South East London blogzine - things that are happening, things that happened, things that should never have happened. New Cross, Brockley, Deptford and other beauty spots. EMAIL US: transpontineblog at gmail.com Transpontine: 'on the other (i.e. the south) side of the bridges over the Thames; pertaining to or like the lurid melodrama played in theatres there in the 19th century'.
In 1993, Millwall FC moved from the Old Den in New Cross to the New Den not far away to the north of Surrey Canal Road. The ground was demolished and housing replaced it. Thanks to the wonders of the National Library of Scotland's map collection it is possible to show the precise location by overlaying an old map on a current street plan (use the site's 'transparency of overlay' feature).
As you can see, John Williams Close now occupies the stadium's former whereabouts. You can work out easily enough where the goalmouths were too - the Cold Blow Lane end by Bannister House and at the Ilderton Road end by Gasson House.
A stroll today around the area by The Den, starting with checking out the recently refreshed mural of Millwall FC legend Neil Harris, under the railway arch on Zampa Road SE16. I featured the mural here way back in 2012, recently it has been looking run down and then was painted out earlier this year. But last month original artist wizywig restored it to its former glory (in fact it's bigger than the original).
Directly opposite is a new (June 2020) Millwall lion mural by prolific local signwriter/artist Lionel Stanhope - responsible for all those railway station names painted across South London. Unfortunately today there was a big van parked right in front of it so I had to use this image from Network Rail.
The club and the ground have a certain international reputation, attested to by the stickers from clubs/ultras from around the world to be found on nearby lampposts. Here's a few examples - on the left we have 'Working Boys Front' which I think is something to do with Torpedo Moscow. Underneath that is a classic Millwall 'No one likes us, we don't care' sticker, above a GKS Katowice (Poland) one. On the right we have Norwegian team Løten Fotballklubb, above a 'Periferia Sud Livorno' seemingly from ultras associated with Italian team AS Livorno ('periferia sud' means something like 'South suburbs', kind of equivalent to 'South London'.
Next to the Neil Harris mural there's a few stickers on the railway bridge sign. Next to something from reputedly extreme right wing stickerists 'Millwall Berserkers' (definitely not to be confused with 'Millwall anti-fascists') is one from Bayern Munich ultras, like Livorno ultras known for their left wing sympathies. Their sticker adapts Karl Marx- 'Fussball proletariat vereinigt euch verbandsstrukturen zerschlagen' ('football proletariat unite against the association structures' which seems to refer to UEFA and other football authorities). Also a sticker showing Margaret Thatcher with her celebrity friend Jimmy Saville and the word 'disnonce' (in lettering reminiscent of punk band Discharge's logo, go figure).
On the other side of Ilderton Road from the new Den, fans of another South London team have left their mark
The railway bridges and arches are an irresistible canvas for graffiti and street artists - 'refugees welcome' has been painted on that same bridge on Zampa Road (still visible today, though photo below was taken in March before the tree blocked out the view of the ground).
On Cold Blow Lane the ancient early 1970s T.Rex graffiti that was still visible back in 2008 is long gone, but new stuff goes up from time to time, the most recent being this topical Black Lives Matters/FTP image of a skeletal cop.
Meanwhile round the corner on John Williams Close, on the site of the old Den, mattress artists have been at work with these kissing fish:
(all photos taken by me, 15 August 2020 unless otherwise stated).
Found recently at Deptford market, three football programmes from three South London teams - Crystal Palace, Millwall, and Charlton (guess they must have been from a Chartlon fan, as the Palace and Millwall programmes are from matches against the Addicks). As well as a window on 1970s football adverts in programmes recall an age of mass employment in London factories
Chartlon v Oxford United 1975 - this was a League Cup match that ended in a 3-3 draw.
Stone Manganese Marine Ltd - 'the world's largest marine propeller builders' based in Charlton advertising for staff in the CAFC programme. The propellor factory later moved to Birkenhead (it closed there in 1998), though the related Stone Foundries is still going.
Millwall v Charlon, September 1977 - a 1-1 draw in Division Two
Millwall sponsors 1977 - mostly small business by the look of it, wonder how many of these are still going. I can see the Duke of Albany, Monson Road in there - New Cross pub now flats. Parke Record Distributors, based in Bromley, went bust in 1981.
Palace v Charlton in Octobe 1977 - 1-1 in Divison Two
'Congratulations on reaching the second division from a first division company'. Philips advertises for staff at its Croydon factory, where it made TVs. The company moved its electronic HQ from Croydon to Guildford in 2004.
Some football stickers spotted on my rounds today, mostly in vicinity of Millwall FC. Every sticker tells a story...
