I might support Millwall

I couldn’t really care less about the football season – yawn. I pay a vague interest at 5pm on a Saturday as the Leicester City score comes in, but that’s merely to gauge Nick’s mood for the rest of the evening.

In recent years, I’ve not been able to get my head around the whole inequality thing with the amounts of cash that the top players earn. The inflated salaries (and egos) might be a reason that England doesn’t have the gusto they used to have when they play for free as a country. Who am I to talk about football, anyway… I know nothing about the game.

But what I do know is that from now on I quite like Millwall FC.

My newly found interest in Championship soccer came last weekend when we drove over to Blackheath for lunch with our good friends Si and Catherine. Of course, the week’s chaos and looting in London was quite a talking point, as our friends are just down the road from Lewisham, which dealt heavy blows. I also know the SE outskirts of London quite well as I spent a year living in New Cross while I was studying for my MA at Goldsmith’s and I have to say it has always been a ‘lively’ part of the capital.

Simon mentioned that after three nights of rioting and with football fixtures cancelled because of an ‘otherwise engaged’ Met Police force, a bored and disgruntled bunch of Millwall supporters decided to take law and order on the streets into their own hands.

As we know Millwall have quite a feisty reputation. Nick went to a Leicester vs Millwall away game and was cordoned off from the home supporters in a special punch up-proof tunnel as soon as the train doors opened. When it was match day years ago in New Cross, I was warned by my landlord, a supporter, “Stay well clear ov Millwall at home, luv.”

Last Tuesday’s the Millwall gang, with no game to go to, planned to gather at the local post-match boozer as usual and lie in wait for any potential rioters to show them a bit of hard-as-nails, vigilante discipline ‘the Millwall way’. Well, by Tuesday, all had calmed down and they could stay in the pub, but the intentions were there. And who could blame any troublemakers for staying well clear of the Millwall watering holes.

Most football teams have their own anthem, but Millwall’s song I have discovered goes something like: “No-one likes us and we don’t care.” That’s why I think I quite like Millwall.