Again, I have to take issue with some of these statements (bolded).
According to who though? Because whilst I agree that there are racist Millwall fans, just as there are racist Coventry City (or simply insert any club here) fans, I would argue that it is not something that runs through the club or fanbase, which 'long-standing problem with your club and Racism, the Far Right' implies it is.
Please try to hear me out on this, as I have signed up in good faith using my Google account. So, I am not trying to hide behind a persona or agenda.
Firstly, you will have noticed that I did not bold the 'violence' part of your assessment. That is because I cannot deny that Millwall FC has a long-standing association with football violence. In fact, it goes right back to the late 1890s and the arrival of a local rival on the scene, Thames Ironworks (West Ham United). Both clubs drew their support from London's tough docklands communities and sometimes tempers frayed. Indeed, The East Ham Echo reported in the 1906/07 season that "From the very first kick it was seen that there was likely to be some trouble. All attempts at football were ignored." Going on to explain how the violence spread to the crowd.
Millwall has also drawn much of its support from the London Docklands - Millwall, Stepney, Wapping, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and Deptford. As well as other areas that the Old Kent Road (made famous by monopoly, as well as its criminals, bank robbers and boxers) snakes through and past, such as New Cross, Camberwell, Peckham, Walworth and Elephant & Castle. And therefore, is has always had a rough and ready support. This culture has also attracted some of the more interesting characters living in the above areas over the years. There is a reason that Charlton Athletic, playing a mere 4 miles down the road from The Den, are known as a nice, family club, even a little bit twee - and it is because people from SE London knew that is you enjoyed a rough crowd and even a bit of aggro Cold Blow Lane was the place to head. But if you preferred a more sedate Saturday afternoon, relaxing on a vast terrace and simply enjoying the football, then The Valley was more for you.
It is now very difficult for the club to escape its reputation and it has become a bit of a self-fulling prophecy. Wherever Millwall go, every local nutter wanting bragging rights in his local pub will come out to have a pop at the 'famous' Millwall. A visit from Millwall has the ability to turn even the sleepiest of clubs and towns into mini Istanbuls. I have seen pubs in places like Norwich, Watford, Reading, Swindon and Southend empty with pumped up local heroes frothing at the mouth to slap a few Millwall fans around (funny enough, something joked about in this or the Millwall match day thread - cannot remember which). Now, my best mate is a Forest fan and I have attended Forest away games with him in London and the south before, if I have had a free weekend and despite being a much bigger club than Millwall, with a much larger away support, I have yet to experience the same welcome for them. I imagine little things do happen, but I have never been to Watford or Reading and seen their fans actively seeking out to attack travelling Forest fans. But I have with Millwall. Which has created the 'No One Likes Us, We Don't Care' siege mentality amongst our support. When Millwall travel we tend to only take a support made of mostly men, aged 18-50, because of all I have outlined above. And as the club has had very limited footballing success (just 2 seasons of topflight football), the support hasn't been diluted by 'new' football types, i.e., middle-class families etc. It is the sons and grandsons of the stevedores and factory workers of yore, told to 'hit them back' if anyone brings them trouble from the age of 4. Indeed, if you look at our support today, you'll see it made up of the people that keep London going, the scaffolders, roofers, brickies, binmen, rail workers etc. So, this feeds into that culture and so it goes on and on.
The reason I am giving all this context is because I believe this association with violence has gone a long way to stain the club's reputation in other dark areas, such as racism. Millwall FC has always been the closest club to England's national media. After all, it is London's most inn-city club and just over the river from The City. I think it has been very easy over the years for the media to create the narrative that Millwall = hooligans; hooligans = racists. Now, whilst this argument has some merit for clubs like Chelsea and Leeds United, it does not really stand up to scrutiny at Millwall. This is because some of Millwall's most infamous hooligans have been of Black or Asian ethnicity. Unlike at clubs like Chelsea and Leeds, these fans from ethnic minorities were more than just embraced, they were unquestionably part of the Millwall 'family', people you could rely on a dark night in Middlesbrough or as your kid's Godfather. Don't believe me? Look up Tiny at Millwall, or Tamer Hassan or Roland Manookian, as those are just the famous faces of Millwall's diverse support. Away from the hooligans, you will also see that Millwall's own database says that Millwall has one of the highest ratios of season ticket holders and members of ethnic minority backgrounds outside the big PL clubs. Further investigation will also show you that Millwall hooligans fought with National Front recruiters and moved them out of the area, never to return. So, I am particularly horrified that you have linked us to the Far Right. I put the article that documents this at the end of this post.
You ask how seriously Millwall take the issue of violence and race. Well, they took it seriously enough to pioneer the idea of football in the community, way back in the 1980s. Before it was fashionable virtue signalling to allow the likes of Manchester City and their owners of dubious acquired wealth and power to seem like they really do care. This was when Millwall were a Third Division club struggling on crowds of 3-5,000. It must have some effect on us plebs, because despite the fact that some idiots cannot help grabbing all the headlines* Millwall fans have voted a Black player of the Season on nine separate occasions, including a practicing Muslim, starting all the way back with Phil Walker in 1978. The Millwall in the Community scheme is still going strong and is an awarding winning community service that does so much good in the local area and promotes ideas like aspiration and equality, whilst fighting knife crime and gang culture. The club puts a lot of resources into this, and I would bet more in ratio terms than many other clubs.
*Some highlighted the racism at our games v Spurs and Everton. Both incidents were vile and pathetic examples of racial slurs, sung by a minority, in the case of the Everton game the Met estimated c30-50 in a crowd of 16,000 Millwall fans. The Spurs chant was about how many of the hawkers of illegal DVDS in London are of Asian ethnicity with the chant of 'DVD, DVD' aimed at Son, whilst the Everton chant was frankly pathetic 'I'd rather be...'. I cannot deny that those incidents happened, but I would argue that they do not confirm that Millwall FC are a racist institution and that our fanbase is inherently racist. More that they represented the kind of problem the club has with attracting members of society that think racial profiling is simply 'banter'. But Millwall are certainly not alone in that. Nor is football.
As for other things that the club has done to show that they take these issues seriously. Well, they built a million-pound walkway for away fans to be able to attend games at The Den safely. I am not sure if Wolverhampton Wanderers would spend similar on a way for away fans to avoid getting ambushed in the subway near Molineux, as just one example. Millwall also introduced a membership scheme in 2002. Only Millwall members can buy tickets for away games in advance. Costing the club if not money, but vocal support on the road. It will also make home games members only if there is even a hint of intelligence re potential trouble. This does cost the club money and bad will from fans. They will also restrict capacity - we could have sold 4,500 more tickets for games with West Ham, Everton etc. in the past. That includes keeping home areas free, to avoid flash points.
