The Watford manager accepted you were much better than them. Considering we were three nil up against them at half time, could have scored a few more, and packed up in the second half, he still claimed they were the better team against us. Looking at his previous assessments, I guess you must have been really good.
My asian mate got terrible racist abuse at Millwall from several fans, one who was an OAP woman. Glad you are cleaning up, as that was at the Den.First of all, I don’t hate Charlton, not in the same way Coventry fans hate the Villa. I see Charlton more as an irrelevance really - a team and fan base we like to laugh at, mainly due to their delusions of grandeur in believing that their rightful place should be in the Premier League, and not slumming it down in the dreadful Championship!
Stoke City fans feel the same way. Go on both the Charlton and Stoke football forums and just read the level of entitlement that makes them think they‘re so superior to all the rest of us. It’s pathetic really, but also very, very funny. That’s why I can’t take either of those clubs seriously anymore.
I’m happy to address your sly racist inference dig because, unlike you, I know the real truth and not learnt a lot of the lies peddled about us by the tabloids and social media over the past five decades!
I‘ve been going to Millwall since 1974. I’m now 62, so I’ve seen it all. I don’t know how old you are, but back in the 70s and 80s football fans rivalry and hatred of other clubs was pretty much the norm and much more intense than it is these days. Every club back then had their fair share of hooligans and racists, even the likes of Leeds, Man Utd, Chelsea, etc.
What helped to tarnish my club was the 1977 Panorama documentary in which we were stitched up by the BBC in how they portrayed us! Even now, 50 years on, they haven’t changed - witness how the BBC recently edited two different Trump interviews together to make Trump look like a liar. They’ve been doing this sort of thing for decades and getting away with it!
Now, I’m not denying we never used to have an element of racist fans at our club, but if you were to look back at our fan base and our club (starting from the late 60’s when we signed our first black player, striker Frank Peterson in 1968) you will see that Millwall fans have always welcomed black players at our club.
Phil Walker and Trevor Lee both signed for us in 1975. They were the first Black players to truly establish themselves and become fan favourites, with Walker winning Player of the Year in 1978. Peterson may have broke the initial barrier, but Walker and Lee were the pioneers who integrated and excelled in the late 1970s, a period when such players were rare in the upper tiers of English football.
Since then we’ve had numerous black players playing for us, many of whom have won the fans player of the season award. Ah, I hear you say, but what about your treatment of other club’s black players? Yes, that did happen in the past, but it also happened with Leeds, Man Utd, Chelsea fans, etc. as well. Those clubs don’t have that stigma against them now, because they’re big boys in the Premier League, so all that nasty history gets forgotten and brushed under the carpet so as to avoid having the Premiership name tarnished by their past misdemeanours.
Unfortunately we still do have a minority of fans who like to dish out racist slurs towards opposition players, and whilst you cannot condone that behaviour, it has been heard less and less over the years down at the Den. We’ve had CCTV and microphones installed in all four stands for a number of years now, and the perpetrators of these crimes are instantly caught and banned for life.
My club has been trying to clean up its tarnished reputation for years now, yet for all that we do in our local community (which the club has won many awards for) it only takes one journalist with an agenda against us to put a spin on something, and all of the good work and things we have put into place, just gets forgotten and the racism tag rears it’s ugly head again. It’s typical lazy journalism and much of it nowadays is totally unwarranted.
Millwall fans do like their flat caps though.
They play every minute of every game for a reason. Only illness, suspension and the cup game have given them a rest.
Very hard to do, when you are not playing.
So chanting "I'd rather be a P*ki than a scouse" is just tribal? Fuck off mateCouple of things…
Chanting at fans of other clubs has been going on since football first started having home and away fans in the same stadium. Things get tribal and the north-south divide attitude doesn’t help matters.
How many YouTube football chanting compilation videos show what Man Utd fans sing about their rivals, City, or the number of clubs that pick on the Scousers (though mainly Liverpool?) Is it still wrong for Leeds fans to hold their arms out and make aircraft engine noises to the Man Utd fans for what happened nearly 70 years ago at Munich? Of course it is. Its not nice, it’s not funny but it is macabre sense of humour that seems to be exclusive to football fans, but mostly fans from the UK.
