A year of ups and downs at The Den

Don’t despair, though, he will be back in August to do it all again next season when the Lions begin their third campaign in the Championship.

SO, the Lions ended the season as they started it with an entertaining 2-2 draw.

I was at the first game, away to the eventual champions Reading, and it looked like we could have a very decent season ahead of us.

We played some good passing football and scored two very good goals.

However, we also looked very vulnerable down the flanks and Reading, in what became their trademark over the season, came back and grabbed a point in what seemed like fortunate circumstances.

To the players’ credit, they didn’t settle for the draw but instead went searching for what would have been a deserved winner and were inches away from doing so.

The very last game against Blackpool followed a very similar pattern.

Millwall played some good football and scored two very good goals, only to have their weaknesses exposed by a decent Blackpool side who grabbed a point, when a late Lions winner would have not been unfair.

The season that was sandwiched in-between these two games was a very strange one indeed.

Sadly, more often than not we saw those same weaknesses exposed time and time again.

But, on the flipside, there were glimmers of what this team were capable of, the consecutive thrashings of Ipswich and Leicester City for example.

Thankfully the players finally vindicated my season long defence of them by topping the form table for the last month and securing Championship safety quite comfortably in the end.

However, my protests we were a decent side to friends and work colleagues alike must have seemed like the rantings of a mad man at times, especially after the 6-0 hammering by Birmingham City in January.

This was the game where many who were there knew we wouldn’t go down - yet people who weren’t and just saw the 6-0 result thought you were mad for saying it (Agreed, that was my experience after the B’ham game as well – sports ed).

The players showed a lot of fight that day and importantly demonstrated how as a group of players, along with the manager and the fans, we were all united.

I think Paul Robinson has been a superb captain this season and was a big part of that.

It’s funny, though, here we are thinking the season was a bit of a washout, yet over the river in Newham West Ham fans were doing the conga after they spent the equivalent of the national debt of Greece on finishing third in what is in effect the old second division.

The chemicals in spray tans must be very dangerous, I reckon.

And you may even know a few Palace fans who having been raving about their team all season - a team we finished above.

To be fair, they’ve been down in the dumps for so long now I guess beating the worst Manchester United reserve side in 25 years and winning the big Surrey v Sussex derby is cause for celebration down there these days.

Talking of derbies, we could have three big London ones next season, should West Ham stay down and QPR come down.

Then of course there is Charlton, who managed to beat the likes of MK Dons, Notts County, Carlisle and Stevenage to promotion.

We’ve finished as south east London’s top club for the last three seasons almost by default, due to the Addicks being in the division below for two of them.

Now we get to prove the point on the pitch too by reigniting the officially most one-sided derby series in English football.

With all these derbies to look forward to, and other high interest games against the likes of Palace, Leeds United, Wolves and, please God, Aston Villa, the club really need to think how they can cater better for the demand in tickets.

We may only have a hard-core of 11,000 fans or so but without limitations on capacity and tickets, we could have sold well over 20,000 for the visit of West Ham, like we used to at the old Den in the less fashionable early 1990s.

The move to the new ground was supposed to allow us to earn more from gate receipts, yet we let ourselves be restricted to just 16-17,000 seats for our biggest games.

Similar sized clubs like Watford and Barnsley are capitalising much more on their big fixtures.

If we gave West Ham and Leeds 4,000 away tickets they would sell them - and we would easily sell-out our ends too.

The extra fans who turn up for those big fixtures may be seen as glory-hunters, but they put more money into the club and exist everywhere and we should be doing our upmost to get them in.

And who knows, some may see another thumping of West Ham or Charlton and want to come along to Burnley at home.

The club need to challenge the police more on this.

Anyways, I don’t want to end on a critical note, as I think we have a lot to look forward to down at The Den next season.

So enjoy the summer and here’s to England losing on penalties in a surprising semi-final appearance (you heard it here first!) and a few gold medals.

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