'No one likes us we don't care' is well known as the Millwall cry, but what about Sham Army? The latter refers to followers of punk band Sham 69, also mentioned on sticker. The band took their name in the late 1970s though from a fragment of graffiti in Surrey referring to non-league Walton & Hersham FC. Never had them down as a Millwall band, though one later version of the band (without original singer Jimmy Pursey, fronted by Tim Scargill) did do a charity CD that rewrote Sham's 'Hersham Boys' as 'Millwall Boys' ('drink up your beers and make some noise'):
Millwall Sham Army sticker, Ilderton Road SE15
Getting into the world of international football fandom, this lamp post, also on Ilderton Road, has a sticker from Millwall FC's Italian Crew (Italian Lions' fans). Above it is a Spanish sticker which says 'Bukaneros presenta La Familia Podrida'. Bukaneros are the Ultras of Rayo Vallecano de Madrid. La Familia Podrida means the corrupt family, but the initials spell out LFP: Liga de Fútbol Profesional, the Spanish football league.
On another lamp post in same road a Millwall on Tour sticker comes above one saying 'Ultras contro el racismo' (Ultras against racism), another Spanish slogan, think this may be another Bukaneros sticker, they are famously anti-racist.
Another club whose fans are associated with militant anti-fascism is Hamburg team St Pauli. This sticker from Queens Road SE15 is from St Pauli London fans.
Of course not all European ultras are on the left of the political spectrum. This sticker, spotted in Hyson Road SE15 says FC DK with the letters gathered around a neo-nazi symbol. I believe this refers to Ukrainian team Dynamo Kiev, some of whose fans are on the extreme right. Last year the club were sanctioned after a racist attack during a game against Chelsea
There's been some huffing and puffing from Millwall FC in the last week following the decision of Lewisham Council to sell off some of the land it owns and which it currently leases to the football club. This includes the car park next to the stadium, the site currently used by the Millwall Community Scheme's Lions Centre and some land behind the stadium (I believe these are the areas marked 1,2,3 on map below).
Millwall Chairman John Berylson has claimed that 'the long term future of the club is being put at risk' and a 'Defend the Den' online petition has been started by 'fan on the board' Pete Garston. Meanwhile the Council has defended its position, stating that notwithstanding the land sale there is still a formal Planning Agreement in place for the area that includes 'safeguarding the existing Millwall Stadium, undertaking improvements to the north, west and south facades of the Millwall FC stadium and relocating the Lions Centre operated by the Millwall Community Scheme to a new location within the regeneration area'.
So what's really going on here? Well first of all this all about the larger Surrey Canal development that is planned for the area near to the Millwall ground. This is a big development which I have shied away from covering mainly because I haven't had the time to get my head round it. I'm glad therefore that the new 'The New Cross' site has summarised its main features, suggesting that it amounts to 'creating an entirely new area of London with shops, houses, health and sports facilities and a brand new East London Line station' on a largely brownfield site. The developer is 'Renewal New Bermondsey Two Ltd' - the official site is here.
From the developers site:
'1,200 person Church with offices, children's area, cafe, meeting rooms, rehearsal space and library'.
The Council is selling off the land to Renewal, clearing the way for them to develop the whole area. There is plenty to discuss about the scheme, not least the fact that as The New Cross points out: 'The development can house up to 2500 [in] housing of 1-4 bedrooms. Only 10% of these will be “socially rented” and 20% “affordable” (misleading term that does little to guarantee access). The developer says that a high proportion of socially-rented housing in the surroundings means it’s better to aim for a more “balanced” community on the site. I don’t know the financial figures here, but it seems a shame Lewisham missed out on the chance to get more council housing from such a huge brownfield site'. On best case 70% of homes are likely to be unaffordable to most people living locally, and as with similar schemes it is likely that many will be bought up as property investments by people who won't live there.
I think it's misleading though to present Millwall as a little community outfit threatened by rapacious property developers. I do think that as a football club, Millwall has a fairly good track record with the community. My children have taken part in their holiday football schemes, they give out tickets to local schools, and they supported the campaign to save Lewisham Hospital. And of course they are passionately supported by many people in the local community.
But Millwall Holdings PLC is a profit-seeking company - its chair John Berylson, is an American businessman. Its subsidiary company Millwall Properties Limited is 'engaged in the preliminary assessment of the potential redevelopment and regeneration of the area surrounding the group's football stadium'. As a company, it has developed its own proposals for the land in dispute, including building a hotel and conference centre on the site of the car park. Millwall's own plans would also involve building on the current site of the Lions Centre and rebuilding it elsewhere.
