SATURDAY’S 0-0 third round draw at Dagenham was instantly forgettable for our Millwall blogger MATT LITTLE, so this week he has decided to look back at the club’s more impressive FA Cup heroics from yesteryear to cheer himself up a bit.

AH, the magic of the cup.

Millwall’s greatest moments have come in the world’s oldest football competition.

In fact, for a brief period at the turn of the 19th century the Lions were a real force on the FA Cup scene.

I say the Lions, we were of course the Dockers back then and it was in fact our famous cup victory over the mighty Aston Villa team of the period in 1900 that earned us the moniker of ‘Lions of the South’.

Millwall, not content with pioneering professional football in the south with the foundation of the Southern League, alongside Arsenal, continued their challenge to northern dominance by reaching the semi-finals in 1900 and 1903, dumping out northern footballing giants Preston and Everton along the way.

In 1937 the Lions, under the charismatic Charlie Hewitt, became the first Third Division club to reach an FA Cup semi-final.

Their run included humbling London rivals Fulham and Chelsea before a record Millwall home crowd of 48,762 saw First Division Derby County put to the sword.

Next up was a Manchester City side that were to go on to become English champions that season, scoring 107 goals.

The Lions kept a clean sheet and knocked them out 2-0 in front of 42,474 at a Cold Blow Lane.

It is estimated many thousands more had gained entry and the legend goes they were so impressed by the Lions’ display they posted in their gate money in the following days.

Millwall went out 2-1 to the eventual winners Sunderland and had to wait 67 years to gain their revenge at Old Trafford.

But gain it we did with a Dennis Wise inspired performance and a cool Tim Cahill strike.

The rest of the country whined that it was an ‘easy’ route to the final, yet most Millwall fans of long standing will tell you the club earned that bit of luck over the years.

In all three of our previous semi-finals we had lost in controversial circumstances, and furthermore, wins over the very best clubs in the land had seen us go out unluckily in the very next round to lesser sides in years gone by.

In 1957 more than 45,000 Millwall fans had to rub their eyes as the team that had dominated the FA Cup in the 1950s with three wins, Newcastle United, were brushed aside 2-1 by the Third Division Lions.

Then 42,000 had to rub their eyes again as the less fancied Birmingham City cantered to an easy 4-1 win in New Cross.

In our centenary year the club fittingly enjoyed another impressive cup run, with Enfield being dispatched at home before local rivals Crystal Palace and First Division Chelsea were knocked out in away games.

Gary Lineker’s top-flight Leicester City froze in front of an intimidating Den crowd of 16,160 and lost 2-0 in the fifth round.

The quarter-final game v Luton Town tainted Millwall’s public image forever as police were chased across Kenilworth Road’s pitch live in front of a disbelieving nation.

The 1-0 defeat by the end was irrelevant.

However, we had already imprinted ourselves on the wider public’s mind after our quarter-final exit to Bobby Robson’s high flying Ipswich Town in 1978.

More than 22,000 turned up at the Den to see the eventual winners canter to a 6-1 win, but most TV viewers remembered the off the pitch events more than the football.

1995 saw us beat both Arsenal and Chelsea away in replays, before unluckily going out to a last minute penalty at QPR.

The 2-0 defeat of Arsenal got George Graham the sack - the man who had led Millwall to that fateful quarter-final at Luton Town 10 years earlier.

There was none of these heroics against Dagenham & Redbridge on Saturday, not even a shot to test their keeper to write home about.

However, after drawing Southampton, we are now two winnable home games away from the fifth round and more Millwall cup magic – I hope.

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