West Ham vs Millwall, an insiders story

The two constants of the evening were the echoing of ‘fans’ shouting and the permanent police helicopter, which suggested that trouble was always around the corner.

I saw three separate Millwall firms: one off the tube to Plaistow, one on Green Street outside the ground, and one that was already inside the stadium. When we came out of Plaistow tube station the first Millwall firm piped up. If you don’t know the area, West Ham is surrounded by rabbit-hutch estate roads and which are very narrow.

The journey there was a bit of nightmare as it was getting rather dark and the soundtrack was, as mentioned, always a worry. Also, the fear of the confrontation was exacerbated by the fact that everybody looked the same.

When we came out of the side road toward the stadium and the West Ham ‘goonies’ were waiting for us, there really was no way out and I happened to be right at the front setting the pace.

It was cottage pie in pants time.

One thing I did note was the amount of youths there. There was a mixture of big oldies and young ‘uns. Perhaps due to banning orders?

My friend confirmed this when stating that the majority of people who surrounded us in the West Ham West Stand were not the regular season ticket holders, thereby suggesting that the majority were out for a tear up.

I live in Bromley, South London. Bromley does not have a Bermondsey-esque reputation, but it is nonetheless a Millwall Borough. Millwall hooligans drink in my local pub and my cousin is a Millwall hooligan.

A very close friend of mine is a West Ham season ticket holder.

I like West Ham. It is awash with stereotypical cockney geezers and a rather tender un-Premiership community spirit. In stark contrast to the Inner City Firm dominated 1980s, visiting Upton Park is now quite a nice day out.

What binds the vitriolic dynamic is that both clubs hate Tottenham Hotspur with an unremitting passion. I support Tottenham Hotspur. I am not a hooligan.

It was with a combination of exhilaration and trepidation, therefore, that I accepted a ticket from my West Ham friend to take in the coming West Ham Vs Millwall derby.

Having heard that Millwall were ‘firming’ up at Tower Hill at 10.30, I utilised my university honed intellect to conclude that it would be best to have a pre-match drink in a place other than Tower Hill and any time long after 10.30.

Accordingly, I organised to meet up with some Millwall friends at the Victoria Wetherspoon at 5pm and latterly meet my West Ham friend at Mansion House at 5.30. After pouring copious amounts of utterly ‘jank’ lager down my neck by 6.30 I decided that I had kept my friend waiting long enough and thus I departed for the tube.

Obviously the lager consumption meant that in my haste I staggered onto the West bound tube. At this point I engaged my intellect once more and managed to find my way to the appropriate shuttle. I was off to meet the Beasts from the East.

My arrival at Mansion House coincided with the arrival of about 5 Millwall kiddies.

Too many Aquascutum Flat Caps, a Lewisham swagger and various witless songs gave the game away as to what team these champions supported. The fact that such oafs were freely roaming about confirmed in my head that the game would be completely trouble free.

Rather surprisingly the replica hooligans had brought their girlfriends along. Needless to say these female bruisers made Pat Butcher look the epitome of subtle felinity.

A quick pint of Amstel and a shake of the head, myself, my West Ham friend and his sister plodded down to Mansion House tube station to find our way to Upton Park station. The Millwall plastics had the same idea.

Their stunning vocal repertoire was soon made redundant by the presence of some bigger and older West Ham fans, however. With a new found peace and alcohol inspired warmth I settled down for the lengthy journey. At this point we were meant to be in The Queen market pub.

The shuttle rattled to a halt, and an Irish tube driver informed the contents of a now massively busy carriage that due to “rioting” at Upton Park Station (something that we missed due to my tardiness) all tubes had been told to stop until the Police had cleared the station. Excellent.

This old chestnut was not un-expected, and neither was the crushing demand from my bladder to be emptied ASAP. I bargained with the full organ for half an hour. Unfortunately, I had nothing to bargain with. The tube was packed and stiflingly hot. Conditions were not pleasant.

Arrival at Plaistow confirmed that the fighting had not been limited to the Upton Park area. The Police looked tired and beaten and we were still a good mile away from the ground. Regardless, it was now 7.45 and we were late.

My party broke into a jog which coincided with a mighty roar, “Millwall, Millwall..”. It seems that the entire tube we had just gotten off had been a veritable sardine tin of Millwall hooligans.

This was fine except that the direction that we had broken off in was the complete opposite of the direction the 100 or so Millwall fans were traipsing. A few side glances revealed that the boyos had bigger fish to fry and we were off.

A lack of gym time exposed my weak aerobic fitness but I still led the pack. Within record time (perhaps) we reached Green Street. Unfortunately some other cool cats had the same idea.