Yes, we did boo teams when they took the knee at the Den. For two reasons.
1) All of the knee taking started in the US and collectively Millwall fans wanted no politics to enter football. That doesn’t make us racist. What it says is that politics and sport should never get into bed with one another and fans should not be used as puppets so their clubs can be seen to do “the right thing.”
2) We were eventually proved right about the BLM when investigations into their organisation revealed significant financial mismanagement, including leaders using donor funds for luxury homes and personal expenses, leading to a lack of transparency and accusations of misusing millions of dollars meant for racial justice.
If that doesn’t scream “con” to you, then I don’t know what to say. How is stealing millions of dollars meant for racial justice (to help ethnic minorities) actually helping them?
Also, there were a few (admittedly very few) UK black football players who refused to take the knee, citing as Millwall fans did, that politics had no place in football and one black footballer said that he felt that black players were “being used as puppets.”
Read the following link to get the full story.
Why increasing number of footballers have stopped taking the knee
John Barnes tells Sky News he believes "football can do nothing to change racism" and there have been signs that an increasing number of players are questioning the impact of taking the knee. So what is the future of the protest and has it achieved its aim?news.sky.com
And yes, you‘re right: some Millwall fans (a minority) do not help themselves, but the same can also be said about the small number of racist football fans from many other Prem and EFL clubs, who don’t help themselves either!
Watford really impressed me in midfield and going forward, but looked disorganised at the back. It doesn’t surprise me that a team who tamed that midfield then got a result.
Wasn't there a team that used the excuse they 'didn't want politics in football' for booing players taking the knee, but at the same time were chanting about something else political, like Brexit? Not sure it was Millwall, but just reminded me of it as it had been brought up again.
Millwall definitely booed players taking the knee.
I know they booed taking the knee. Just can't remember if it was them chanting about Brexit, or whatever the other political thing was.
I’m sorry to hear that about your mate. I hope he reported it to the officials in the stands?
I agree with a lot of what you say. I have a good mate who supports your lot and also says racism is on the decline.
Exactly, it was a minute or some before the start of a game. They could just ignore it.
The word “Tribal” means
so you are also justifying "I'd rather be a P*** than a scouse",, ok
And that’s precisely the point of my argument. The black player celebrating his goal by taking the knee could have inflamed the situation and caused trouble. Another reason why sport and politics should be kept separate - there are too many people who get wound up by sport and politics separately - put them together and it can become a powder keg waiting to explode.
You made it political by booing it, sport is fucking political, life is political
But can you see how booing taking the knee, for whatever reason, just enables and emboldens the actual racists?
Yep, keep it tight in midfield and we should have too much quality for them
To be fair people were talking about the fans of the team we are playing on Sunday
I can't can I because you acted like a nob
I’m not justifying anything.
Not stopping you from going to arena park.
I know this is still interrupting the match thread, so apologies,
What did the actual taking of the knee achieve in the end, because it did eventually stop? If it mattered so much to so many people (and players) why is it still not in use in football today? In the link I posted, even John Barnes said at the time that the gesture was pointless. Racism still continues around the world, so all it did was highlight the death of a black man in the US and then went worldwide.
I have black. white and Indian mates who I went to school with, over 50 years ago, and we all attend home games at the Den. I know for a fact that it would anger the black lads I’m with if they were singled out as being called a black bas*ard instead of just a Millwall bas*ard, because in their eyes they are just a fan of the club they support. To them it’s not about race, creed or colour so why should someone who doesn’t know you, get to label you with something that has no relevance to being a fan?
Well, I’m sorry you feel that way about me, as I am in no way defending racism (as you think I am) so I will leave this topic at that and let you all get back to the match thread.
Trying to pin decades of violence and racism from within your fanbase on a BBC documentary from 50 years ago is world class deflection. Good to know that “some of our best players are black” though!
Literally using the ‘I have black friends’ defence.
