The fans' roar - Millwall FC column

By Tom Derbyshire on February 13, 2008 4:17 PM |

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Millwall fans' column by Ian Toal, Millwall Supporters Club

Millwall need to start to defend set pieces much better – otherwise we are in deep trouble.

On Saturday we faced a tough away game, travelling to play promotion-chasing Nottingham Forest, and matched them for the first half. That was only half the job done,
unfortunately, as come the second half we failed to deal with two corners and got punished and lost 2-0.

Simple stuff, but that is what we are falling down on at the moment.

At the other end of the pitch the forwards are now feeding off scraps, probably one of the reasons why one of our rejects, Adebayo Akinfenwa, is now fast becoming a cult hero at Northampton Town after netting two in two games.

At Millwall he did not have much supply while at Northampton he seems to be getting just that. No point in Millwall fans concerning themselves with how Akinfenwa is playing though, as that is all in the past now.

Travelling up to Nottingham and back in the car this weekend it was interesting listening to what the
supporters, pundits, players and chairman made of the idea of playing a 39th game of the Premier League season abroad. The funniest thing was listening to the chairmen saying that this was not a money-making exercise!

Yeah right, they must think football supporters were born yesterday. This idea has been entirely dreamt up with the sole aim of making money and without a care for the clubs’ match-attending supporters. Worryingly, this idea could well be the thin end of the wedge as supporters through the gate have become a secondary thought to Premier League chairmen after Sky TV money.

It even got me thinking how our supporters would feel if by some miracle Millwall were in the top league and we had to play a game abroad. As watching Millwall abroad is a very rare event for us, plenty of supporters would probably make the trip and have a holiday out of it but extending the season by an extra game is just wrong – it is currently bad enough sitting through a full league programme without having it extended by another game!

Considering we are at the wrong end of League One, we won’t be planning trips to Sydney, New York
or Beijing just yet. Millwall vs Swansea in Afghanistan seems a more likely venue.

Away from the football world, one of Millwall’s lesser known famous supporters, Daniel Day Lewis,
has been getting a lot of good press lately as he picked up best actor in the BAFTAs for his part in There Will be Blood.