Description: ‘This film looks over the history of Millwall FC, it’s players and fans. It’s a club which for some still carries the stigma of racism and stories of wilfull (sic) violence by fans’

Footage of the football ground, football matches and fans throughout.

24” Fans of different races talk about being Millwall supporters.

50” ‘The notion of Black Millwall as in black players and fans goes against stereotypes. It is often met with polite, and less polite, disbelief.’

1’05” Trevor Lee, Millwall winger from 19975, and Phil Walker, Millwall midfielder from 1975 say that there used to be very few black fans at that time but that Ian Wright was a fan and would attend home games.

2’10” ‘Millwall’s history is very much linked to the docklands of South London, and its people.’ Black and white picture of C.E. Morton, a warehouse building at the docks and other inside a warehouse.

2’25” A white fan says he’s a Millwall supporter but is still friends with a black Millwall supporter.

2’34” Trever Lee and Phil Walker talk to Jeff Burnige ( former chairman of Millwall FC and son of former Chairman Herbert Burnige), about the ground. The new ground, The Den, was built in 1993 The names of its stands ensure that the past remains present. Barry Kitchener was one of the Millwall’s ‘legends’, making over 500 appearances between 1966 and 1982 and one of the stands is named after him. (Footage of Kitchener scoring a goal). 3’23” Another stand is Cold Blow Lane which was a road leading to the old stadium. The Dockers Stand refers to the Millwall match marking the end of the working week for the dockers. Jeff Burnige says he changed his wedding day because it coincided with a match.

4’ Fans share memories of supporting Millwall. Footage of Millwall Writers Group speaking at Goldsmiths (University of London). Fans talk about how long they have been fans, the first times they went to a Millwall match and their memories of these matches. Anthony Lynch says that as a child he was passed over the heads of fans to get to the front and passed back again later to get to his dad. Stan Goodwin talks about being in an unsegregated crowd of 44,000 in 1967. People were allowed in with wooden football rattles and banners.

6’35” A fan states that a typical Millwall supporter is white working class. Another fan said that was the case when he first came and a lot of the supporters were dockers but there’s more money about now. Ron Bell says it was those who lived within 5 miles of the stadium and walked to the stadium. He talks about being invited to a match by a friend’s dad and everyone knowing each other. He says at half time he would to the Cold Blow Lane end because that’s where all the singing went on. He talks about it being rough and ready with people going to the toilet in the stands.

8’36” Fan, John James, says players were expected to work hard at the club. Ron Bell says that when he first started going to Millwall matches there would be around 3500 supporters in a ground with a 16,000 person capacity, which meant that everyone knew each other. The Millwall Writers Group discuss the songs they used to sing (footage of fans on the pitch).

10’15” A Millwall fan who is a taxi driver talks about picking up a rival Crystal Palace supporter who spent the journey criticising Millwall until the taxi driver’s patience snapped and he let the man know what he really thought about Crystal Palace. Ron Bell talks about how fans would bond travelling to away games.

12’08 Millwall fans had a hierarchy and specific names such as CBL (Cold Blow Lane) and F Troop. CBL were the ‘hooligan end’ made up of mainly youngsters and F Troop were the higher level with older members. Footage of singing fans. Ron Bell talks about mainly supporting Millwall when they were in the third division and talks about the reputation for violence building. He discusses getting to away days and working out whether they could afford it. They would sometimes hire a driver and van. Footage of a fan in a lion suit on the roof of the stand. Bell talks about the fun the fans would have on these days.

15’33” Map of the area in the 1940s when it was dominated by the docklands, light industry and the white working classes in Southwark and Lewisham. Report of the Den being damaged in April 1943 and the team returning to the ground a year later (photo of a match with the wreckage of war-damaged buildings in the background).

15’54” Commentary talks about immigrants arriving on the Windrush and other boats and settling in Millwall areas such as Peckham, New Cross, Deptford and Camberwell. 16’04” Lord Ouseley (House of Lords Crossbencher) says it was a novelty being black in Peckham in the late 1950s/early 60s. Norman Garcia says that there weren’t that many black people in the area at the time and they would stay separate from white people. Lord Ouseley says that only 2 out of 1700 students in his school were black in 1957 but this had increased to a couple of hundred in 10 years. Ron Garcia says he still goes to matches with friends he’s known all his life.

17’35” Footage of the Nags Head in Camberwell Green. Quince Garcia talks about the pub being a meeting place for fans from Millwall but also other clubs and that everyone gets on. There is a sense of community. People have a pint and pie and mash before going to the game. Footage walking around a housing estate where Quince lived. He talks about playing football outside his flat and on the gravel pitch in Burgess Park (footage here) and the players they would pretend to be (footage of old matches).

20’38” Millwall became a top flight club at the end of the 1980s when Tony Cascarino and Teddy Sheringham were playing, but most of the time they did not do well. Quince Garcia says he got fed up with being the underdog team.

21’24” Ron Bell says the fans were like a family who looked after each other, particularly when going to away games. Home games were more of a ‘meet up’. Footage of current fans talking about Millwall’s prospects in a game and young school-age fans talking about their favourite players. Bell talks about the organisation involved in meeting up for away games and knowing where to go (including the pubs where the rival teams drank, in order to ambush them) in the days before mobiles .

