Ian Holloway expressed his anger towards West Yorkshire Police after Millwall’s 1-0 defeat at Leeds United on Saturday.

The travelling fans were forced to swap vouchers for tickets at Woolley Edge before the match, a service station on the M1 motorway 15 miles from Elland Road.  

Only hardy 200 Millwall followers made the trip north and Holloway felt the ticket restraints left his side fighting an uphill battle against the full Leeds support.

He said: “Can't they police a Saturday match?

“We should be shown the utmost respect like everybody else.

“If I thought they (our fans) were a risk I wouldn’t be saying all this. I am proud of them.

“I don’t understand. Are we so much worse?

“We are only treated like that by West Yorkshire Police.

“Why should they treat us any differently from everybody else?

“After all, the game has moved on - and so has supporters’ behaviour - so what is the issue?”

The only goal of the game came six minutes before half-time, Alex Mowatt curling in a fantastic free-kick to leave the Lions in the relegation zone.

Former Millwall player Steve Morison had a good chance to make it 2-0 but missed a one-on-one opportunity.

Millwall could have earned a point but Martyn Woolford blazed over the bar after Giuseppe Bellusci gave the ball away.

Holloway said: “I’m very proud of Millwall.

“I’ve only been here a year, but I’m very proud of the players for their effort and commitment and I’m very proud of the supporters who can bothered to be corralled into a service station just so they can watch this game.

“It’s only when we play Leeds, we don’t get it anywhere else. It’s not an issue anywhere else.”

He added: “I don’t get it. Years ago it was fashionable to do certain things, but we’ve moved on.

“We couldn’t get the volume of noise from our fans that we got in our last game.

“Who knows, when we had momentum in the second half, that might have got us a goal and the point we deserved.

“I enjoyed the way Leeds fans supported their team, but it’s totally unfair.

“It was 24,000 competing with 200 of ours.”

Millwall have won just once at Elland Road since 1988 and remain in 22nd place in the Championship, one point off Brighton.

They have won twice recently away against Birmingham and Nottingham Forest, and Holloway is now keen to secure a first home success since October against Fulham this Saturday.

He explained: “We have two home games coming up now and we need to repeat our last few away performances at The Den.

“We’re all desperate for our fans to see some wins at home and we have a chance now to try and do that.”

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