There may be some validity to Millwall's argument that as the football club loses money it needs non-football income to flourish. That is true of most clubs given the current economics of the game. But there is no threat to the stadium itself and it seems to me that this dispute isn't about developers vs. the community but about the competing interests of rival property developers. I'm not advocating selling off council land but selling the land to Millwall's owners (as they advocate) doesn't seem to be any different to selling it off to Renewal.
For Millwall fans a bigger long term issue might be the future of the New Den, not as a result of this land sale but because of the wider impact of the Surrey Canal development - whoever leads it. New affluent and vocal residents might not be so happy to have this unreconstructed bastion of working class culture on their doorstep, but Millwall have another 100 years or so to go on their lease so perhaps they would have to lump it. The fact that the land is owned by the Council (I believe) rather than the club might be an advantage, because it means that current or future club owners don't have the scope to asset strip by selling off the ground. But with the Surrey Canal redevelopment likely to increase the value of the land occupied by the New Den, there could still be a lucrative deal to be cut involving the club's owners being paid to give up the lease. Charlton fans successfully campaigned last year to have the Valley listed as an Asset of Community Value which would give it some short-term, limited protection from redevelopment, perhaps Millwall fans should do the same.
(lots of discussion about this at Millwall Online as you might expect, including speculation that longer term the club could move elsewhere, maybe even to Southwark Park on site of current semi-derelict running track. I think the latter is very unlikely - Southwark agreed funds last year to refurbish athletics facilities in Southwark Park and I understand that this will be going ahead, with a new athletics club operating there. Not all Millwall fans are fond of the current ground, but I think if they lose the New Den they might struggle to find somewhere else in London). Meanwhile at Dulwich Hamlet... very interesting article at 200% about Dulwich Hamlet FC, which despite doing well on the pitch appears to be in a financially perilous position and at risk from property deals.
Yesterday's Telegraph had an interview with James Bannon, who infiltrated Millwall firm the Bushwackers as an undercover cop in the late 1980s:
'At 7pm on Friday April 3 1987, two novice undercover police officers left Brockley police station for a drive down the Old Kent Road in south London. These were grim miles of looming tower blocks, shuttered shops and graffitied trains clattering above looming arches. It was also the territory of Millwall Football Club and their hooligan firm the Bushwhackers. It was just gone 8pm when the two men entered one of the Bushwhackers’ favourite pubs, The Old Castle...
...total infiltration wasn’t as simple as a handshake. Over the coming months, the two men had to prove their worth. Bannon won the trust of several key individuals by joining them in planned violence in pubs and backstreets. Chris accused his partner of enjoying his role too much.
“Was I a football hooligan?” Bannon asks of himself. “Yes. But I never lost sight of the fact that it was a job. There were parts of it where I laughed more than I’ve ever laughed before. I met people I’d quite happily have had as lifetime friends. But it was a job. You create a role and you live that role – to a point.” But where, exactly, is that point? If he’s drinking with thugs, singing their songs and fighting in the streets with them, how is he not one of them? “If I pick a bat up and run at a load of West Ham fans, there’s no justification in that,” he says. “But if I’m with a group of Millwall fans and a West Ham fan is running at me with a bat, I’m totally within my rights to hit him. That’s the difference.”' (The Undercover Football Hooligan, Telegraph,18 November 2013).
Bannon has written a book about the operation, 'Running with the Firm'. On his account there were four full time undercover cops infiltrating Millwall fans in this period. Alongside recent revelations about infiltration of political activist circles, this is further evidence of the widespread use of this tactic. Similar questions arise - were they just keeping watch, or were they joining in, maybe even initiating trouble as 'agent provocateurs'? And what about the emotional abuse of people they developed relationships with? Bannon says he didn't have a sexual relationship despite falling in love on duty, but it appears from his book that he strung along a woman he identifies as 'Steph'.
This made me laugh in the Telegraph interview: 'Bannon, 48, asks to meet at a café around the corner from the now-empty Brockley police station, above which his small team was based in its earliest weeks. With its artisan flapjacks, this middle-class establishment is not the sort of place that existed when he patrolled the streets in the mid-Eighties. Bannon, it’s easy to tell, is of the old pre-gentrification order...'. Assume they went for a coffee at The Broca, or maybe Browns.
Naturally Bannon's book includes accounts of conflict between Millwall and West Ham. And how does he explain this rivalry? Yes this old chestnut: 'hostility developed between two shipyards on either side of the Thames. To the north you had the workforce of the Royal Docks (the claret and blue of West Ham) and to the south, the Millwall, London and Surrey docks (the blue and white of Millwall). When the Millwall shipyard broke the 1926 dockers strike, the anger across the river raised the tensions to boiling point' (p.126).
