Huddersfield Town v Millwall
The Sky Bet Championship
Saturday January 11th - 3:00 ko
at The John Smith's Stadium
Huddersfield Town welcome Millwall to the John Smith's Stadium on Saturday for a three o'clock kick off. Yes, three o'clock. Have West Yorkshire Police finally been shamed into putting this fixture back to the correct time after every police force in the country but ours have had no problem containing around 100 travelling Millwall supporters? There were more luminous jackets than away fans last season!
The corresponding fixture last year saw the Lions devoured by our dynamic strike partnership of James Vaughan and Jermaine Beckford. Becksy was the star of the show, scoring twice, one from an impossible angle after robbing Danny Shittu on his own goal-line, as Town won 3-0 in one of the key matches in the great survival. And earlier this season we got a rare victory down at the Den, with young Mr Vaughan scoring again.
Millwall have famously got a bad reputation for the behaviour of their fans and then this week they go and appoint this thug as their new manager.......
Yes, Ian Holloway, who on his last visit to Huddersfield, as Crystal Palace manager, assaulted Town director Ann Hough as she got in his way as he rampaged through the stadium trying to get to Alan Lee.
Surely he will not be made welcome at the John Smith's Stadium on Saturday.
It's not the first time he has had a go at Huddersfield Town. He was the one, as Bristol Rovers manager, who told Marcus Stewart that he was an idiot and would be wasting his talent signing for a rubbish club like Huddersfield Town. Then last season, he lambasted the travelling Huddersfield Town support for suggesting that "Blackpool is a shithole".
There are many more instances of when this idiot has shown disrespect to this club and it's supporters, too many to list here.
He must be made to know on Saturday that he is not welcome here.
Team news: Town have Chris Atkinson and Jimmy Spencer available again after their loan spells in the lower leagues came to an end. Peter Clarke, the inspirational skipper, is still sidelined with his knee injury, but Joel Lynch could be fit again after limping off at Burnley and missing the Grimsby cup tie. James Vaughan is still another week away from being considered after the result of his scan on New Year's Eve revealed that he needed to rest for a fortnight.
Millwall's Jermaine Easter will be suspended for this match, having been sent off in the FA Cup defeat at Southend on Saturday. Jack Smith got a nasty head wound, which required stitches, in that match, but he is expected to be ok for Saturday. Paul Robinson, Liam Trotter and Scott Malone have all been out injured, but all three have now joined in training and could come back for this one. Liam Feeney though is definitely out with a hamstring injury.
A brief history of Millwall FC: They haven't actually played in Millwall since 1910. Formed as Millwall Rovers in 1885 by the workers of a canning factory, mainly Scottish lads who had come down to work at the new plant opened in 1872 by the Aberdeen based company, JT Morton. They played at four different venues in Millwall before moving to New Cross in 1910 to play at The Den.
The old Den
They joined the Football League in 1920/21 with the newly formed regional Third Division and one of their biggest results in those early years was beating the thrice champions, Huddersfield Town, 3-1 in the 1926/27 FA Cup. And in 1937 they reached the FA Cup semi finals, losing 2-1 to Sunderland at Huddersfield Town's Leeds Road Stadium.
They were on the brink of the First Division, with Town legend Dave Mangnall in charge, when the Second World War broke out. The Den took a pounding from the Luftwaffe and when the war was over, so was Millwall's chance of reaching for the sky. By the end of the 1950s they had plummetted down the league and when the third divisions went national, they were in the 4th division. They won promotion in 1964/65 though and have never been back to the 4th tier.
A steady climb upwards led to the eventual promotion to the top flight of English football in 1988/89 under the management of John Docherty and with the goals of Tony Cascarino and Teddy Sheringham. They stayed there for a couple of seasons, finishing 10th in the first one, before finishing bottom in the second.
In 1993 they moved ground, to South Bermondsey and the New Den. After initial success at the new all seater stadium, a slump saw them relegated in 1996, but as a third division club, they reached Wembley for the first time, losing the 1999 Auto Windscreens Trophy Final 1-0 to Wigan, a team who would become their nemesis by beating them again in the following season's Play Offs. They went up as champions in the season after this though, with a club record 93 points.
In 2004 they reached the FA Cup Final, losing to Man Utd 3-0, but as United had already qualified for Europe, this meant that Millwall would play in the following season's UEFA Cup. They lost in the first round to Ferencváros.
