Lost Grounds (1): Millwall - The legendary Old Den

Lost Grounds – Stadiums that are no longer in use. Cult sites of football that have either been demolished or repurposed but will always have their place in the collective memory of the fans. The first part of our series takes us – of course – to London, specifically to the legendary “Old Den,” the former stadium of the Championship club FC Millwall. 

It’s only a few kilometers along the Thames. 500 meters from the current stadium of FC Millwall, The Den (“The Pit” / “The Lion’s Den”), there once stood a ground that had a thunderous reputation not only in England: “The Old Den.” 

Today, residential houses stand on the terrain of the “Old Den,” and a new neighborhood called Little Millwall has emerged there. 

View into "The New Den," the stadium of FC Millwall. Photo: Shutterstock.

“The Old Den,” described by experts like Duncan Adams as “somehow dark, damp, and menacing,” had been the home of Millwall Football Club in the London borough of Lewisham since 1910.

Between 2006 and 2010, Lewisham was my regular base for all report trips and match visits in London. At the Manna House, we talked about God and the world, and of course about football and FC Millwall. 

This sign in Millwall reminds visitors of the location of the "Old Den." Photo: Imago

“No one likes us, we don’t care!”

“I wouldn’t go there,” almost everyone I spoke to in the pub advised me whenever the conversation turned to a visit to Millwall. 

But of course, I was tempted to visit FC Millwall – and of course, against all well-meaning advice, I set off on a cold November evening in 2006 to “The Den,” where you can take a one-kilometer walk from New Cross Gate station. It’s more convenient to take the regional train to South Bermondsley, from where it’s only a five-minute walk to the stadium. “The work of the police,” wrote Duncan Adams in 2010, “has become much easier thanks to this secured approach route, as away and home fans are definitively separated.”

It used to be different. “The Old Den” was considered one of the most problematic football stadiums in the UK. It was an adventure playground for hooligans. 

Among the organized hooligan groups (“Firms”), Millwall’s “Bushwackers” were among the most notorious thugs on the island since the early 1980s. 

Pitch invasions were a regular occurrence at "The Old Den" as well as in the new stadium, as seen in 1994 against Derby County. Photo: Imago.

Even long after the demolition of the “Old Den,” they continued to make major negative headlines, for instance, during the First Division Play-off semi-final match against Birmingham City in 2001/2002, when serious riots occurred. In the meantime, the club has largely excluded this group from the stadium. 

The stories of the “Bushwackers” and other “Firms” were written down in sensational books from the 2000s and remain an (unpleasant) part of English football folklore. 

The most famous song the “Bushwackers” brought to the stands of Millwall is “No one likes us, we don’t care.” (Melody: Rod Stewart: “Sailing”).

A Dark Path

Let’s stay in the stadium. The path is still the same. The dark railway underpass on Cold Blow Lane, described on the portal millwall-history.org as “the perfect setting for a Jack-the-Ripper horror film,” leads the way. You pass by unsightly backyards and dumps. 

The stadium didn’t look much different. Before the Taylor Report of 1993, which brought an end to standing terraces in the UK and thus also to the old Millwall stadium, only 10 percent of the seats in the old “Den” were seated. The insufficient floodlight made the games in Millwall always seem a bit dark. 

It wasn’t until 1986, under new club owners, that essential things like crash barriers in the stands, a new TV commentator’s box, and a family section in the “Old Den” were introduced. 

,,Here lies The Den” 

In the late 1980s, the attendance figures for FC Millwall, which only managed to be promoted to the First Division in 1987 (the predecessor league to the Premier League, introduced in 1992), ranged between 4,000 and 18,000.

The end of the “Old Den” came in 1993. Not without melancholy. “Here lies the Den 1910 – 1993. Murdered by Reg Burr,” read a banner that some Millwall fans carried across the pitch during the farewell – of course under police supervision – “Here lies The Den, murdered by Reg Burr.” 

This was a reference to the legendary Millwall president Reginald Burr († 2012), who led the club for 25 years and paid off a debt of more than 5 million pounds. 

“In the last days of the stadium, people started to romanticize the old times,” millwall-history.org wrote, “most were okay with the move, but for others, it was the end of the road. They wouldn’t set foot in the new stadium because for them it was no longer the Millwall they knew and loved.”