Millwall really need to work a lot harder to get more people at The Den

WHEN I said I preferred to see high-scoring, entertaining games whether we win, lose or draw as opposed to dull 1-0 wins, I didn’t expect the players to take me so literally.

There is clearly no danger of Steve Lomas’ Millwall being involved in a dour, park the team bus type performance, as Lions fans were treated to yet another end to end game with a 2-2 draw against table-toppers Burnley on Saturday.

Perhaps there is a Lomas inspired revolution in the wind, as every Millwall fan I know cannot deny we have been playing some of the best football in years under the Northern Irishman.

Why then aren't more fans flocking to The Den to see these exciting matches?

If you subtract the number of Burnley fans from the official match attendance on Saturday, then only nine thousand odd home fans bothered to show up.

This was for a Saturday 3pm kick-off against the league leaders with a Kid for a Quid offer and off the back of two encouraging performances.

I suppose you could say while entertainment is a big factor in football, it is still inescapably a results business and draws, even exciting ones, don't pull in the crowds like winning matches does.

But I believe it goes deeper than that when it comes to Millwall, there’s an inherent cynicism which comes with being a Lions fan that eventually gets to many of us.

I know most football fans feel this way about their clubs to some degree, but with us it’s slightly different.

It’s hard to explain, but there's definitely something unique and complicated about our particular brand of apathy.

I have always believed Millwall’s fan base isn’t that much different to the likes of Watford's, Charlton's, or Palace's in terms of size.

Yes, all of the above have the ability to attract far more unattached families than we do, and all have a much more promising immediate catchment area than us too.

But when it comes to what counts as a tangible supporter base ie those with a real and emotional tie to the club, then I don't think that there’s that much in it, with Palace probably at a shade the best supported of the four.

Yet those other clubs see a much higher percentage of their fan base turn up on a regular basis than we do, Charlton especially.

OK, all of those clubs mentioned above have had more success than us, but fans are fickle and have short memories, yet Charlton have been poor for a few years now but still get on average five thousand a game more than we do.

What I think it’s down to is Millwall as a football club really aren’t worth supporting.

I don’t mean that in a disparaging way, it’s just a realisation many of us come to at some point in our Millwall supporting lives.

We are a club literally supported by just the hardcore of fans who have enough disposable income and free time, or are mad enough, to indulge in such a pointless past-time as cheering the Lions on.

This doesn’t mean the rest of the fans who stay at home don’t care, it’s just they can’t shake the feeling it's not really worth the bother.

There's no one reason behind it, it's more a combination of reasons other clubs simply don't have to deal with.

Of course we also suffer the same problems that most unfashionable clubs do, such as the odd relegation every now and then, a lack of ambition and the selling off of our best players on the cheap, but we have even more baggage too.

Some of the reasons are more relevant than others, but they are all factors in why more Millwall fans stay at home than go to games regularly.

Believe it or not, there are some Millwall fans out there who don't like being associated with all the negativity which comes with supporting the Lions, and find every off-field incident tedious and embarrassing.

Those of us who go regularly don't really worry about that.

After all it was when the club was down to three to five thousand in the early to mid 1980s due to rampant hooliganism and bad press that ‘no-one likes us, we don’t care’ became our anthem.

I have always thought of this adopted siege mentality as the beginning of Millwall as a cult rather than a football club, and while this has helped us survive some tough times, not everyone is keen to be a part of it.

Nearly every other club has seen their crowds recover to 1960s levels, before the hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s drove people away, whereas ours have stagnated at pre Sky and Euro96 boom levels.

Our early 1990s peers such as Portsmouth, Charlton and Watford have overtaken us, while the likes of Reading, Wigan and Swansea have come from behind, and Bournemouth and Doncaster are fast catching up.

Let's be honest, our metaphorical one finger salute to the rest of the world is hardly conducive to the running of a successful profit chasing business in need of more customers, bigger sponsors and talented employees, is it?

