MILLWALL legends and Lions fans have remembered their favourite moments in fixtures against Leeds United.
The Yorkshire club are in town today for the latest instalment of a rivalry that almost always throws up memorable moments.
Steve Morison played for both clubs during his playing career and is looking forward to the “unbelievable” game.
He recalled Millwall’s famous 4-3 win at Elland Road in 2018 – when Jed Wallace scored the winner in stoppage time – as one of the moments that come to mind.
The 40-year-old, who now manages non-league Hornchurch, told NewsAtDen: “It’s an unbelievable game. I loved every minute of it. The Den will be rocking. It will be a great game and having it on TV will be really good.
“We had a 4-3 up there, which was amazing. Obviously we were cruising, 2-0 up, they had 10 men, and then back to three-all, and then [we] score in the last bit of the game.
“When I played for Leeds, we won 1-0 against Millwall and it was different being on the other side of it.
“There’s been some great games over the years. Jimmy Abdou scored the goal and I wasn’t there at the time but that was an amazing memory to watch that back and see that happen. We’ve had some really good night games up there and it’s a great place to play football.”
Fellow Millwall legend Paul Robinson also mentioned Abdou’s goal but paid tribute to David Forde for giving the midfielder the platform to score his most famous Lions goal.
Robinson said: “A massive one was the Jimmy Abdou moment when he pops up and scores and puts himself into folklore. But what people sort of forget was David Forde’s penalty save in that. And even earlier Adam Boulden put a tackle in which said: “we’re here and we’re not going to take anything.’ To be fair, probably in these days he might have got sent off for it.
“That was just a real team effort that night and everyone put a real shift in. A great night for the club.
“The year after we played again at home and beat them and away we beat them. We were about 15, 16 points behind them in January and I think on the last day they just pipped us to automatic promotion which obviously worked out well for me in the end because we got promoted through the play-offs [where Robinson scored in both the semi-final second leg against Huddersfield Town and the winner against Swindon Town at Wembley].”
The Abdou moment also came up for Millwall fan George, 21, one of the members on the News At Den Fans’ Panel.
He was still a young child during the two-legged play-off semi-finals of 2009.
George said: “My first real memory was the famous play-off semi-final. I can remember sitting in block two, Kitchener Upper, for the first leg and the atmosphere was electric, although I used to cover my ears because I didn’t like the loud noises! We won the first leg 1-0 and then the second leg can only be described as the night Jimmy Abdou wrote his name in Millwall history.
“I was watching it in a pub somewhere local to me with my dad and grandad, surrounded by other Millwall fans, [and it] was a great night for the club to reach the final of course but even sweeter as it was against Leeds.
“It wasn’t to be as we lost in the final, but seeing 30,000 plus Leeds fans cancel hotels in London, due to one goal scored by Sir Nadjim Abdou, will always be one story to tell in the future. It definitely sparked a rivalry between the two fanbases who clearly don’t think of each other very fondly.”
Fellow fan Frank looked back to March 2010, after Millwall lost in the play-off final the previous year to Scunthorpe United and both them and Leeds found themselves going at it towards the top of League One again.
He said: “Leeds 0-2 Millwall, Monday 22nd March 2010. I was in my second year at university, living in Camden at the time, and went out looking for a pub to watch the game in that evening. The first two pubs I tried refused to show it – no big surprises there, no one likes us after all. The Dublin Castle came to my rescue, it had already been commandeered by a group of glum-looking Leeds fans but I found a space and sat down to watch the game.
“We were in great form at the time, having won nine out of the last 11 including thumping Charlton 4-0 the week prior, and we were chasing down the top two in League One – Leeds were second at the time.
“Why were those Leeds fans already looking glum? Because I’d arrived 15 minutes after kick off, having struggled to find a venue, and Millwall were already ahead after Steve Morison swept the ball in at the back post to silence Elland Road.
“From memory the rest of the match was relatively comfortable and uneventful – barring the Leeds fans to my left screaming ‘Snodgrass!!!’ at the TV in a thick Yorkshire accent for 90 minutes – until Shaun Batt went on a mazy run in the 80th minute, starting by the left corner flag and weaving past the Leeds defence before slotting past [Casper] Ankergren at the near post.
“We were 21 points behind Leeds in January, we’d cut that gap down to 3 points. The race for second went down to the final day and in the end Leeds hung on and we finished 3rd, beating Swindon at Wembley via the play offs to achieve the promotion. So whilst that result against Leeds wasn’t necessarily pivotal in terms of points, the ease at which we won that game showed that we really were ready for promotion and we played with a real confidence and belief for the rest of the season.”
Lifelong Millwall fan Charlie thinks back to that infamous Wallace goal at Elland Road in 2018 and how he came extremely close to missing the euphoric moment altogether.
He said: “In terms of being in the games in person, the top one for me has to be the 4-3 win and Jed Wallace’s late goal. The story I’ve got with that game is I’m never one for leaving football matches early, ever.
“Usually I’m at a football match and if a team is losing 1-0 and you see the fans piling out for the exits just because they want to get an early train home, I think ‘what you are doing?’ There’s still added on time, you can still win the game. Football’s a funny game, anything can change quickly.
“But when we played Leeds we went 2-0 up and we were cruising. And then we just sort of capitulated and fell apart at a certain point in the game. And that particular season, Millwall were really bad at giving away two goal leads. So when we went 2-0 up at Leeds, they pulled one back and then equalised and there was such a feeling among the away end of ‘here we go again.’
“And then when the third goal went in, I was just so sick of us throwing away two goal leads that I turned to my mate and said: ‘let’s go. We’ve lost this game’. Which is usually against my philosophy but I was so disappointed.
“Thankfully, he managed to convince me it was a bad idea and we went to 3-3 and the goal celebrations were amazing. And the late goal came from Jed Walllace and I can honestly say I have never been involved in such unbelievable celebrations in the away end, or limbs as we say today. They were the best limbs I’ve ever been involved in at an away end.”