

When we arrived we headed off our seperate ways whilst I hung around for half an hour waiting for Helen and Colleen to finally show up with their "master plan" for the day... any guesses as to what that was? I'm pretty sure that any guesses would be wrong as they set off to St Pancras Champagne bar. Now I'm a classy guy as you probably have grasped from these blogs but champagne before football is where I draw the line and so we headed off to Covent Garden safe in the knowledge that I hadn't just drank my entire months wages in one glass of fizzy plonk!!

In all honesty, I think we made the right choice to leave it as we instead made our way over to Covent Garden and enjoyed a nice morning in the sun watching the street performers in action. A comedian street magician and a couple of Jamaican acrobats doing handstands and limbo dancing entertained us as well as a rather riske magician who seemed to use his act as a way of groping a woman in the ground and encouraging others to do the same.... was rather bizarre that one!

After searching for food for Little Miss fussy and then eating on the street with the other tourists, we watched some more of the street entertainers including a juggler or bore a striking resemblance to midfielder Matt Oakley and another who we branded as Tunchev thanks to his hardman image.

After that, we made our way over the London Bridge train station and spent some time down by the river thames taking a souvenir photo of the three of us along the way before heading to catch the train,

We head over to the find the train and thats when the first problem occured. We got onto the train with ease and found seats for the short trip to South Bermondsey only to be disturbed by a large roar on the platform from a set of fans so I got up to see what was going on. While I was up, a sudden rush of fans jumped on and I got seperated from Helen and her mum leaving me stuck in a huddle of Millwall fans trying to keep my head down and out the way. Thankfully nothing kicked off and it was only a short journey until we jumped off and we hung around at the station until we were joined by Katy and co who had spent the morning drinking around London and were...erm... lets just say, a little worse for wear. Especially Andy whose eyes had glazed over completely and looked rather uncomfortable to say the least. After heading down our caged walkway to the ground itself, we fought our way in past the mounds of stewards all looking at you like you were scum and expecting to find you armed with an AK47 and machete under your scarf. Slightly over the top but that pretty much sums up the reputation that Millwall have developed over the years.

We pottered around in the concourse for a bit with Jobber and co before heading up to find our seats. Due to an administrative cock up in the ticket ordering (i.e. we all ordered our own instead of in bulk), we ended up scattered all over the place with little chance of all joining together due to the fairly decent travelling support from Leicester. Sadly that meant that the first half would be spent standing on my own but annoyingly in view of so many people I knew but without the possibility of us all bunching together. Highly frustrating but sadly the price you pay for being so bloody unorganised.

The game started with a hefty spell of pressure from Leicester as they forced a successsion of corners which tested the Millwall keeper several times but he found himself equal to everything. Millwall offered little though until the 20th minute when a long range effort was spilled by debutant goalkeeper (the third in about 6 weeks) but Morrisson was on hand to clear the danger with the home fans screaming (literally) for a penalty.

Minutes later, City were on the attack once more and from a deep ball in, the ball found its way to Howard on the edge of the area. With one touch to control on his chest, he then fired in a half volley into the bottom corner. Great finish that sent the away fans into raptures.

There wasn't much more goal mouth action for the remainder of the first half apart from one long range effort from Howard that the keeper had to turn around the post. During the 15 minute break, I headed down into the concourse to meet people and ended up chatting to Katy and co before making my way back up to my seat only to find that a few others had gathered around that area. The second half was to be spent standing with Joe. and Tommeh.

The second period started in the same way as the first as city forced corner after corner without any luck at all. Headers flew over and wide without the ball really troubling the net.

The major chance of the second half fell to Fryatt when a long ball forward found Cleverley who shot forward and left us two on one against the defence. The ball was threaded through to Fryatt whose first time shot struck the base of the post with the rebound being forced wide with the net gaping.

Millwall again didn't offer much except from a mistake by Morrisson which let in their striker only for Warner to make a decent save against his former club. He was at it again with five minutes remaining when a header from the corner was heading towards the top corner only for Warner to pluck it from thin air.

The home fans were getting more and more frustrated and the chants of "you're not scary anymore" and mimicking their "miiiiiiiilllllllllll" chant seemed to annoy them further.

As the game wore on, coins were pelted from the home end towards Oakley and the linesman as they vented their frustrations in the only way they seemed to know. "It's so quiet at the Den" got a nice airing as the referee blew the final whistle and we could really celebrate seeing off another promotion rival.

From there on, that's where the fun and games started. Due to the trouble outside the ground with the home fans, all Leicester fans were held in together outside the turnstiles so that we couldnt make our way anyone. Nearly 2000 City fans, locked in together with barely room to move. Thankfully we had all congregated together so we could have some laughs while having to listen to the endless announcements telling us why we were stuck there and that they would try and move us on as soon as possible.

When the gates were finally opened, about an hour after the final whistle, we then had to make our way through the caged walkway back to the station and were herded onto the trains to take us back to London Bridge.

Once again we were held while waiting for the trains and somehow we had managed to all stay together so it made the time pass quite quickly - would have been a mare if we had all been seperated and had to endure that alone.

Bumped into Jobber at the station too and he was on his way to meet up with some people in the centre of London.... god knows if he ever made it thanks to all the delays.

Once we finally made it onto the trains, we sped through the evening air back to the centre of London where once again we were held on the platform and informed that the Millwall fans were waiting for us and so we were to be marched onto the underground and moved away from the area to safety. Slightly extreme measures but it was very surreal having London come to a standstill to allow us to move around.

The plan after this was to head to a pub for a few drinks before making our way back to leicester and a dose of normality.

After finally getting onto the underground and back towards Leicester square, we aimlessly followed Alex round as he insisted that he knew where we were going. One dead end and a long walk later and we found the busiest pub known to man kind having passed loads of nice quiet ones along the way. Annoyingly it had taken so long to get there that it was about time for me to head off and get my train so I said my goodbyes and set off back through Covent Garden past some random fire eaters and arrived back to St Pancras in time to jump on my train and sit down for the first time in 10 hours. Had been a mammoth day but well worth the effort!

So that was that. Millwall done and we'd survived the chavs and "hooligan" element and escaped back to Leicester with our arms still in tact and 3 points in the bag. Arguably these were our biggest three points of the season as it has effectively ruled Millwall out of the championship race and left it as a three horse race to claim the title. Us, MK Dons and Peterborough.... the race is on!