What a complete load of wank.
Regards
Wayne
Sent from my iPhone
On 12 May 2009, at 07:56, "Ralph" <[email protected]> wrote:
Crowd Trouble At Millwall vs Leeds United - No Surprises There, Then
It comes as no great surprise that there was crowd trouble at the
match between
Millwall and Leeds United on Saturday, but this doesn't make another
flaring of
violence any more depressing. The timeline for these activities has
become
fairly predictable. The clubs' supporters spend a week or two
getting themselves
worked up on social networking sites and message boards. Then, on
the day, there
are enormous amounts of rather feeble looking posturing, a few
things get thrown
around and everybody sings vile songs about each other. In the case
of Millwall
and Leeds, Millwall sing songs about Istanbul and Leeds sing songs
about Neil
Harris' testicles.
At the end of it all, everybody goes home and fulminates over how
the other side
is "scum", seemingly without realising that they have more in common
with each
other than either side would like to admit. The one things that
Leeds and
Millwall have in common more than anything else is a bunker
mentality that is
best summed up by the familiar Millwall song: "no-one likes us, we
don't care".
Ironically, however, the "no-one likes us" part is something that
supporters of
both clubs could probably do something about if they chose to, but
the "we don't
care" part indicates that they have no particular desire to improve
their image
or, more importantly, their actual behaviour.
The reaction of Millwall would be encouraging if it wasn't exactly
the same as
they have said every time something like this has happened over the
last fifteen
years ago. They repeat the familiar mantra - that anybody arrested
will be
banned from the club for life - and then nothing happens and nothing
changes. At
least, however, Millwall have at an institutional level made efforts
to alter
the public's perception of them. At Leeds, Ken Bates has revelled in
the bunker
mentality, pulling off a unique double whammy of fleecing Leeds fans
(the first
thing he did upon taking over at Elland Road was to push up ticket
prices so
that they became the most expensive in the Championship) whilst
persuading them
that, well, no-one likes them and that they shouldn't care.
The return leg on Thursday night may or may not be a more sedate
affair. Neil
Harris had the last laugh on the Leeds fans taunting him by scoring
the only
goal of the match on Saturday, but perhaps some of the venom that
this match
seems to attract will be dissipated by a bigger crowd (over 38,000
are expected
at Elland Road on Thursday). Millwall's owners will certainly be
looking
mournfully at the crowd figures for Saturday's match. Just 13,228
turned out for
a match that one might have expected to fill the 20,146 capacity New
Den, and
the club have just cause for wondering how many people that might
have turned
out to support them were put off by the baggage that this particular
fixture
carries around with it.
- - - - -
Tis probably the best football blog on the net.
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