yid_old_boy

English not your first language?

Wasn't there, was this after our 1982 FA cup game at yours?

"We get on well with Melbourne Arse" That's probably why they don't like you.

Strange you call yourself Marmion, as it's a suberb of Perth I know Australia well and was never taken by Melbourne with its changeable weather, although the trams were a useful way of getting around the city. Good for sport though. I lived in St Kilda when I was out there. Liked Brizzie and Sydney best ( was there when the Cronulla race riots kicked off) although Adelaide was in credit. Perth was boring and isolated, although it helped having loads of ex pats . Made me appreciate blighty as the Aussies are a pretty odd, insular bunch.

Calm down, I'm not interested in cyber battles, it was just a roundabout question to melbourne blue whether they had an oz following out there. I know a lot of London clubs use the same pub down under as their base.

I was in Melbourne 2008 when Chelsea met the y*ds in the Carling Cup Final, watched it at the Charles Dickens pub, all y*ds - no Chelsea

That was in the league cup game in 75, not the league game in 78. I was at the Barry Kitchener testimonial v Spurs a few months later, and the speaker asks "who's here for Millwall?" and whole of the Den erupts, "And who's here for Spurs," and you could hear the proverbial pin drop.

I used to play club rugby after I stopped going to football matches and there are some right areseholes about, particularly the arrogant ex public school players. Like you when we played Millwall in 77/8 the home game on Easter Monday was a lot tamer than the away game that preceded it on Boxing Day, virtually a non event.

On the crowded underground back we get to Earls Court and in the carriage a yell goes up "Arsenal." Half the carriages alight and make a beeline for the muppets wearing red and white scarves until those at the front stop dead in their tracks. It's Welsh rugby supporters on the way back from Twickenham.

It was hardly at pitch invasion at Fulham, but there was a load of ours in the Fulham end singing "come and join us" so 20/30 of us took the opportunity to seek shelter from the elements.

Can you beat us? First one I can recall was that match in the 74/5 season which we won 2-0 with fighting just before kick off, then a week or so later when we beat Leeds 4-2 in a night game to secure survival in div 1 as we all spilled on at the end of the game to celebrate. Two years later, final game of the season as we beat Leicester but were relegated, chanting "Millwall here we come," and then in 78 at Southampton as we secure a draw. The fence gets ripped down and the Southampton fans who had been throwing missiles at us do a runner. Running the length of Craven Cottage into the Fulham end as it's pissing down with rain and we're getting soaked in the open end. But the best has got to be in the early 90s when me and the lad, aged 10, were about to depart a Gravesend v Colchester FA Cup game when we hear the bloke on the tannoy having kittens because a few Gravesend had dared to run on the pitch, and he was coming out with dire warnings like "for your own safety get off the pitch NOW!" so we decided to have a run on just to wind him up even more. Didn't some Millwall run from the North Stand to the Shed in 76/7?

No - but that was the year they won when they had all their star players like Micky Mills, Kevin Beattie, Paul Mariner etc. In the semi final they played WBA, the game after, and I think because of the nearby clash at Highbury, we kicked off at 2.30 rather than 3.00 so there was a mob walking up the High Road when their coaches came down, and a few windows got put in. Perhaps they had a quieter visit on their 3rd and final visit to London

