Millwall

Aug 2

League One preview – part II

Rivals, non rivals, I guess it depends where you live, but Gillingham under the growing reputation of manager Justin Edinburgh were one of the surprise packages last season, only a poor slide at the end seeing them miss out on a play-off place. Edinburgh will be looking to improve on a 9th placed finish and he has added well to his squad, although Lee Martin will miss the start of the season due to a bad injury picked up in a friendly.

Scott Wagstaff also joined from Bristol City and Paul Konchesky from Leicester, but who played 36 games on loan at QPR last season. Ex-Addick Josh Wright the captain at Priestfield. Has there ever been a time when the Gills has had no ex-Charlton players? They did lose centre-back Joe Egan to Brentford but importantly have kept the sought after Bradley Dack, at least until now.

Keeping Dack will be essential and Edinburgh may need to add to his squad before the deadline, but I expect Gills to be challenging for the play-offs again. Promotion 10/1. Relegation 7/1.
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May 20

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Depressing

Is it possibly the worst ever time to be a Charlton supporter?

Taking Charlton in isolation. Depressing with a forecast of further stormy times ahead.

But let’s look around us. Crystal Palace tomorrow play in a repeat of the 1990 FA Cup Final. The face-painted Palace ultra’s will stain Wembley again for the second time in a matter of weeks. That Charlton butcher Pardew played in the 1990 Final, in fact it was two games as United won in a Wembley replay. Mark Bright, John Salako and one for the older statto’s, David Madden also played in both games.

Palace at Wembley in the Cup Final. At least here I can bury my head in the sand. Depressing. As is the amount of money they are banking as they move to a different stratosphere to us financially. But we live in hope that Super Alan Pardew will f**k it up again.
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Apr 28

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Millwall relegated

The trapdoor finally opened for Millwall tonight as Rotherham beat Reading 2-1 to end the Lions 5-year stay in The Championship. Wigan, FA Cup winners two seasons ago are also relegated to League One.

Relegation for Millwall didn’t happen suddenly, the Lions have been treading water for a long while. This despite John Berylson backing Steve Lomas and Ian Holloway with the two biggest wagerolls in the club’s history. What Millwall fans want to hear now is that the American is going to stick with it.
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Apr 22

The end of the season is nigh

The end is looking nigh for Millwall after defeat at Blackburn last night. The deadly duo of Gestede and Rhodes banging another nail in the Lions’ coffin, only emphasizing how disappointing Rovers have been this season and I will be amazed if Gary Bowyer can keep his strike pair for another year in The Championship.

Millwall host play-off chasing Derby on Saturday and have to win. Rotherham have Norwich visiting and then their game in hand is at home to Reading next Tuesday. Next week is when the Millers should find out about their ineligible player. It is hard to see the Football League making such a crucial decision by docking Rotherham points, especially when they fined Blackpool £30,000, half of which was suspended, for a similar incident earlier this season.
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Apr 3

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Millwall 2 Charlton Athletic 1

For the entirety of the today’s game I was fortunate enough to be out on a boat off Amelia Island in Florida the captain navigating his craft through the islands of the inland waterway moving frequently across the Georgia and Florida stateline.

For almost the entirety of the game I had absolutely no signal on my phone. Disconcerting and liberating in equal measures.

My Livescore app found an ounce of satellite just as Diarra had given us a lead. The signal disappeared as quick as it had came until the game was in injury time. Typically my football club had capitulated for the umpteenth time to that lot. I banged out a text to my brother: “Every f—— time.” The reply was less polite.
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Mar 31

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Thoughts on Friday and looking to the summer

“We can’t be letting five/ten players go, we need consistency and I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on the ins and outs over the summer, that’s for sure.”

I have been impressed with what I have seen and heard from Stephen Henderson since he arrived in SE7 last summer. He has been very impressive in goal and speaks well, and clearly is enjoying his time at the club, despite his absence through injury.

If it wasn’t for the shoulder injury the Irishman would have by now played for the Addicks more than any other club in his career, which has spanned 8 years and 10 different teams, 11 if you include Aston Villa where he started in their youth team.

So it is no surprise that Henderson is so bullish, finally finding a club that has immersed him and where he has found some affinity. Interesting then that he was quoted as saying the above at the top of this post.
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Mar 10

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Holloway sacked

Sadly our friends from Bermondsey finally pulled the plug this morning on Ian ‘Ollie’ Holloway after six defeats in seven games has left them 8 points adrift of safety.