No, no, no! As shown at Transpontine before, there is no evidence of Millwall or South London dockers breaking the 1926 General Strike. And what's more Millwall dock was on the north bank of the Thames - the club moved from the Isle of Dogs to South London in 1910 but the docks didn't!
'‘Bubble’ match travel amounts to ‘kettling’ on wheels. Travelling fans must be transported on licensed coaches under police escort, from a designated pick-up point to a designated drop-off point. No independent travel is allowed to the match by car, train, or any other means of transport. Fans often must pick up their tickets on route, for example at a motorway service station at a halfway point. Their freedom of movement is suspended...
...is it fair that the vast majority of supporters, who behave well, should have their freedom to travel to a popular leisure activity curtailed, because of the (increasingly slight) risk that there will be disorder caused by a small number of troublemakers? Bubble match restrictions do not target the minority of troublemakers. Instead, they punish all away fans, and hope to deter the violent minority by doing so. This is surely wrong in principle. Under Britain’s common law, people are treated as innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. People are held to account for their own actions, not punished for the actions of others'.
Examples in the report show that fans travelling to Millwall have been targeted, as well as Millwall fans travelling to away matches:
'For the Millwall match at Leeds on 3 December 2011, coaches had to leave the football ground in London at 5.30am, meeting the police at Woolley Edge Services on the M1 motorway, where pre-paid vouchers were exchanged for match tickets. This was the only place where it was possible to acquire a match ticket, the early kick-off time of 12.30pm added inconvenience for the supporters...'
These tactics make it impossible to do the normal things that people would do when travelling round the country. For instance, what if you were a Millwall fan who wanted to combine going to a Leeds away match with popping in afterwards to see an old friend in Yorkshire? Or if you were a Millwall fan at college in Leeds the only way you could go in the Millwall end at a match would be to travel down to London the night before and then get a 5:30 coach back up.
When police kettle demonstrators my twitter feed is (quite rightly) overwhelmed with outrage. When similar police tactics are applied regularly to thousands of football fans, nobody bats an eyelid. To add insult to injury, football fans are paying for the policing of football grounds through ticket prices - and if the Association of Chief Police Officers had their way they would also be paying for policing of football fans beyond the ground. At Millwall's match at Luton on Saturday I noticed that even Luton fans, no great friends of Millwall's away contingent, chanted 'What a waste of money' when large numbers of police came on to the pitch at the end. They're right and it's their money that's being wasted.
(incidentally this is blowing up to be a big issue right now with Hull City fans facing a 'bubble' for their match next month against Huddersfield - this article quotes one Hull fan: "I live in Huddersfield, so have to come to Hull to go back to a game 10 minutes from my house. Ridiculous!")
In the build up to this Saturday's big Save Lewisham Hospital demonstration, supporters mounted a 'mums and buggies' protest outside the Department of Health headquarters in Whitehall today, with around 60 parents with their children blockading the entrance. Currently 4,000 babies are born every year at the hospital, but maternity services will be radically reduced under the cuts proposals.
Consultant obstetrician Ruth Cochrane said: "Lewisham currently has full maternity services and it is wonderful to see that so many local mothers have come out to support the trust. Proposals to downgrade these services and to have a midwife-led birth centre – without the back-up provided by full obstetric services - are just not safe. If women experience a complication during childbirth they would have to be transferred from Lewisham to King's Hospital or to Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich, both of which are simply too far." (see report at Newsshopper).
Support for the campaign was also shown at Millwall's home match against Burnley last weekend, with players warming up in 'Save Lewisham A&E' t-shirts. The club's FA Cup match against Aston Villa has been moved from Saturday to Friday 25th to avoid a clash with the demonstration - apparently the police can't cope with both on the same day. The club is fully behind the campaign saying: 'Whilst changing the date of our Cup tie is an inconvenience to us, we believe there is a bigger picture here. Millwall Football Club, our players, staff and many thousands of fans have, over the years, had reason to be grateful for the resources, facilities and care we have received from our local hospital. We are not persuaded by the arguments put forward in favour of closing the A&E department, childrens ward, intensive care and maternity services at Lewisham... we would also encourage supporters who feel strongly about this issue to attend the demonstration next Saturday'.
The demonstration on Saturday will start at Lewisham Roundabout (by the station) at 12 noon on Saturday 26th January. It will march past the hospital to Mountsfield Park for rally, music and giant petition.
If you can give out any leaflets at work, school or in your street, there are details of how to help at the Save Lewisham Hospital site.