I think most of those type of stayways could get over the negativity if our rent-a-mob element didn't have such a disastrous affect on the club, though.

Every time we look like making progress they come out and bring it to a grinding halt.

The riot after the Derby play-off in 1994 dashed any hopes of a fresh start at a new stadium, and the riot after the Birmingham City play-off in 2002 knocked five thousand off average gates overnight as a members-only policy was quickly brought in.

And our FA Cup semi-final this year at Wembley, an occasion which would have benefitted any other club, I believe alienated the manager and rather than attract more floating fans, put them off because of the mass brawl beamed around the world.

Moreover, I'm positive any other club blessed with the team that we had in 2002 would have been able to dust themselves down and gone again for another tilt at promotion the following season having not had to deal with the fall-out of a major riot.

And if you think the publicity surrounding the bottle throwing incidents, the racism exposés and every other small, but regular incidents doesn't have a massive impact on the club then you're too indoctrinated in the cult to notice.

But many do notice, and they say to themselves ‘what's the point in handing over money for a season ticket when this club hasn't got any chance of progressing?’

They reason they might as well save their money until the club shows them that it might do something.

However, given all of this, we can't sit around moaning about it, we are what we are as a club.

Furthermore, I'd argue the biggest impact on our crowds is the club itself.

The amount of fans who don't go through frustration with the affect silly incidents and our resulting image has on the club pale into insignificance compared to the ones who don't go because the powers that be at Millwall don't fully understand the culture of the club I told you it was complicated.

There's the over the top stewarding, the sometimes bizarre banning orders, the poor treatment of the Junior Lions, the weak stance towards the police and the promotion of PR stunts to make Guardian readers happy over things our working class fans would actually like to see just for starters.

I mentioned this last week, but how on earth can you support a club that doesn't sell the maximum amount of tickets possible for a big match because the police say that you're not allowed?

Ridiculous.

How can a club go on like this and hope to grow and be successful?

Then there's the fact the club do very little to encourage the lapsed fans back.

To be fair you can't really argue with the season ticket prices, and in my opinion match day prices, while expensive in real terms, are competitive with southern divisional rivals.

However, ticket promotions by the club are always poorly carried out.

The Kids for a Quid offer on Saturday was only available for Junior Lions and not potential new fans, and other offers have had so many restrictions placed on them - be it that they must be bought before the Saturday or are members only - they are hardly worth the bother.

Charlton often allow anybody to walk up on the day of a game to take advantage of a particular offer with no restrictions whatsoever.

They also build the discounted games into their season ticket pricing, meaning loyal fans don't feel short changed, and so they can charge as little as £5 for ticket promotions.

You'd like to think that Millwall will pull out all the stops for our Sky match with Middlesbrough on the last shopping weekend before Christmas, but I won't hold my breath.

They could also try and market the club better.

If some of our own fans find our reputation jarring, what chance do the club think they have of replacing all the banned fans with nice, middle-class families?

Instead we should perhaps promote this idea of Millwall being a bit of a cult club.

The floating fans of London we should be chasing are those who don't like cheerleaders or manufactured singing areas etc, but who prefer a more old fashioned atmosphere.

I think there's enough unattached young football fans, Eastern Europeans and disenchanted fans of big clubs out there who could catch the Millwall bug if enticed to a few games.

What about posters along train and bus routes to The Den asking people ‘Why be a sheep, when you could follow the Lions?’ alongside ticket details and photos of a partisan Millwall crowd for a start.

After all, there's two types of reactions I get when I say I'm a Millwall fan - disgust or fascination.

The former wouldn't touch us with a barge pole anyway, whereas the latter could be swayed.

Whatever happens the club need to do something to get more lapsed fans and a new generation of locals through the turnstiles.

Because as some have already realised, a Championship club pulling in less than ten thousand home fans is a pointless one to support in the long-term, and are only good for day trips to Wembley or one off big games.

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