Results tagged “Millwall”

FOR ISLAND voters, the first fruits of their labours trickled in at around noon with the election of a new Millwall councillor.

The Wharf chased the action from Royal Docks to Tower Bridge as Ken Livingstone's eight-year reign as Mayor came to an end.

Millwall stays blue

Barclays senior banker Simon Rouse has overseen a massive turnaround in the fortunes of the Conservatives on the Isle of Dogs. In September 2004, he won the party's first ever seat on Tower Hamlets Council with a victory in Millwall ward.

Less than four years later, the Tories hold all six seats on the Island, and have effectively created a blue outpost in the Labour-run borough by throwing their weight behind residents on several local issues, from the proposed Barkantine post office closure to replacement bus disruption on Saunders Ness Road.

THE CONSERVATIVE party maintained their grip on the Isle of Dogs with a comfortable victory in Millwall ward.

Tory candidate David Snowdon picked up nearly half of the vote to retain the seat, which was vacated by former blue borough leader Simon Rouse earlier this year.

Labour's Fazlul Haque took Weavers ward from the Liberal Democrats, who were forced to fight a by-election after the resignation of Louise Alexander.

The announcement was made at around noon on Friday (May 2) at the ExCeL centre in Royal Docks.

Last weekend was a great one for Lions fans.

We got a massively important and unexpected win at league leaders Swansea, the teams around us in the table dropped points, West Ham got thrashed 4-0 for the third match running, Chelsea and Man Utd got embarrassed in the best domestic cup competition in the world and Bermondsey boxer David Haye sent Swansea boy Enzo Maccarinelli packing in just two rounds at The O2 in front of many ecstatic Lions fans.

The 2-1 win for Millwall last Friday (March 7) is by far our best win this season and came at a much needed time.

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.

THE sheer number of games played over the festive period gives clubs a great opportunity to embark on a winning run and dramatically move themselves up the table.
This is when the tables really begin to take shape and gaps can start opening up between teams in terms of points. That is why it was important that Millwall responded to a poor outing at Walsall where they lost 3-0 to follow up with two important home wins: 3-0 versus Brighton on Boxing Day and 2-0 against Crewe three days later.
One of the most pleasing, if slightly unexpected, aspects of the Brighton match was seeing Gary Alexander not only score his first goal of the season but then go on and get a hat-trick.

IT WAS a mixed week for Lions supporters as we got a great, if somewhat unexpected, away win on Tuesday in the derby match with League One high-flyers Leyton Orient.
But then we had our match away to Luton last Saturday called off just one hour before kick-off when most Lions supporters were either at the ground or very close by.
Personally, I was on my second pint at a nearby pub and was left frustrated at having to make another trip to Luton but this time on a midweek night.

ANOTHER game, another injury and another league defeat. Saturday afternoons are starting to feel like Groundhog days this season.
The latest instalment was a trip down to Bristol Rovers where our most experienced fit midfielder and top scorer, Alan Dunne, picked up an early injury meaning we now have 14 players out injured. We are really struggling to field a side and have six loan signings at the club just so we can put a team out.
We were suckers to a terrible penalty decision that not even the home fans appealed for. The luck is certainly out, in league games at least for the Lions.

LAST Saturday's 4-2 defeat away to Leeds underlined the need for the board to appoint a permanent manager soon.
Ideally we need to get someone who is fairly experienced in the lower leagues who can then assess the squad we have at the club and look towards moving us up the league.
The longer we stay down the wrong end of the table, the more the confidence will sap away from both the players and the supporters and relegation will become something that everyone will start to fear. Once this fear grips the club, that's when you are in trouble.

THE time was finally up for Willie Donachie this Monday (October 8), when following a Board meeting, the club parted company with him.
It was definitely a decision that they were reluctant to make, but in the end a 4-0 defeat at Carlisle sending us to the bottom of League One forced them to make this decision now.
Lions supporters had been quite vocal recently as we expected better things this season and were starting to get increasingly worried about relegation and the detrimental impact that could have on the club's future. The general consensus was that we could not see the current management team getting us comfortably out of trouble so something needed to be done.

TIME is running out for Willie Donachie after three consecutive home defeats.
Indeed, if by the time you read this we have lost on Tuesday night against Northampton, it could well be the end of the road for Donachie as Millwall manager.
As I have been banging on about for most of the season, Donachie is seemingly making it hard for himself.

WE MAYonly be seven games into the season and really far too early for managers to be sacked purely on their team's results. But make no mistake about it, Willie Donachie is under pressure to get better results soon.
Supporters have so very frustrated by the poor start to the season and in particular the pretty inept performances, that invites are being sent out to join Facebook groups 'We Want Donachie Out' and 'Sack Donachie'.
This is a massive turnaround from last season when Donachie was pretty much hailed as the Messiah and everyone was looking forward to the start of this season. What has astonished most supporters is that the slump has seemingly been self-inflicted by Donachie. It seems obvious to our supporters that the personnel being used is not the best team that we could and should be playing.

