Violence erupts at The Den
It’s almost 50 years to the day that Ipswich Town and Millwall met in the sixth round of the FA Cup, and Town has qualified for the fifth round at the cost of Chelsea.
Town were on their way to their lone FA Cup victory to date. However, it was not a smooth journey.
Indeed, on Saturday, March 11, 1978, in Cold Blow Lane in south London, everything was really unpleasant.
A sportswriter looks back on one of the most terrifying days for Town fans.
Nobody likes us, and we don’t care.
An iconic football cry that instills fear in innocents and represents everything that went wrong with football in the 1970s and 1980s.
Millwall “fans” utilized the phrase, and many of them took pride in the club’s reputation for having a hooligan element in its ranks.
But when Ipswich Town fans cheerfully made their way to south London on what turned out to be a terrifying winter’s afternoon on Saturday, March 11, 1978, the vast majority were ignorant of the horrible scenes they were about to witness.
The Den at Millwall was a tinderbox itching to explode. And Ipswich Town fans felt the full impact of it.
Just three months before Town’s visit, a BBC Panorama crew examined the “English Disease” of football hooliganism and went to Cold Blow Lane, where they were invited by Millwall manager Gordon Jago and chairman Herbert Burnige.
The pair proposed renaming Millwall’s home pitch from Cold Blow Lane to Montego Bay to alleviate the anxiety and greyness in south London.
The BBC discovered, however, that the overall picture at Millwall was not so dismal.
However, it was an unexpected discovery.
They were looking to prove a theory: football hooliganism was more than just Saturday afternoon violence, and it could be related to fascism and the National Front.
The National Front’s “national activities organiser” was interviewed and appeared to back up this claim, with images of NF followers selling fascist literature outside The Den – something never seen before or since – being shown to the nation.
For Jago, it was too much. After witnessing a preview of the film, he asked the BBC not to air it.
Jago quit after his pleas went unanswered.
Myth and reality eventually collided when a full-fledged riot broke out at The Den during the quarter-final match against Bobby Robson’s team.
Fighting broke out on the terraces, spilling onto the pitch and into the tiny streets surrounding the stadium.
Bottles, knives, iron bars, fists, boots, and concrete slabs fell from the skies. The thugs wounded dozens of innocent people, including some Millwall fans.
Town took an early tenth-minute lead from the most unlikely of sources: full-back George Burley.
His thundering 30-yard shot put Ipswich ahead, but nine minutes later, the rioting on the terraces spilled onto the pitch.
Referee Mr Gow announced that the game, which had been delayed for 19 minutes, would be completed nonetheless, despite Millwall’s hooligans threatening to call it off.
On the pitch, Paul Mariner gave Town the lead with two goals in the 52nd and 72nd minutes, restoring order on the terraces.
A late Dave Mehmet strike six minutes from time kept the game interesting, but Town finished in style, scoring three goals in three minutes at the end, with Mariner completing his hat-trick and Town winning 6-1 on their way to the semi-finals.
Outside on Cold Blow Lane, violence flared up again, with Town fans fleeing a seething, ugly crowd.
Coach windows were damaged as the old and children got caught up in the violence.
If Millwall’s hooligans wanted to make a message, they did it, and the victims were Ipswich Town fans.
Throughout the 1980s, Millwall struggled to overcome its hooligan element’s negative reputation; savage scenes at Luton Town in 1985, which injured 31 police officers, only contributed to bring their name into disrepute.
Most Ipswich Town fans will remember that dreadful March afternoon.
The only silver lining was that it brought them one round closer to Wembley Stadium, where they had happy memories.
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