23’40” Outsiders find it hard to understand why black people supported Millwall with their racist reputation. John James says both that fans didn’t look at colour, that it was ‘just Millwall’ but also that there were racist things going on in the ground, like chants and bananas being thrown on the pitch. Norman Garcia says that chants were sung about everyone e.g. if they were fat or Scottish. Being black made for an obvious target but he just saw it as part of the way things were. He says he wasn’t too bothered about the racism and had white friends. Ron Bell says being black wasn’t an issue.

26’37” ‘Some clubs had black fans who developed a following, like a “firm”. At Millwall there was a big man called Tiny.’ Ron Bell says there weren’t many black fans and players in football but there were some prominent ones with a ‘firm’ that became well known around the different clubs. Fans talk about Tiny (photos of Tiny). Norman Garcia talks about how they became a firm.

28’58” Footage of Phil Walker scoring. In 1978 West Bromwich Albion signed three black players which was seen as a landmark in English football. However Millwall had already signed two black players, Phil Walker and Trevor Lee, in 1975. Jeff Burnige says it wasn’t difficult for them to break into the team. Walker and Lee talk about doing a trial for the club and playing in the first team within less than a week (team photo with them in). It was unclear how they would be accepted but Jeff Burnige’s, father, who was from Bermondsey, said to have faith in the working class fans who would support the underdog. Walker and Lee said they were young and had no hesitation in joining Millwall. They just wanted to play professional football. Fans talk about them being accepted. Phil Walker says that over a couple of months when he was injured, he watched as Millwall fans went from calling Trevor Lee racist names to calling him Trevor as he played so well. The feeling was that as long as you worked hard at the club the fans would support you. Away team fans would call them racist names though in order to try to unsettle them.

35’36” Jimmy Abdou, Millwall’s longest serving black player (2008-2018), says he left that part of the game alone and just tried to enjoy playing (footage of him playing). Footage of the Jimmy Abdou testimonial, Millwall vs VfL Bochum 28/7/18). He talks about giving his all to the club.

38’34” Fans talk about the days of the National Front in the area and how in Lewisham they said they were going to recruit members from white, working-class people from the terraces (pictures of the national front, anti-racism protests and England/Millwall flags). Anthony Lynch talks about the Bulldog, the National Front paper, being sold and his father, a socialist, swearing at the seller and telling him to leave.

39’28” Ron Bell talks about having racist abuse shouted at his family and his daughter’s football teammates, and a police cone thrown at them, when walking past the Barnaby pub after a match. The incident was reported by a fellow football fan on a website where it was said that it was a shame to see racist abuse and that Bell was a bigger Millwall fan than most.

41’43” Neil Bradley says his dad stopped going to matches in the early 70s because he thought the fans were ‘lunatics’. In 1977 BBC Panorama made a film about the club but it was ‘not what the club expected’. Manager, Gordon Jago, invited the BBC to come and film the achievements of the club but Jeff Burnige says they were very badly let down and are still to totally recover from the programme. He says it destroyed the work they had done in creating a new view of what Millwall should be. Millwall became the scapegoat in the sense that hooliganism was seen as their problem rather than a football problem. Former Chairman Reg Burr is quoted as saying ‘ Millwall is a convenient peg for society and football to hang their troubles on’.

44’43” ‘The riots that came to dominate the 1985 FA Cup match between Luton and Millwall (13/3/85) marked a low point of hooliganism in Britain’. ‘But the riots are also seen as symptomatic of wider conflicts in 1980’s society’. Fans talk about it being at a time of Thatcherism, the miners’ strike (1984-1985), the Wapping dispute (1986-1987), the Broadwater Farm Estate riots (1985), the Brixton riots (1981, 1985). The Millwall Writers group talk about what the match was like and how there could have been a real disaster. Neil Bradley said the police were set upon and Thatcher then felt she had to be seen to be doing something about it. Stan Goodwin says that under Thatcher all football fans were treated as hooligans and she compared them to militant trade unionists and the IRA.

47’43” Fans discuss Millwall’s treatment by the media, which is said to paint Millwall in a negative light. Lord Ouseley says people need to look beyond the headlines and understand the facts in order not to arouse prejudices.

49’59” Song about Bermondsey plays over old black and white photos of the grounds and local area in wartime segueing into modern footage of the club grounds . 50’44” Commentator talks about the feeling that the post-industrial London is ‘closing in on the Den’ and describes how financial and commercial buildings have taken the place of the docks at the heart of the area. Many life-long fans have moved away and new fans come to matches. Many foreigners attend now. Ron Bell says far fewer numbers of supporters live within 5 miles of the grounds. Lord Ouseley says that despite this, most supporters will remain loyal to the club and come back to watch matches. Neil Bradley says that with the gentrification of the area, he and the others like him in the Millwall Writer’s group are the last of the old fans.

54’05” The commentator links Millwall’s history to the Thames and the docks. Footage of Barry Kitchener talking about the club moving within Bermondsey and scenes at the end of the match, with fans taking pieces of turf. The commentator talks about the future of the club, with a move to Kent possible as Lewisham council want to develop the land around The Den. Jeff Burnige says he would hate to see that happen as Millwall is an inner city club. He says they have to bring new people from the immediate area into the club.

56’56” Lord Ouseley says that migration and zenophobia still dominate mainstream British culture but are not based on facts and rationality.