It's so easy for outsiders to condemn Millwall Football Club. Those who don’t bother to go to the club, who don’t make time to talk to the people who run the club, or to talk to those who actually go to the New Den to support the team, will see fighting among Millwall fans and wade straight in with ridiculous suggestions like banning the club from the FA Cup, or hitting them with a £1,000,000 fine.
The club has a number of initiatives to combat racism and hooliganism. If you bother to go and find out about Millwall, you will probably be shocked at the huge amount of work the club does.
But set against a backdrop of decades of violence, changing the culture and identifying all those who the club wants to disassociate themselves from, is a seemingly endless task.
Millwall took 32,000 supporters to Wembley. When I visited the New Den for a Championship game in February this year, there were 8,390 fans in the home areas of the stadium.
Conservative estimates would suggest there were 20,000 fans at the semi-final who do not regularly go to Millwall home games.
It’s not unusual for smaller clubs to take more than their average attendance to a special occasion at Wembley. A huge number of those are often older fans who have given up going to games.
There are plenty of 'old school' Millwall hooligans who go several seasons in succession without attending a Millwall match. But if there’s a special game – Wembley, or a big cup tie, or West Ham – these boys will turn out.
The truth is, no matter what Millwall try to do there will be plenty of these 'fans' stuck in the tribal violent culture of 70s and 80s who want to fight.
There is even worse news for Millwall – there are fans who go to games, home and away, who are genuine fans of the club, but who also thoroughly enjoy fighting. And they thrive on the image attached to that reputation.
My information is that nothing we saw on Saturday was organized.
But once a minor altercation took place, the aggression, which will always exist in some of these fans, was brought to the fore. Some are regulars at the New Den, others turn out for the big games. Some are not even Millwall fans.
Fining Millwall, or banning them from the FA Cup, will do nothing to address the real reasons behind the violence from Saturday.
Giving those ready to fight at least 8 hours to drink and take drugs before a 5.15pm kick off at Wembley was one of the stupidest ideas in the history of the FA Cup. That problem was easy to avoid. And it wasn’t the club's fault.
Don’t rush to judgement on this issue. That would be disrespectful to some amazing work Millwall has been doing, and continues to do in that area of south east London.
Worse still, massive fines, or punishments to the club and its genuine fans would demotivate those putting in hard work and long hours trying to make Millwall a huge asset to its community.
Analysis of the trouble surrounding the Tyne-Wear derby tells me that the violence was not directly related to the football.
Newcastle's statement sent exactly the right message. They pledged lifetime bans to all involved, and if they see that through then that will be a huge deterrent.
But let’s also keep this in context. Nobody can excuse the violence.
Shameful scenes: Some Newcastle fans were involved in deplorable violence following their defeat at home by Sunderland
Even the police have acknowledged that it wasn’t true football fans involved in the trouble. Eight arrests inside a stadium of 52,000 people is a statistic that backs that up.
The main trouble happened long after the stadium emptied. As Chief Superintendent Steve Neill from Northumbria Police said: 'True football fans weren’t involved.'
But one specific incident from Tyneside on Sunday shocked everyone. A man wearing a Newcastle United shirt punched a horse. That is not football’s problem – that guy has serious issues and they need addressing urgently.
Bill Kenwright’s speech at the Hillsborough Memorial Service had me in tears.
In one address, the Everton chairman reinforced the togetherness Merseyside has felt since that tragic day in 1989.
I don’t want to repeat one word of it, I want you to watch it all – you’ll find a link here.Kenwright made reference to the Justice campaign celebrating in a year’s time, by which time revised verdicts of the unlawful killing of 96 innocent football fans will be delivered by the fresh inquests.
Scroll down to watch the video... Standing ovation: everton chairman Bill Kenwright's speech at Anfield moved the audience to tears Touching tribute: Kenwright's words for the 96 who tragically died during the Hillsborough disaster showed that the two Merseyside clubs are united Emotional: Kenwright hugs Maragret Aspinall, chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, after his speechI know Merseyside will forever honour the 96 who lost their lives, but I hope once justice is finally served, and the right outcome has finally been reached, I hope none of us will forget to bring to mind the tragic loss of life that day.
Even when the fight for justice is finally over, the 96 should never be forgotten.
Those who orchestrated the cover-up took on the wrong mums, they took on the wrong city and they took on the wrong fans.
True football fans stick together. Bill Kenwright proved that yesterday. I will forever respect that man.
CHILDISH FOOTBALL COACHI watched an Under 12s boys’ game on Sunday. The yellows had no subs and two lads bravely carried on despite picking up early injuries. The reds had subs, and a coach who ranted and raved at any decision from the teenage referee that went against his team. The ranting went into overdrive when his reds went a goal down. They equalised but the coach was desperate for the winner. So he screamed for corners that never were, he accused the yellows of fouls they hadn’t committed, he saw handballs that simply didn’t happen. In the end the young ref decided to keep the peace, and in the dying seconds he let a clear push by a red go unpunished. The reds duly exploited their good fortune and moments later scored the winner. Some of the battered and bruised yellow boys cried at the injustice. The reds’ coach celebrated like Paolo Di Canio. The ref was distraught and had to be consoled. I doubt he will be taking up the whistle again in a hurry. This actually happened in Hertfordshire at the weekend. It is not uncommon. It is one reason referees, coaches and young players give up football. An ego-mad coach who wants the parents of his players to love him. And he didn’t care how many kids he trampled on to get his victory. Shameful.
The Women’s Super League (WSL) got underway this weekend, the highlight was a truly fantastic 25-yard strike from Birmingham’s Rachel Williams.
It earned her team a 1-1 draw, in front of a crowd of 536.
This is supposed to be a breakthrough season for women’s football in England.
The Football Association announced last year that it is pumping £3.5million into women’s football in England over the next five years.
That is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions the new TV deal will pump into the men’s Premier League.
I will ask this question: the millions are being spent on the women’s game with a view to making it a huge participation and spectator sport in this country. But at what point will that spending be capped, and an achievable goal be set so that women’s football doesn’t have too much money spent on it?
The reality is the women’s game will never be as big as the men’s game. That is just a fact.
So there comes a point where the low crowds (after the massive attendances for women’s football at the London Olympics the FA admitted it was disappointed with the subsequent low crowds at WSL games – 289 watched Doncaster v Everton, 362 for Birmingham v Lincoln), and the lack of participation (0.7 per cent of women participated in football once a week in 2011 according to FA figures), have to be acknowledged and there is an acceptance that there is only so much growth achievable in women’s football.
I have no objection to women playing football.
I have paid to watch women’s football, I have taken my children to watch women’s football.
But it is a sport that will always struggle to attract paying spectators. The funding of the game needs to be kept in proportion.
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