Bush Robbers

On September 1, 1990, I attended my first football match in London. That was at the Old Den, where Millwall beat Barnsley 4-1. I don’t remember much of this match in the old Second Division, except that I arrived fifteen minutes late at New Cross Gate. I had forgotten that the UK was an hour earlier than the Netherlands. Because of that, I missed the walk-on music, with the sing-along lines: Everybody knows us were called Millwall / Let em come, Let em come, Let em come, Let em all come down to The Den.

That the stadium was dilapidated probably didn’t occur to me. That’s what all stadiums looked like in those days, even in the Netherlands, from the Goffert to the Geusselt. Any true Groundhopper can only look back with nostalgia at the old photos of The Den. The stadium had evolved over the years, higgledy-piggledy, and not been designed. A bit English, then. Crooked tribunes, No symmetry. Classic terraces. Long ago, spectators climbed the floodlight masts for a better view, or simply because there was no more room in the stands.

I was just in time, because three years later The Den was demolished to make way for The New Den, on the other side of Surrey Canal Road next to a car scrapyard on Zamba Road and a trailer park. The stadium is sandwiched between the railway tracks. Yuppie flats are gradually creeping closer. It is not a bad stadium—it has four open corners, for example—but it cannot match its predecessor. Where the old Den stood, there is now a new housing estate with street names that refer to former players of The Lions.

The most famous stand of the old ‘lion cage’ was Cold Blow Lane. That was where the feared hooligans, the so-called Bushwackers, were seated. Sometimes I cycle along Cold Blow Lane. There are no street signs there, because they are taken as souvenirs as soon as they are put up. I also regularly cycle past the new Den, along the railway tracks on my way to the city. During Millwall home games, this cycle path is closed, because then it’s used as a safe route for the away fans. Home fans call it the ‘Cowards’ Way’.

On ordinary days, it is by no means a safe route after sunset, as street robbers may be lurking in the bushes on both sides of the bike path. They do not target opposing football fans, but unsuspecting cyclists.