As discussed here previously, the threat to Lewisham Hospital services has now become a national issue as a test case for the Coalition Government's claims that the NHS is safe in its hands. Two weeks ago the subject dominated BBC's Question Time, filmed in New Cross. In last Saturday's Guardian magazine, columnist Lucy Mangan wrote: 'we march again, next Saturday. Please come. You don't have to live in Lewisham. Because if there's one thing the dragooning of Lewisham into the service of a neighbouring trust's debt shows, it's that where you live doesn't matter. Your beloved, priceless, well-sited hospital – be it ever so efficient, admired or attuned to local needs – could at any point be next in the stealthy process of breaking up the NHS and selling it, privately, for parts'. Writing in New Statesman, Lewisham Hospital-born Rowenna Davis remarked: 'For many, this is a political decision. Lewisham is a poor area and as one doctor put it, “There is very little to lose when everyone votes Labour here anyway”. The alternative is to close hospitals in Conservative-held areas like Kent, and MPs like Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling and Julian Lewis have already proven that even Tories can’t justify closures in their own backyard. Some call it “fiscal nimbyism”. Patients and doctors call it understanding the consequences when you’re close to them'.
The campaign has also gained international support in the shape of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu who has reportedly described the plans as 'scandalous'. And if you're wondering what it's got to do with him, it was his local hospital when he lived in Brownhill Road, Catford in the 1970s, and he opened the Riverside building at Lewisham Hospital in 2007.
Today's protest was the main story in ITV London News and also featured on BBC London.
One of the hidden sites of SE London - the Millwall dressing room:
The showers
The baths
The visiting team's dressing room is directly opposite, and both are just by the tunnel. Coming out of their dressing room, visitors have this helpful message to help them find their way to the pitch:
When they come off the pitch the first thing they see is this reminder 'This is the Lions Den':
Brockley Central has noted what I failed to spot before - that the 2010 video for Stornoway's Zorbing single features a shot of Hilly Fields. In fact the white house that the singer is sitting outside early on is on Hilly Fields Crescent SE4. Much of the rest of is filmed around Surrey Canal Road (SE8) round the back of Millwall. You can see the incinerator on Landmann Way and I assume the cafe is J's (corner of Surrey Canal Road and Juno Way), as you can see the outside of it in one shot. The band are from Cowley/Oxford but the song does include the line 'Send my body out to work but leave my senses, In orbit over south east London' - maybe they met at college and one of them's from round here?
Hilly Fields has at least two songs of its own. Nick Nicely's 'Hilly Fields (1892)' from 1982 is a slice of psychedelia now recognised as a cult classic. As mentioned here before, in an interview at the time he said: '"Hilly Fields is a large park in South London, close to where I live. It's a beautiful place. And the area where I live still retains a lot of the atmosphere of the 1890s - all late Victorian houses, really wonderful. All the songs I wrote are situated in this part of London, Brockley. And Hilly Fields... I used to go there a lot in various stages of high, stoned, tripping, and that's where the song comes from. It's about someone who goes to hilly Fields and then disappears.... and that someone could very well be me, tripping out".
By the Millwall ground on Zampa Road (SE16) there's a mural under the railway bridge. It depicts ex-Millwall player Neil Harris, who holds the all time goal-scoring record for the club (138 goals).
I was in Millwall FC Executive Suite recently - they hire it out in the week for conferences and meetings. Yes they do have a lion carpet, and lion tinted windows.
There are lots of great old historical photos of past players on the walls, and at the moment an exhibition put up last year to mark the 125th anniversary of the club.
Millwall's Lion Mascot - anyone care to guess a date?
There are also, on the staircase, some autographed shirts from big matches played at the Den
Signed shirts from the Jamaica vs. Nigeria friendly held at the Den in 2009
Millwall vs. Ferencvaros, UEFA Cup 2004
This October 1910 match programme includes an advert for the New Cross Empire with a line up of who was performing there at the time.
George Formby Sr. at the New Cross Empire
At the George Formby Story website, there is also a New Cross Empire programme for October 1910 advertising 'George Formby, the popular comedian, in all his successes, including his latest'. I got a bit confused here, and assumed this was the uke-toting star of the 1930s, but a commenter to the original post has helpfully pointed out that it was actually his father George Formby senior, who was also a big music hall comedian and singer.
Also on the bill was 'Male Impersonator' Rhoda Paul, and 'Lady Mimic' Ray Wallace - cross dressing was clearly all the rage - as well as 'Continental Gymnast' Azella Wilson and comedian Fred Kitchen.
So did the now more famous George Formby jr ever play in New Cross in his music hall career? More research needed.
