So as we look to put the mauling at Portman Road swiftly behind us and get our promotion surge back on the straight and narrow; the fixture looming which offers us our first shot at redemption only happens to be Millwall at home.
I happened to go to the last game at the Boleyn…that infamous league cup tie back in August 2009. It got off to the worst possible start for me; for as I boarded the over-ground at Walthamstow to take the relatively short journey to Wanstead Flats which is about a half hour walk from ground. I happened to be wearing that delightful navy blue away shirt from the 03/04 season under my jacket and it attracted the wrong sort of attention…within moments of stepping onto the train I quickly realised I was surrounded by about 4 Millwall fans. They proceeded to try their hand at a sort of Chinese water torture with me; poking, prodding, the actual talking was left to a thuggish burley, fat, bald chap didn’t happen to catch his name in fact I can’t really recall anything he said but the line ‘you shouldn’t be wearing that shirt.’ Said repeatedly in his menacing tone has rather annoyingly stuck in my subconscious.
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After that episode I decided it’d be much safer to go straight to Upton Park Station rather than risk another guerrilla attack from another cell of Millwall fans. Arriving on Green Street I was immediately put at ease by the mere sight of Claret and Blue. That relaxation didn’t last too long though as the atmosphere that stalked the Boleyn ground that night was like something straight out of Footy Factory or ironically Green Street. I’d been to Upton Park for plenty of titanic clashes in the past: Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal, Man United and Liverpool all came to mind but the atmosphere for this particular fixture was more venomous, vicious and toxic than any that went before it.
Two and half years on from that infamous night lessons have been learned I’m sure; nobody wants to see the scenes from 2009 on Saturday and anybody who does should be locked up in an asylum of some sort.
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I remember walking up Green Street after the game; the carnage of windows smashed, broken glass everywhere, siren’s wailing and grown men with claret spilling out of their foreheads…all this over a game of football?
I happen to be going to game on Saturday and just as important as a win for me is that we don’t see a repeat of the chaos from the last encounter. Seriously, what’s the point?
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