Relegated again in 2006, they won promotion back again in 2009/10, via the Play Offs, beating Swindon in the final at Wembley. They did, of course, beat us 2-0 on aggregate on their way there.
Last season, Millwall once again reached the FA Cup semi finals, losing again to their old nemesis Wigan by two goals to nil.
Sid James sings a tribute to the people of Bermondsey
Head to Head
The head to head record is dead level. Both teams have 18 wins each, with 6 draws. That's in all competitions. In league matches it's 16 wins each, with 5 draws.
The first meeting of the two clubs was in 1922 when Millwall were beaten 3-0 at Leeds Road as Town were en route to Stamford Bridge to our one and only FA Cup triumph to date, beating Preston 1-0.
There have been two televised 5-1 matches. The first was as a kid watching Keith Macklin introduce YTV's Sunday football programme with Town losing 5-1 down at the Den in 1969. The second one however was much better, with the BBC Match of the Day cameras witnessing the magical Mick Buxton team take apart the hapless Lions 5-1 in 1983.
More recently there were those Play Off matches, but enough said already about that.
So what have modern day Millwall got?
They come here on the back of an embarrassing 4-1 defeat away at Southend in the FA Cup, under the caretaker stewardship of Harrison Fitzgerald, who sounds like a film star, but is actually two people in the guise of Neil Harris (the club's all time leading goalscorer) and Scott Fitzgerald, the former Brentford manager. They were in charge of team affairs after Steve Lomas was sacked on Boxing Day following the 4-0 defeat at Watford. But now their futures at the club will be unclear following the newly appointed appointment of that knob Holloway as the new boss.
Caretaker managers, Harris and Fitzgerald
So who did Harrison Fitzgerald pick for the first XI in the last league game, a 3-1 home defeat to Leicester.
01 David Forde
02 Alan Dunne
28 Scott Malone
26 Nadjim Abdou
16 Mark Beevers
12 Shane Lowry
18 Richard Chaplow
10 Nicky Bailey
27 Scott McDonald
09 Steve Morison
11 Martyn Woolford
Substitutes:
03 Danny Shittu
04 Josh Wright
08 Jermaine Easter
13 Lee Martin
21 Jack Smith
41 Alfie Pavey
43 Stephen Bywater
One name on that subs bench who may be unknown to Town fans is 17 year old Alfie Pavey. He's a youngster who signed for Millwall at the end of last season, having scored 124 goals in that season for Maidstone United's junior side. He has scored over 300 goals in the last three years at that level and has been brought into the first team squad by Scott Fitzgerald, the Academy manager, when he was joint caretaker of the first team, a bit like Mark Lillis did when he was our caretaker and he brought some of his own boys through for their debuts. Pavey is still to make his debut and now that Harris and Fitzgerald are no longer in charge of first team affairs, he will probably be back at the local park playing for the junior team.
Recent form - Last six games:
Grimsby 2-3 Town
Burnley 3-2 Town
Town 5-1 Yeovil
Town 1-1 Derby
Brighton 0-0 Town
Town 0-1 Reading
Southend 4-1 Millwall
Millwall 1-3 Leicester
Doncaster 0-0 Millwall
Watford 4-0 Millwall
Millwall 0-2 Middlesbrough
Blackburn 3-2 Millwall
Millwall are 21st in the league with 22 points, that's 9 less than we have. Town are 13th on 31 points.
The Lions haven't won for six matches. The last win was on December 7th, a 2-1 win at home to Wigan, a bit of revenge for the semi final defeat. Since then their only partial success has been a goalless draw at Doncaster.
Club connections:
Scott McDonald of the current Millwall squad played for Town. An Australian international, born in Melbourne, he came to this country and played in Southampton's youth side, but only made two appearances at first team level before being loaned out to Huddersfield Town. He played 13 uninspiring games for us, scoring once in a defeat at Tranmere.
It was a big surprise to Town fans then when a few years later he was starring in the Champions League and scoring the winning goal for Celtic against the mighty AC Milan.
Earlier, he had joined Celtic from Motherwell and in his time in the SPL he bagged over a hundred goals. In 2010 he left Scotland and came down south to Middlesbrough, signing for his old Celtic boss, Gordon Strachan. Last season, he scored two of the goals as the Smoggies beat us 3-0 at the Riverside.
He signed a new two year deal in the summer, but then inexplicably tore it up and moved to Millwall. I know Middlesbrough's a dump, but Millwall??