In rather bizarre fashion just as I had jogged to within 100 metres of the Boleyn Ground I passed a side street which around 200 angry Millwall fans came pouring out of. My immediate reaction could be defined as anxious, however the fact I was out of breath (as the Millwall fans were too) and happened to be dressed in a jauntily casual attire meant the crew thought I was one of their own.

It was then that I realised that West Ham had a meet and greet party waiting for us. My immediate reaction to that scenario could be defined as more than anxious, especially as I was effectively in the front line of the Millwall bods.

I knew then that I should have definitely bought that nautical distress flair from Millett’s that I had been eyeing up. An interesting side note is that an Asian owned store was completely ignored by the all white Millwall mob, despite the fact that it was being ‘protected’ by only a handful of skinny Asian males and that window smashing was the order of the day.

I had an interesting mental debate about racism at football, but not a particularly lengthy or profound debate.

The Battle of the Boleyn (I say ‘The Battle’ but perhaps ‘A Battle’ is more accurate) commenced and I was stuck in the middle. Literally. Fortunately for me the West Ham party contained probably no more than 50 men.

Less fortunately there was no Police presence whatsoever and these were big and grumpy men (plus a few Rastafarians). It seems that in their infinite wisdom the Police had rushed all their men to Upton Park Station. A group of Millwall fans simply left the scene and outflanked them. Ludicrously simple.

Interestingly, despite the vast numbers only about ten men were fighting in the road. The rest were merely posturing, bouncing up and down and shouting. The atmosphere was absolutely electric: the narrow streets, onset of darkness, sound of the Police helicopter and muffled shouts created a curiously enticing melody. It always amazes me to think that such a narrow arena of hate creates such a broad variety of emotions: paranoia, rage, fear, ecstasy.

Somebody approached me but all I did was dip my shoulder as if to clock a punch, snarl and I was past him onto the stadium front court. At this point I was well ahead of my companions having motioned to my friend and his sister to get well back when the Millwall had turned up.

It turned out that at that exact moment my cousin (whom had informed me the day before that he wasn’t going to attend) had bizarrely appeared at the front of the Millwall mob, seen my friend and his sister and shielded them up against a van. If I had had problems emptying my bladder earlier I certainly did not any more. Selfishly I had forgotten about my party as an overwhelming aggression (and perhaps a survival instinct) took over. I regret this.

I met my party at the gates and in we went. A backward glance confirmed that the area was still totally lawless as my cousin attempted to manoeuvre a charge into the West Ham onslaught . Frankly, I am utterly stunned that more people were not hospitalised.

It is probably worth pointing out at this point that I was meant to get the tube to Mansion House with my Victoria drinking buddies, however, they could not resist a wander into Ladbrokes and thus we were separated. I was informed by my friends that when they followed the same path to the Boleyn around 20 minutes later than I had that the fighting was in full swing and that people were fallen and bloodied everywhere, with flying bottles splintering the night sky.

My cousin confirmed this and added that hundreds more West Ham soon realised where the real fun was, turned up and ran the Millwall back to whence they had come. The departing Millwall fans were, apparently, a mixture of ticket holders and thugs who had come from the South just looking for knuckle. They were certainly not disappointed.

My cousin, who possessed a ticket, did not manage to make his seat until the 2nd half had commenced. The constantly roving helicopter suggested that all was not well in a lot of places.

The game itself was a blur. Millwall seemed far more energetic and a typical Cup upset seemed on the cards. I’d like to report that I watched the game. I didn’t. I shouted and gestured to the Millwall fans who were close to my West Stand Lower seat, drank Carlsberg at the bar and chatted with hooligans. My seat was only 25 yards away from the fighting in the corner.

Racist chants toward Carlton Cole were met with a masturbatory gesture from the striker and songs about Calum Davenport’s mum seemed to lack any tangible oomph or wit.

Millwall out sang West Ham in the 1st half but that was soon to change. The South Londoners early dominance was thwarted and as the match lengthened the increasingly bashful Millwall end simply could not be heard. Countless attempts to get on the pitch and toward the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand were not met by Millwall.

A few chairs were thrown but that was it. All things considered Millwall were embarrassed. They had been chased all over East London (despite attempting to assert an early dominance by smashing up some empty pubs in Canning Town) and had lost the match. Further, the media would go on to boost the claims of the West Ham hooligans. Kenny Jackett’s revisionist perception will do nothing to improve the battered ego of the Millwall firm.

Anyway, the game ended, the East Londoners were jubilant and I needed to return home to South London. The invigorating atmosphere was made redundant by the obvious fear emanating from my friends’ sister. Whilst some fans made their way to the away end the Police presence (which by this point was gargantuan) shepherded the West Ham escort round the back of the market to Upton Park station.

Millwall were kept in their end for 10 minutes only and we made our tube. We took off at Aldgate East and grabbed a taxi to Beckenham, thereby avoiding anybody with something to argue about.

A bit of an anti-climax, all things considered.