The ugly underneath
reflections from a visit to Millwall
"You wearing your colours?"
A pair of strong hands grabbed my temples and,
with assured intent, pushed my head to one side. A whirring razor buzzed menacingly at my
ear.
"Bloody hell, no."
"You’re doing right mate," said
Paul, the dreadlocked barber who was expertly putting the finishing touches to a No. 3
back and sides. "A bunch of thugs, that lot."
It’s 10.30 am, and in the curiously named
Undeen Salon, Gazetta Football Italia flickers silently on an ancient DER television
whilst a jaunty West African guitar sings an accompaniment from the stereo. I’m the
only white face in the entire joint, sitting there like a token honky in a Bacardi ad. To
further augment my apparent singularity, my long-sleeved T-shirt betrays an old partiality
to anaemic folky Suzanne Vega.
No problem, though. I’ve struck up a
conversation with Paul, a West Ham fan with strong affections for locals Leyton Orient.
I’ve also just committed a serious faux pas: the word "Millwall" has just
passed my lips in a place where the claret and blue is sacred. It didn’t matter that
I was a Claret on my way there, nor that I was a freshly relocated Northerner, of capital
rivalries unaware. The word had been uttered, and the demon seeded. Within a few minutes,
the sweet, edifying tones of the juju had been overpowered by the rage and contempt of
Chuck D. In sympathy, the TV discharged images of the hot, relentless chase of Formula 3.
I left the shop £5 lighter – not a bad
price for a decent haircut and the acquaintance of such a nice bloke as Paul. I left also
with the absolute assurance that no-one loathes Millwall more than West Ham. That
afternoon, the Burnley fans would taunt the young bushwhackers to their left with the
Longside version of the original Cold Blow Lane anthem of "No-one likes us."
Yet, what were we saying with this song? I reflected on this odd boast after the game. Is
it true that no-one likes Burnley? If so, is it something we should boast about? I came to
the conclusion that it wasn’t, for this particular reason: that it’s so much
more satisfying to be feared as a team than to be disliked as a club – stadium, fans
‘n all.
I don’t know whether Millwall sung that
song as a First Division club in the late 80’s, because at that time they may or may
not have been disliked as a club, but they were certainly feared as a team. When I heard
them (and, for that matter, us) sing that song today, it smacked too much of desperation,
of dashed hope and battered pride. It betrayed the fact that, although we desperately
wanted Burnley to be feared as a team, we knew they weren’t (yet) good enough for
that to happen.
Merely "not being liked" is a dubious
consolation prize. More to the point, singing the fact underlines how little we think Burnley
are feared. You rarely hear Man Utd fans singing that song. OK, not many of them come from
the North, but the real reason is that they know no-one likes them and for the best
possible reason: formidable success on the field.
In any case, the attitude of Paul in the salon
told a different story. He professed for Burnley that familiar patronising affection of
the big city club supporter who remembers how difficult it used to be for his team to get
a result at the Turf. Although memories have been sweetened over time, the underlying
essence of this affection is, "We admired what you achieved, but we’re fucking
glad we don’t have to travel to your shitty little town anymore."
You see, we’re no longer any kind of threat
to the likes of Paul. Gone are the days when, basking in the August sun, West Ham fans
would shiver with apprehension if the fixture list demanded their presence at a wintry
Turf Moor. And with that sense of a plucky foe tamed comes, over time, a false benevolence
borne in equal measures of relief and a vindicated sense of superiority.
And we’re just the same! With the seven
wilderness years in the Fourth Division now equally long gone, how many of us are quietly
happy to see Rochdale, with their cast of respected ex-Clarets, doing well this season?
Quite a few, I suspect. True, the hardy Spotland faithful perhaps do deserve a bit of
success after all those years stuck at the wrong end of the Fourth Division. But such
thoughts were utter heresy a few years ago. Rochdale turned us over eight times in those
seven seasons between 1985 and 1992, including a 3-0 mauling at the Turf on New
Year’s Day 1987. And that season, when the return game came around at Easter,
Rochdale were our deadly relegation enemies. Like nature, football is essentially red in
tooth and claw. Until survival is secure, no object is higher than this. Like a lion
observing a cub, benign benevolence is only bestowed by the powerful upon those too small
or weak to make a difference. Those that can make a difference are feared and therefore
hunted. Paul’s altruistic attitude towards the Clarets told me that we were a team
that far too many clubs had no need to fear.