He has 26 caps for the Socceroos, without scoring, the last of which was earned in a 3-1 defeat at Easter Road against the Jocks.
Scott McDonald, winner against AC Milan.
Benik Afobe: is now 20 years old and still hasn't hit the big time. Well if he hasn't by the age of 20, he never will! Sorry, bit of jumpers4goalposts baiting there. Whatever's happened to him? Anyway, Benik was on loan at Millwall last season, but only played 5 times before a serious knee injury had him returning to Arsenal. He's been out now for 8 months but has started playing again in Arsenal's Academy team. Earlier last season, he had a spell playing for Bolton, but he will be most fondly remembered as a 17 year old playing in our team that couldn't quite make it through the play offs in 2010/11. Would we take him back again to help his recuperation?
Sam Allardyce: had one season at Leeds Road in the mid 80s, marked mainly by his sending off for chasing and punching a Fulham player. He'd obviously been watching the antics of the F-Troop in his time at Millwall a few years earlier. He had a couple of years at the Den and now as a manager could well become a Millwall legend by taking West Ham down.
Kenny Brown: came to Town on loan from West Ham in the mid 90s and was a good signing at the time. We never kept him though and after loans at five other clubs, he signed for Millwall. One season there and then dropped into the non-leagues. He is now manager of Chelmsford City in the Conference South.
Dave Mangnall: is a legend of both clubs. None of us will have seen him play though as this was back in the 1930s. He scored Town's record number of goals in a season (all competitions), the one record that Jordan Rhodes couldn't catch the other year. In 1934 he left Leeds Road for West Ham, then Birmingham and then on to Millwall where as player manager, he steered them to the FA Cup semi final in 1937. They were beaten by Sunderland at the neutral venue, Leeds Road. He took Millwall to promotion the following season, but as mentioned above in the history section, the war broke that team up.
Theo Robinson: is still only 24 years old, but is already at his ninth club. That's Doncaster Rovers, but the fifth and sixth clubs of his career were Huddersfield Town and Millwall.
Danny Schofield: signed from the non-league side, Brodsworth Welfare, by Peter Jackson, he spent ten years at Town before moving down south to play for Yeovil. From there he moved to Millwall and spent a couple of years there. He's now a Rotherham Utd player, but is out on loan for the season at Conference North side, Stockport County.
Millwall's celebrity fans: include the likes of Des O'Connor, Gary Oldman, Gregg Wallace and David Haye. But the most Millwall of all the Millwall celebrity fans is the Godfather of 606, Danny Baker.
I say the Godfather of 606 because that is what he is. Without him, none of this would be here. When Radio 5 Live first started broadcasting in 1990, the famous Sports Report moved from Radio 2 to the new station and it was Baker's idea to follow it at 6 o'clock with a fan's football phone in. The name came because that was the time it started, not at 6 o'clock, but after the news bulletin at 6:06. And of course this spawned the BBC 606 fan's forum from which this New 606 fan's forum sprang up from when the BBC, in it's wisdom, decided to close it down in a cost cutting exercise.
Following on from his 5 Live days, he had a go at television, presenting the long lost classic Pets Win Prizes, but eventually found his way back on to the radio.
In 2010, he was diagnosed with cancer, leading to his award of the Speech Radio Personality of the Year award for 2011 and 2012, awarded just in case he should die suddenly. Despite this, he was given the all clear a year later following chemotherapy.
He is now back on 5 Live on Saturday mornings and also presents a Friday evening football show on BT Sport.
Other Championship fixtures this weekend:
Friday:
Leicester v Derby (7:45) Sky Sports 1
Saturday:
Sheff Wed v Leeds (12:15) Sky Sports 1
Blackburn v Doncaster
Blackpool v Middlesbrough
Bolton v Nottm Forest
Brighton v Birmingham
Charlton v Barnsley
Ipswich v QPR
Watford v Reading
Wigan v Bournemouth
Yeovil v Burnley
Snooty's prediction: 3-0 to Town.
Snooty's Town line-up: unchanged
Over to you then:
Some talking points for you.
Should Plod have stuck with the dinner time kick offs?
Did you ever go to the Old Den?
Can Holloway turn Millwall around in the space of five days and beat the Town?
Can you name some of the other incidents when Holloway has shown utter disrespect to our club and it's supporters?
What's your starting XI? Use the fancy graphics if you want at http://this11.com/boards/editor