The Bermondsey Joyriders could be described as a London rock'n'roll supergroup, with its members all veterans of the first wave punk scene when everybody wanted to be the New York Dolls rather than imitate the Sex Pistols. Lead singer Gary Lammin was a guitarist in Cock Sparrer, bassist Marty Stacey was in Chelsea and drummer Keith Boyce, formerly of Heavy Metal Kids, is sometimes supplemented by Rat Scabies of The Damned.
The name is explained by Lammin in this interview: 'It was graffiti on a wall in London Docklands at the time the docks were be redeveloped into yuppie warehouse apartments. At first I actually thought it was a name of a band but later found out that it was a vigilante gang of young lads who were pissed off about their neighbourhood being carved up by these property developers who sold the places (i.e. the docks) where their community existed for vast profits and what the Bermondsey Joyriders would do was steal top of the range yuppie cars, that were the cars of the yuppies moving into the area. and race them at speed before ceremoniously burning them out... enough said'.
Not sure if any of the band live locally, but judging by the fact that they conduct interviews in a cafe in the Old Kent Road and go to Millwall they are not far away.
Intriguingly they have recently started recording and performing with John Sinclair, a legend of the US counter-culture. Among other things he was manager of Detroit proto-punk band the MC5, founder of the anti-racist White Panther Party and victim of a police sting that saw him jailed for cannabis offences. The latter made him a cause celebre, with John Lennon writing a song about him and Stevie Wonder (as well as John and Yoko) performing at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally in 1971.
A Bermondsey Joyriders album featuring Sinclair has been recorded but not yet released, and they played at the 100 Club earlier this year (reviewed at Red Mist).
Gary Oldman's popping up everywhere at the moment on the back of the launch of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, in which he plays the lead role. Oldman is arguably the most successful current British actor still working regularly, judging by the fact that he has appeared in a succession of blockbusters going back for more than 20 years (Harry Potter, Batman, Dracula etc.). Not bad for a working class boy from New Cross.
Oldman grew up in Hatcham Park Road I believe, along with his sister Laila Morse - Mo in Eastenders. Interviewed on the Robert Elms show this week, a listener emailed in a memory of him being in the nativity play at Monson Primary School (now 'Hatcham Temple Grove'). He went on to now closed South East London Boys School in Creek Road, Deptford. As Deptford Se8ker notes, Oldman told the Radio Times this month 'London changes, but Deptford is... Deptford. The same men I was always scared of but fascinated by are all still there. In the pub'.
He used to go to Millwall matches and told the Independent this week that his dad Leonard may have played a couple of times for the team: "Funnily enough, my mum's just told me a remarkable story about my dad. Just after the war, she ran a boarding house, for football players, Millwall players. And I knew that my dad was involved somehow with the reserve team. But two weeks ago my mum said, 'Oh yeah, your dad played for Millwall. When he was young he had a couple of first team games. It was in the kitchen, making tea. I said, 'What are you talking about? You tell me this now?'" He laughs. "We'd kick a ball around when I was very young. But I was rather surprised to discover that my dad – albeit for five minutes – had been a professional footballer. I was quite chuffed, and proud." Come on you Millwall historians check this out, is it family legend or fact? Of course you could be delving back into the murky world of wartime line-ups when the facts are hard to come by and everybody's uncle had a go on the pitch.
Would be good to see Oldman directing again, his 'Nil By Mouth'(1997) is a great London movie and draws heavily on his experience of growing up round here. Scenes on it were filmed on the old Bonamy Estate (Rotherhithe New Road - built in the 60s and demolished in the 90s), the Pepys Estate in Deptford and Hither Green Hospital. The pub scenes were shot in The Five Bells pub in New Cross Road and the recently closed Royal Archer pub nearby. There's also a bit of Deptford Park.
Millwall are playing at home to West Ham on Saturday in case you didn't know, and the police have promised a massive operation across South London to deal with it. Let's just say there's a bit of a history between the two clubs, and when they last met in 2009 there was some pretty heavy fighting.
One oft-repeated bit of football folklore is that this rivalry dates back to the 1926 General Strike. Here's what the Daily Mail said:
'Millwall, formed in 1885 by dockers and shipbuilders on the Isle of Dogs gained support in the surrounding areas and were then the best team outside the FA, nicknamed the 'Lions of the South'... Tensions reached their peak in the 1920s when Thames Ironworks moved to a new home and adopted the name West Ham United. As Millwall struggled, West Ham's star was rising. Fighting broke out during the 1926 general strike when the West Ham dockers were on strike while Millwall carried on working' (26 August 2009).
Or The Telegraph (28 August 2009): 'To the north you had the workforce of the Royal docks (drenched in the claret-and-blue of West Ham) and to the south, the Millwall, London and Surrey docks (Millwall 'til they died). When the Millwall shipyard broke the 1926 dockers' strike, the outrage over the water raised tensions to tipping point'.