More memories of the 70s I used to chat to this Chelsea fan on the train up to matches when we were both playing in London. He was a scarfer really, more interested in boring me with facts like Ron Harris was a better left back than Graham Wilkins so why did Shellito keep picking Wilkins? Or Maybank was as good a striker as Steve Finnieston, although he did admit that Hoddle was a better midfielder than Ray Wilkins (and so was Brady and Brooking for that matter). But being a Chelsea reg, fv was an occupational hazard of going to matches, especially away games. He was saying that in your div 1 days, pre 75, he was travelling to Liverpool away, I think by coach, when the Chelsea supporters suddenly brought out red and white scarves as they approached Liverpool while he was stuck with the away Chelsea scarf of green, red and white. So what he did to improvise was to stick that in his pocket with only the narrow red and white strips showing. He was in a quartette with Babs when they were set on, and while one of them escaped and he got away with a few punches and kicks, Babs came off pretty badly and he never saw the other bloke at football match again he was so badly battered. A bit later on he bluffed his way out of a dangerous situation with a fake scouse accent making out he lived in Runcorn, only because he remembered the place on the way up. The day you played Millwall at home in 76/7, we had Man U (busy day for the old bill) and 4 of us were drinking in Shakespeares pub outside Victoria a few hours before the game, when we realised we were outnumbered by Chelsea. We thought we'd finish our drinks and take our leave so me and a mate went to relieve our bladders and came out realising our other mates had already gone. Soon after a flurry of kicks and punches greeted us as we were chased out of the pub, which was the same treatment our 2 mates had received earlier. Like you, our reputations were enhanced after our visit to Millwall, which was needed after they scattered us in the Park Lane in a league cup game in 75. There was segregation so we were all in the Ilderton Rd end, none in the cbl like when you played them. A few of ours charged the fence on the halfway line, without success, until the police moved them down behind the goal. It was after it kicked off as they were waiting up the OKR with bricks, stones and the kitchen sink greeting us. The ones at the front were backing off into the residents grdens while those at the back were exhorting us forward and steaming in. My mate, who was with me at seven sistes for the Chelsea game, and at 21 was considered a veteran as well as being 6'4'' and had served time for fv in detention centre, decided discretion was the better part of valour so we turned round and caught the tube at the Elephant % Castle although I heard we put up a vg account. At least we'd shown our faces. I know a lot of W Ham don't rate us and in the first half of the 70s we didn't show and they took the shelf, but in the 76/7 season when we went down, we played them away (I didn't go) and there was a group of ours in the N Bank, with one of us flashing a bowie knife around, possibly ss. In the return match on New Years Day, some of them wanted to take the Paxton but I saw a few of our faces waiting on the concourse and when WH saw who was awaiting them they clambered back over the turnstiles. It was then 4 years before we played them again in the league cup in Dec 80. I was on my own since tickets were hard to get. I think most of the fighting occurred before the game when I was already inside the ground with the sound of police and ambulance sirens being heard in the distance. After I didn't see any trouble between the ground and the underground but honours even on the day. I did take in a WH game in 78/9 up at Cambridge as I had a mate who lived there. Their mob who steamed the home end would have been id'd for an AA film they were that young. Did their faces just come out for London derbies and Man U? Finally I was having a debate with this Chelsea fan about who was superior and things were getting a bit heated. He said to me "okay mate, if you're the dogs bollox, how come Man U always take thousands to WHL - which they did and always came off worst - yet never show at ours? He had me stumped on that. PS As a footnote, my mate who had served time, was first nicked at Norwich in the early 70s with Vic Donkin, our top boy. There was a Norwich fan also charged. Trying to impress after they'd all been let off with a small fine, my mate said to Vic, shall we do him? And Vic replies "leave him be." A couple of weeks later, my mate's drinking in the Corner Pin outside the Park Lane, when across the crowded room who does he see but the former Norwich fan giving him a cheery wave dressed up in Spurs regalia having changed his allegiancies. There's probably a moral to that story.

I know we're meant to hold each other in contempt but have always admired you lot. I was at the notorious game in April 75 and when I got in the ground at 2.50pm there were 3 separate rucks on the pitch. When we played you again in 78/9 me and my mate were on the train at seven sisters stn waiting to depart when we hear a roar on the platform from Babs and his cohorts who had got on a stop earlier. We stepped off onto the platform as they run past us and they then go through a train carriage and attack us from behind so my mate's nose is bust. We took a walk up the steps for a breather and when we returned things had calmed down. Didn't witness the brick fight that was meant to have happened outside. But whereas for us the aggro died down by the 80s you lot were still putting it about making hay at places like Cardiff, Cambridge, Brighton as well as your regular ding dongs with Leeds in that era. I know when you played Wolves in the last game of the 76/7 season and took 5,000 up there despite being banned, there was a night game in your first season back in div 1 when some of you went in their end near the conclusion of the game when the gates had opened and battered them. Your away support was on a par with ours as we regrouped after we were relegated in 76/7. Had more or less stopped going by the time we next played you in the FA Cup in 1982 as marriage and other demands took over. Perhaps if I'd supported Chelsea, I may have kept up my support a bit longer.