IT HAS been a pretty hectic time down at The Den recently with several changes to the playing staff. The aim is to give the team more firepower to correct our lack of goals.
Coming in, we have seen two young Premier League reserve players: Jamie O'Hara, an attacking midfielder from Spurs, and Jay Simpson, a striker from Arsenal.
O'Hara is a local Bermondsey boy whose family are Millwall season ticket-holders, so that is a good start in the eyes of Lions fans. He has made a couple of substitute appearances already and we expect him to push Alan Dunne hard for his starting spot in the team. Dunne has been coming in for a fair amount of stick from fans this season. Hopefully this competition for places might push him on to better things.

WELL, that's it for another season at The Den.
A season with high hopes before it began soon gave way to grave concerns of relegation, until an amazing upturn of form saw us finish not far short of qualifying for playoffs. It certainly was an eventful
season with yet more managerial and chairman changes to add to the many of the preceding 12 months.

LAST weekend's one-nil victory over promotion-chasing Bristol City will be a massive confidence boost to Millwall players, management, directors and supporters alike to carry over to next season.
Quite clearly under Willie Donachie's management the Lions are good enough to be contenders for promotion next season.
Off the pitch the Millwall Supporters Club (MSC) announced their player of the season poll results in which nearly 2,000 supporters voted.

THEY say 'it's grim up north' and for the 350 faithful Lions fans that travelled to Huddersfield on Saturday, not only was it grim, but downright frustrating.
We watched a match that we were certain Millwall would win comfortably turn into a disappointment that we hadn't felt for sometime, with us losing 4-2 to a team that were below us in the league table.
I can't blame individual players for a poor pitch performance, nor can I justify the result by saying Huddersfield were the better team. I can, however, cite the nonchalant attitude so evidently displayed by the Lions for the overall lacklustre display that left us feeling more than disgruntled.

LIKE many fans on Saturday, I left the Den feeling frustrated that, despite a fighting display by Millwall and Tranmere on the pitch, our dreams of gaining a place in the play-offs seemed all but over.
Our success this season has, yet again, been marred by changes on and off the pitch, but Willie Donachie's takeover of the reins of the playing squad has been pivotal to our success. The team have (finally) bonded and can be seen to communicate with each other. The camaraderie that existed under Dennis Wise as player/manager has returned. The players respect and value Willie's leadership and professional attitude.
Willie has insisted the team should be pushing for a place in the play-offs.

WITH time running out in this campaign and thoughts turning to next season and a hopeful promotion push, now seems a good time to take stock of the current situation and see if Millwall FC are in a better situation than 12 months ago.
Looking at the playing staff, this time last year we were in free-fall, destined for relegation from the Championship with plenty of people out of contract and several loan signings at the club on a short-term basis.
Now we are in a much better position and have a better motivated playing staff than we had even at the start of the season, after Spackman did his kid in the sweetshop routine of signing every player who was willing to come to us on trial.

IT ALL seems a bit soon to talk about Millwall's season effectively being over, but that is true in terms of promotion and relegation.
After a great run of form fears of relegation were removed but then just one point from nine meant play-offs hopes also disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. The management
team and players have made the right noises about keeping on trying to win every game until it is mathematically impossible to make the play-offs, and then to try and win as many games anyway to take the form into next season. This is important to us supporters; the team owe that to us as we have paid our hard-earned cash to see them perform and we obviously don't like to see any team come to SE16 and leave with three points, especially in this division.

ONE of the most annoying things about supporting a lower league club is international week.
There are a huge amount of supporters of lower league clubs that follow England all round the world. And yet the FA still insists on playing a full lower league programme on international weekends. This is mindless and a real slap in the face for us dual followers of both club and country.
Although things might start to change over the next few years, at the moment England tickets at many away games are like gold dust. You have to really go some to get in the top 700 fans in the country, to allow you to qualify for a ticket for Estonia for example. Therefore the club vs country debate does not really come into it. You can't even contemplate missing an international game because you slip another 500 places down the pecking order. Then your chances of getting tickets for small venues slip away a bit like Steve McLaren's hopes of England qualification!

OFF the pitch there has been a worrying development, in my view.
Last Friday Graham Ferguson Lacey took a 14 per cent stake in the club and supporters are becoming increasingly concerned over his aims for Millwall.
It is possible that this gentleman will add to his holding piece by piece and possibly block the American Consortium Chestnut Hill Venture's #5million investment for stake offer in the club which goes to vote at the EGM on March 31.

THE Lions are on the charge at the moment, completing their 10th win in the last 13 matches when they beat Carlisle 2-0 at home last Saturday.
That meant that the play-offs were only five points away with 10 games to go. With West Ham and Charlton doing their best to get relegated and Palace more than likely staying put in the Championship, it could be a great division for us Lions fans with more than a few local derbies in the offing.
Although, despite the great run we have been on, taking us from relegation certainties to play-off hopefuls, lots of our fans are much more cautious.

THERE is good news for Millwall supporters as the potential American investors mentioned in this article last week came to the party and invested a welcome #5million in the club.
The desperate need for this investment was demonstrated by the poor trading figures for the previous six months that saw a near #3m loss.
The investment has come from Boston-based consortium Chestnut Hill Ventures, led by John G Berylson, who has interests in financial services, retail, property and sport.