NEWS Shopper online’s Millwall columnist MATT LITTLE this week bemoans the unoriginality of away fans in the modern game after last night’s predictable chants from the Brighton end.

I USED to love a night game at The Den, especially as the evenings got darker and colder.

The dimly lit streets, the mist hanging around the old Victorian railway arches, the glow of the floodlights.

And if a team with a support every bit as passionate and vocal as Millwall were in town, you were guaranteed a great atmosphere.

Looking back over the years the stand out night games at the new stadium have been Arsenal in the FA Cup, Birmingham City in the League Cup, Manchester City and Wolves in the league and of course Huddersfield Town in the play-offs.

At every one of these games you could actually feel the electricity in the air.

And the players on the pitch certainly responded, serving up some wonderful adrenaline charged matches.

Last night Brighton brought one of the ingredients for a great floodlight atmosphere – a large following, but, sadly that’s where it began and ended.

I do not know about you, but I am truly sick of away fans turning up at The Den with the same old, tedious generic chants. Whatever happened to the wit of the terraces?

The spontaneity of the crowd?

Millwall fans are often lambasted for being thick, but, even if our songs are not lyrically on a par with The Smiths, they are at least original and unique to the club.

Brighton fans served up such a level of tedium that the home fans were left to simply respond to actual events on the pitch.

Thus any chance of another electric night down Cold Blow Lane was strangled early on and I felt greatly let down.

After all, the crowd are very much a part of the match day experience for me.

Perhaps I am being a bit grumpy because of the Lions’ poor start to the season.

But I really think it is more than that.

The only highlight of the night for me was Jay Simpson’s wonder strike out of nowhere.

It just seems to be football clubs and their supporters are going the way of our High Streets - they are losing any individuality they had and are all becoming the same, generic mash of nothingness.

When you used to follow your team away you were exposed to lots of new experiences.

Going to somewhere like Lincoln was a real eye opener for someone from inner-city south London.

On the Saturday we played at Middlesbrough and got a creditable draw.

However, we could have been at Southampton, Leicester or anywhere else with a bowl stadium and fans with a fondness for singing that awful corruption of the Beach Boys’ song Sloop John B.

It kind of takes the fun out of a hard-fought away point at a high-flying team when you feel like a trip to B&Q on a Sunday would provide a more exciting and interesting environment and experience.

Still, on the pitch the Lions are making progress, of sorts.

The two points picked up against two high-flying teams is much appreciated after the run we have had.

We now travel to Leicester City’s King Power Stadium, which is pretty much the same as Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium, except in blue.

Hopefully we can keep the locals quiet with an unlikely win because hearing ‘barmy army’ or ‘up the football league we go’ ad nauseum again would only be slightly less painful than slipping further into the relegation mire.

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