London Transport, being the unpredictable beast
that it is, delivered me at South Bermondsey station much quicker than I expected. So
early was it that, ambling along Bolina Road to the ground, the team bus passed slowly by.
Pauls Weller and Smith peered out at me, so, after a quick check over the shoulder, they
got a clench-fisted "Come on Burnley!" Laughs and grins all round.
Further reason for laughing and grinning and,
frankly, just going plain apeshit came in the shape of an Andy Cooke header, crisply
dispatched into the Millwall net after ten minutes. It was a well-deserved lead after a
confident start. Davis and Thomas had imperiously shackled the front two, though Smith
found the pacy Paul Ifil a handful on occasions. But when given possession in space, Smith
began spraying some superb cross-field balls to Little. With Johnrose bossing the midfield
and helping out with defensive duties when required, the Clarets were in firm control. As
Millwall resorted to long hoofs out of defence, picked off each time by the Burnley
defence, the home crowd turned on their team. In the midst of the boos, the travelling
Clarets turned the knife with some hearty renditions, and Stevie D nearly scored the goal
of the season with a thunderous volley.
The only thing missing, of course, was a second
Burnley goal. And it wouldn’t come. The last few minutes of the half saw Millwall on
the attack, doing just enough to rouse the home support into an expectant mood for the
second-half.
Millwall proceeded to put the Clarets under
pressure for most of the half. Frustration grew in the away end as it became clear that
Ternent had effectively drawn a line under the Clarets’ attacking endeavours –
or at least it seemed that way. The midfield were deeper, leaving Payton and Cooke with no
significant support. Burnley sat back and prepared themselves for some serious defending.
And, to be fair, they were making a good job of such a dubious tactic until a defensive
error allowed Millwall’s Cahill a clear shot at goal from close range.
In it went, and in that instance the folly of
Ternent’s defensive approach was laid bare for all to see. That far from being a
pragmatic, safe option, it was in fact a high-risk strategy based upon an assumption of
defensive solidity – an assumption that, as yet, cannot be taken as given.
The equaliser set up a tense final twenty
minutes in which both teams had chances. For Burnley, Mitchell Thomas’ header was
top-corner bound until an athletic leap from Warner, who managed to tip the ball over the
bar. A good save, as was Crichton’s late denial of Shaw. And with that, it was all
over bar the shouting, of which there was plenty. A decent away point, yes, but after a
first-half performance of some style, the Clarets should have bossed this game to the last
and bagged all three.
Predictably, that wasn’t the end of the
afternoon’s physical combat. After being kept behind for what must have been a good
half hour, the Burnley fans marched en masse to the railway station, a small group
of them clearly looking for some bother. That they got some was due to the staggering
stupidity of the police. On alighting at London Bridge, the not-nice-but-dim officers of
the met waited for the Burnley fans at the main entrance to the platform, a good 100 yards
away and out of sight of the train. In between the police and the train was a flight of
stairs leading to a walkway for another platform.
It didn’t take a genius to guess that
Millwall’s hooligan element might be waiting for their Claret counterparts within the
hidden interior of the walkway. They were, and it went off on the stairs of the walkway,
with the police (doh!) scratching their arses hanging around at the station entrance. The
shouts and the unmistakable crash of broken glass informed them that they should be
elsewhere, actually earning their inflated salaries. Hilariously, one portly copper had
decided to wear a pair of shoes which, on the polished surface of the platform, gave him
no grip. As his dog suddenly reared up and tore off towards the mayhem, he was pulled
along, sliding and wobbling down the platform, shouting in vain for the mutt to calm down.
By the time the police had managed to restore
order, blood had been spilled and presumably everybody who wanted a bit of action got it,
so I hope they all went home happy. Anyone at Millwall today will be left in no doubt that
beneath the exterior gloss of community sponsorship and family stands lies a club still a
long way from being any kind of positive example to British football. Tales from this game
have already started doing the rounds – intimidation, incompetent policing and
vicious stewarding being the most common experiences.
Phil Whalley
October 1999
Links - More from this game, the home game and this game last season
