At The Den in south-east London, Millwall and West Ham will renew one of English football’s most combustible local rivalries on Saturday, ending a 14-year wait for another meeting. The Championship fixture has been scheduled for 12.30pm local time, an early slot intended to reduce the scope for disorder around the ground.
The build-up has already produced a disturbing incident. A Millwall supporter encountered West Ham midfielder Tomas Soucek on a London street and filmed himself threatening to “cut” the player’s face on Saturday.
Quick facts
- Millwall host West Ham at The Den in the eighth Championship round.
- Kick-off is at 12.30pm local time, with 20,000 expected inside the stadium.
- West Ham have been allocated 1,774 away tickets.
- The clubs have played 99 official matches: Millwall have 38 wins, West Ham 34, with 27 draws.
- West Ham lead the Championship on 14 points from seven games; Millwall are 12th with 10.
The division between the clubs runs along old fault lines of the Thames. Millwall were formed in 1885, while West Ham began a decade later as Thames Ironworks on the opposite bank. Competition for dock work and territory at the end of the nineteenth century fed an antagonism that has long extended beyond football.
“It is a local rivalry involving opposite sides of the River Thames and goes back to a dispute between dock workers a century ago,” said reporter Frank Keogh. “It is played fiercely on the pitch and, often, away from it. There is huge anticipation, particularly after such a long interval before the fixture returned.”
Though West Ham arrive with the larger modern profile after spending the previous 14 seasons in the Premier League, this is a match in which league status has rarely softened the edge. Millwall have appeared in England’s top tier only twice, in 1988 and 1990, but hold the better overall record in the derby.
The rivalry became especially associated with hooligan violence during the 1970s, when West Ham’s Inter City Firm and Millwall’s Bushwhackers emerged. A Millwall fan was killed during clashes in 1976; at the next encounter, Bushwhackers members distributed leaflets calling for the death of a West Ham supporter in retaliation.
English football’s stadium modernisation and tougher legislation in the 1990s curtailed much of that culture. Bans for those involved in violence can range from three years to a lifetime, while offences such as pitch incursions, throwing objects and abusive chanting have been subject to criminal sanctions.
Yet the fixture’s history still carries weight. The world depicted by the Inter City Firm informed the 1989 film The Firm, even though neither club was named directly. The 2005 film Hooligans, starring Elijah Wood, referred openly to both Millwall and West Ham and brought the rivalry to an international audience.
Four years after that film’s release, the sides met at Upton Park on 25 August 2009 in a night of serious violence. Fights were arranged around the stadium before kick-off, about 200 people entered the pitch, a Millwall supporter was stabbed, and 54 West Ham fans later received lifetime stadium bans.
Metropolitan Police have outlined extensive measures for Saturday’s game. Officers will enforce the Sporting Events Act 1985, which prohibits entering or attempting to enter a sporting venue while drunk, while a dispersal order will allow police to remove people causing disorder in the area around The Den.
“We want supporters to enjoy the match safely and have worked with both clubs to make that happen,” police said. The afternoon will therefore bring a valuable Championship contest, but also a familiar test of whether one of London’s oldest divides can remain confined to the stands and the pitch.