This gets endlessly repeated across wikipedia etc. But is it true? By 1926 Millwall had been based in New Cross for 16 years, having moved from the Isle of Dogs in 1910. Doubtless Millwall had many supporters employed in the docks on the South of the River and presumably some still working across the Thames on the Isle of Dogs. But during the 1926 General Strike, the dockers across London seem to have been solid. Looking through quite a few books** on the matter, I can find no mention of South London or Isle of Dogs dockers being strikebreakers.
On the contrary, at Surrey Docks only seven people turned up to work out of 2,000 on the first day of the strike. A mass picket at the gates of the Dock kept it effectively closed, and even the Port of London Authority clerical staff walked out - their first ever strike. The only attempts at strike breaking involved the use of students and naval ratings to unload ships. There were clashes between police and strikers in Tooley Street as these strikebreakers were brought in to Hays's Wharf (source: Nine Days in May: The General Strike in Southwark, Past Tense Publicaitons). But none of this involved dockers, Millwall supporters or otherwise, in strike breaking.
I am afraid the myth of the Millwall scabs seems to be a vicious slur on the South London proletariat! This will no doubt come as a relief to the team's most well known supporter today: Bob Crow of the rail workers' union.
** for instance 'The General Strike of 1926' by Keith Laybourn (Manchester University Press, 1993) does not mention Millwall, or any strike-breaking at any docks except that undertaken by students and the military. 'A Very British Strike' by Anne Perkins likewise does not suggest that the dockers across London were anything other than solid in supporting the stirke, indeed she makes the point that the London docks were seen as the centre of strike militancy with the police setting up a HQ at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich especially focused on the docks (Pan, 2007).
[update 18 September 2011: this myth got yet another airing yesterday on the BBC's Football League Show with the presenter saying that in 1926 there were 'differences of opinions between the rival docks about whether or not to support the General Strike' and some interviewed West Ham fans repeating a similar line. Apart from anything else it is not true that there were rival docks in 1926 - all the main docks on both sides of the river including East India, West India, Millwall, Surrey and Royal Albert were taken under the single management of the Port of London Authority in 1909]
[update 18 November 2013: the myth is also repeated in Running with the Firm, James Bannon's book about being an undercover cop in the Millwall Bushwackers - see here]
Nice listening to Danny Baker on Desert Island Discs, talking about growing up in a council flat in Bermondsey ('a terrific place to live') with his dad a docker and union activist, going to West Greenwich high school, and ending up with a 'big pile of bricks on Blackheath' while holding out against assimilation to the middle class and berating the 'suppression of working class culture' in the media.
He's definitely in the glass half full (if not 3/4 full) camp, with a great attitude of spend it while you can on your friends and family with 'no concern and no respect for money'. And no bullshit about the redeeming nature of surviving a life-threatening illness.
If you're not on twitter it's almost worth joining to follow Danny as Prodnose. He was absent from his radio show on Monday during the BBC strike, tweeting 'Yes stayed home today. Couldn't cross a picket line. Lyrics to Level 42's "My Father's Shoes" and all that'.
Here's some vintage Danny Baker from 1983, reporting from his local football team Millwall on their relegation battle for the 6 o'clock show. This was in the days of the old Den and with George Graham as manager. And yes they did avoid relegation that year.
The New Cross Stadium has been mentioned here before - it occupied the piece of land now called Bridgehouse Meadows, and was next door to the old Millwall ground (and not far from the new one). It opened in the 1900s and closed in 1969 before being demolished in 1975. The picture below, from Millwall History, shows the two grounds in 1962 - Den on the left, New Cross Stadium on the right.
As well as speedway and stock car racing, the stadium was famous for its greyhound racing. There's a fantastic collection of New Cross greyhound badges at Greyhound Derby (have just reproduced a couple here to give a flavour).
The following picture comes from the Working Class Movement Library, and shows Manchester-born boxer Len Johnson at New Cross Greyhound Stadium in 1933. Johnson's boxing career was hampered by restrictions which prevented black boxers having a crack at title fights. He later got to know Paul Robeson and became a Communist Party activist. There were boxing matches at New Cross Stadium too, which presumably explains what Johnson was doing there - he is standing next to a sign which mentions Ted Broadribb vs. Joe Clifton, two interwar boxers.
As mentioned here before, Mark Perry of the great punk band Alternative TV (as well as being editor of punk zine Sniffin' Glue) was living in Deptford at the time - to be precise at 24 Rochfort House, Grove Street. This November 1978 interview from the radical magazine The Leveller mentions that he went to West Greenwich secondary school and had an unsuccessful trial for MillwallFC.He also expounds on his DIY philosophy with Deptford Fun City records.
