Some good opinions on this thread, thought I would add a few points from a Millwall perspective.
We do have a fairly good away support, however we are often restricted on numbers, this is generally on police advise and more often than not based on past reputation. A lot of Millwall fans feel hard done by because of what they see as a discriminatory practice, some certainly feel this way about West Midland Police. I think we have ended up with a paltry 2,300 (Coventry offered up an extra few hundred some weeks back) when we are looking to keep and hold on to the play-off place, I’m sure we could have added 1,000 + to that. This away following of course is largely due to our relative success on the pitch, it is worth noting that The New Den will offer the entire end to away support, upper and lower tiers, not sure how many this holds, probably in excess of 4,000.
Colchester the other week, would not give more than 1,700, I was one who had to purchase a ticket for the home stand, I was pretty much surrounded by other Wall, it was a dull 0-0 draw and to a man we were well behaved, and until near the end remained silent and sitting on our hands. The stewarding was very good and even handed, to the point where one bloke who was a bit the worse for wear got escorted to the away end, good management, they could have thrown him out on two counts.
Not all Millwall fans are sweetness and light, we do attract people just because of the name, sort of goes with the territory, noisy and tribal with a rep receives a certain amount of unwanted publicity along with some very differing policing tactics. As already said the Notts plod do it low profile, compare this to traveling to Leeds, we are the only club that have to collect our away tickets from the police (and get photographed) at a motorway service station, that means you can’t use public transport, all this does is add to feeling of getting the short end, it is actually pretty outrageous.
The thing is about supporting Millwall we attract opposition fans that want to ‘ave a pop, they generally get response, that just adds to the rep. Away at Sheffield Utd this season, walking to the ground with a police escort there were small groups of local youngsters coming at us from the side streets and across a waste land car park, it’s what happens, not looking for sympathy here, it’s just a fact. Plod were pretty good as these light skirmishes continued all the way to ground, this is the locals wanting a story to tell their mates, however it adds the policing headache and anti-Wall feeling. Had a long chat with a uniform on the way back to the station, seemed a decent bloke, told him about how The New Den was the safest ground in the country, he said they would hold the train to ensure we were off their patch. I thought - of course- as the song started about no one liking us , we don’t care, almost self for filling. Oh yeah, they gave us a midday KO that day.
Looking forward to Saturday and I have a ticket for the away end. COYL