Only on Saturday Millwall owner John Berylson said “The decision I have made, in the best interests of Millwall and not for any other reason, is that we must stick with and support our manager more than ever at this time. I don’t believe that a change of manager would lead to different results.” Three days later Holloway who sounded and looked a spent force has gone, and will be replaced by first team coach Neil Harris.
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Nov 22

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Charlton Athletic 0 Millwall 0

A draw always seems like a victory when we play Millwall, although there was that one dreadful night in 1989, so I will take a point which sounded about the right outcome.

You can feel quite detached before games living overseas but not on days like today when I had already received texts from friends and family even before I got up as Addicks travelled to The Valley hoping this, this might just be the day.
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Nov 17

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Like a lot of Addicks of a certain age this fixture haunts me now as it did when I was a kid.

My brother and I grew up with a Millwall supporting family living next door. The two sons and us were very close well into our early 30’s, and at school in Catford there were many Millwall fans, no one supported Palace, because they were, well nothing. I had a load of mates that were Millwall, still have a couple and I used to occasionally go and watch them midweek in the 80’s when Charlton weren’t playing.

Our record against our local rivals is pathetic and I would argue, and one day I will do the research, probably the worst of any local derby rivals in English football. 11 wins in 68 league matches beginning in 1921. Incidentally 2 of those 11 wins came in the first two games in December 1921 and January 1922!
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May 2

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Who’s for the drop then?

There must be 626 Donny fans sat at home tonight still shaking their heads because that was how many were sat in the Jimmy Seed Stand on the afternoon of Saturday, 24th August looking on in disbelief as their own players took to sweeping water of The Valley turf with brooms, whilst Paddy Powell leant on his fork.

With Donny leading 3-1 at half-time, a half that lasted almost an hour and twenty minutes, referee Lee Collins finally abandoned the game. Paul Dickov called the whole affair “shambolic” and he was right.

I remember a couple of mates saying that with the way the game swayed before the break, we would have come back to win. This was August remember, before most of us had come to realize how rubbish we were to become.
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Dec 31

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Firing and firing

In America’s National Football League yesterday is known as ‘Black Monday‘ the day after the regular season ends. Six of the 24 franchises that did not make it through to the end of season play-off’s released or fired their head coach and the majority of the coaching staff on the one day. None of them were really a surprise and following the play-off’s NFL owners may still reach for the axe if coaches don’t live up to lofty expectations.

So, how is this different to English football? Well it’s not, except for one thing. Owners nearly always wait until the end of the season before making a head coach change, this despite the frying pan heat to win every week that a 16-game season brings, which for me makes the NFL season far more exciting than say a 162-game baseball regular season.
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Sep 19

Love thy neighbour

These days we probably have more in common with Millwall than we care to admit. Both clubs compete in the lighter-weight division when it comes to The Championship’s financial muscle. Steve Dixon wrote an excellent piece about both of our closest neighbours in the most recent VOTV, and made a good case that there is probably more affinity between the three of us than ever before.

Millwall’s chairman John Berylson threw a lot of money Steve Lomas’ way in the summer, as is often the way when owners appoint a new manager. I was quite impressed on paper with the ex-West Ham captain’s signings, but I wrote at the time that Lomas needed a good start or the natives would get restless. They are.
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Apr 30

16 years apart

Crystal Palace take their Class A drugs, fireworks and warm tins of McEwans to The Den tonight for what should be a firecracker of a game.

Ordinarily when these two clubs come together I favour the Bermondsey boys. I mean it’s not much of a choice is it, but if I had to say one it would be Millwall, but that was before tonight.
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Feb 15

School day memories

Back from a great but knackering week in Florida with work. I spent the last night of the trip with a client that owns the imposing Westin Diplomat in Hollywood north of Miami. They were very accomodating and it was a restful way to end the trip, which started in similar fashion last Sunday with a few beers with New York Addick on Ocean Drive in South Beach.

A weekend of not doing an awful lot is on the radar, although the weather here doesn’t appear to encourage doing much outside. Hopefully I can catch some of the FA Cup games on the telly, although the one I’d like to see doesn’t appear to be on.
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Jul 30

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Ready or not

“It was a battling performance from the visitors, who matched the Lions throughout a frenetic and absorbing match which will whet the appeitite among Addicks supporters for next Saturday against Bournemouth and the new season” – cafc.co.uk

I can’t help myself, but like a kid stood outside a candy store with his Dad’s wallet I’m a little beside myself with excitement a week from the opening day of the new season.
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