Click on images to enlarge - I haven't transcribed the whole thing, but here's some sections:
How is it done at Deptford Fun City? With ATV we go in and produce the record ourselves, cut it and get it pressed. That way, it you do it wrong it's all your own fault. I sit down and design the cover. We get the photos taken, nick a SLADE sticker. We organise and distribute the ads - all dwon the line. It's all about doing it yourself.
I don't worry about anything. Record companies make you worry, come up and say, 'Look I don't think there's a single there lads'. So you get these 18 year old kids going mad trying to make a hit single... and they've signed for five years.
Tom Robinson says he signed with EMI because he wanted to reach the largest possible audience. We get to 5000 people on Deptford Fun City. Directly to them -crash. The profits come right back to us and we put it into the next record. We don't own oil wells and all that. Tom Robinsom sells 20 -30,000, making profits for EMI, which I don't think is a good thing. The people who really wanted it would've bought it anyway. You don't know what dastardly things people like EMI are into.
Why have you never done a Rock Against Racism gig? There's a lot of bands doing it and I don't think it needs ATV. In the end it's down to if you enjoy a RAR gig and I never have. What we did enjoy was the SUS benefit in Deptford. SUS - the campaign against the vagrancy laws - was a little thing run by the blacks in the community. RAR's more of an organisation ... I went on the march, but didn't fancy the gig [Carnival]. What they're doing's great. But RAR needs a wham-bam, Generation X type band. And we're not like that. A band can't change the world. And I still think there'd have been a fair few there at the Carnival without any bands. No, playing for nothing and selling albums cheap are the positive productive things you can do for people.
And that's why you did the free tour with Here and Now, the squatter/hippie band from Ladbroke Grove? Yeah, we went on the tour. They did 30 dates, we did 15 of them. They did us a good turn by organising it and we did them one by making an album of it, 'What you see is what you are', with them on one side and us on the other. It was funny like when we played at Stonehenge, quite a few punks came along and were really freaked out standing next to these long-haried hippes. Another free concert we did there were three bands - all playing for nothing -which isn't bad. This kid comes up to me 'What you playing with this bunch of hippies for? Why don't you play down the club?" I said 'Look you've saved a quid aint' you? Have a couple more drinks'.
You chose the name Alternative TV because that's what pisses you off more than anything, the brain-softening mass media? Power is in the hands of those rich enough to buy it, especially in culture. Because if everybody was involved we'd all do it so much better. Look at kids in school bashing around in the music room, playing great music on cymbals and all that. Then when they get out of school, with all the trash put out on the radio, they forget about the music room. I think it's a shame. I played xylophone, violin, trombone at school. I'm still like that now. So-called hip kids are all guitarists - that's all they do. They play All Right Now, play solo just the way it is on record.
No, most people with the arts thing in their bonce know nothing about life, use it to buy white powder. The people who need it can't get it. I really hate Harpers & Queen - they went all through punk and decided it was finished. Five pages on my life and I hated those bastards. They don't know what it's all about. They're living in Chelsea with their rich Daddies. If they lived up the road from Mullins, a big factory in Deptford, with their Dad watching ITV, buying the Mirror and Sun ... They don't know about things like people having to find a flat, your Dad getting chucked out the docks 'cos the docks have closed.
Where do you live? With my Mum and Dad in Deptford, where I was born.
Thanks to Cath on Twitter I've come across another addictive historical archive, the British Pathe News archive of old newsreel footage. I am still trawling through but have found a couple of Brockley film clips already - only trouble is I think the archivist has mislabelled some of the footage.
For instance, there is a 1917 clip showing the Lord Mayor of London pinning a DCM (Distinguished Conduct Medal) on one Sergeant North - the caption says 'Brockley, Suffolk', but why would the Lord Mayor of London be in Suffolk. The buildings look like Victorian terracing of the (London) Brockley kind.
Likewise there's a 1931 clip of a folding car - the caption says 'Not sure which county Brockley is in - probably Somerset. May also be Brockley in Suffolk' - but the housing looks very much like round here, maybe even Telegraph Hill? Maybe even Drakefell Road - check out the crest of the hill and the gates next to the house - an entrance to the park?
Update 23 July: walking up Drakefell Road I am now 95% convinced that the folding car footage was filmed there, specifically where the Greenstreet Hill wooden self-build now stands (I believe this replaced war damaged housing). There is still a post box opposite on the corner of Aspinall Road, which you can see in the film. Or am I deluding myself?
Have a look and let us know what you think.
1935: crowd watching Donkey Derby at Millwall