Millwall and West Ham- points shared in Championship local derby.

 Millwall and West Ham- points shared in Championship local derby.

Football historians would tell us that both Millwall and West Ham was simply a grenade waiting to go off, an accident that had danger and threat written all over it. In fact this was supposed to be such an explosive, fiery and combustible local London derby that most of us were suitably cautioned in case the flames of fury and passion just engulfed us and we had to be rushed off immediately to Accident and Emergency. 

Let's get one thing straight immediately. Millwall and West Ham supporters hate each other and the feeling is mutual. The origins of this personal animosity can be traced way back to the yellowing pages of yesteryear. Truly Millwall and West Ham can't stand the sight of each other, wishing that each would just go away and never come back again. This is one of the most toxic encounters in the whole of the football league. The rivalry between the clubs has been festering and bleeding for ages and for a while yesterday it looked as though it was about to kick off big time on the seething terraces of the New Den. 

In a small corner of the ground, both sets of supporters were taunting and goading each other mercilessly rather like first year secondary school students who were just there for an ugly punch up and an eyeball to eyeball confrontation. To say there was hatred and enmity in the air would have been a gross understatement. You could barely keep these two teams apart and you could smell the loathing. So this really didn't come as a major surprise although thankfully there were no fatalities or casualties. 

And yet for the first time since 2009  Millwall and West Ham were thrown together like a cruel twist of fate. It was both unsightly and unpalatable, horribly unedifying at times and potentially, the worst kind of punch up in the school playground. Police on horses were hovering with intent in the background in case things got completely out of control but, by the final whistle, it was all good natured banter and bonhomie. Thankfully there were no ambulances or paramedics so that was comforting to know. 

By the end of the game, the aggro and antipathy had fizzled out and a compromise had been reached by both sets of supporters. If you leave our manor alone, we'll leave yours without a single word of abuse. This was, of course the Dockers derby, two teams separated by what used to be some of the most productive shipyards in London. Strong, muscular stevedores would ply their trade, toiling away industriously at their day job and greasing the wheels of British industry at the beginning of the 20th century. 

And so it was that Millwall, always the bad boys, agent provocateurs and the devil incarnate, met their East London neighbours in the second tier of football. For this was the Championship, a shameful indignity for West Ham but now an ever present reality for Millwall. Both West Ham and Millwall have known contrasting fortunes for a number of years but here they were once again reunited as if somebody had told them that this would always be the case and both couldn't wait to get started. Swords please gentlemen. This was a nasty, evil, unpleasant encounter, a match played in acrimonious circumstances and no quarter given. But on yesterday's evidence, this was just all hype. 

You remembered those days of  flying fists, flick knives, agitation and anguish, industrial language, the barely concealed anger. There were the railway stations thick with threatening football supporters, the vicious violence, the torn train carriage seats and then those growling chants born of something akin to some kind of weird tribalism. It was all totally unnecessary, unsavoury and deplorably unseemly. But then, to an outsider, there was perhaps something in there that had to be good and yesterday was that day. But there was an underlying current and that simply added spice to the occasion. 

After several exchanges of insults and the almost customary obscenities, Millwall, now near the top of the Championship and West Ham leading the pack at the top, came together rather like sworn enemies but just trying desperately to keep the peace. West Ham arrived at the New Den as leaders of the Championship with a glut of goals in their account so far while Millwall just thought of themselves as their equals although this may not have been the case as such. 

Millwall were always a club of folk heroes, meaty, beefy players, stocky and strapping characters who loved a good, old fashioned scrap. There was Barry Kitchener, Derek Possee, Gordon Hill, that force of nature on the wing and then Terry Hurlock, a fiercely competitive, combative and abrasive fireball of a player who rarely held back in the tackle. Millwall were one of those clubs who were always unfashionable but, often seen in the news as notorious thugs and villains of the piece.

West Ham, for their part, have now regained some of their old poise and flair. For a while it looked as if they were heading towards some distant wilderness where nobody has any time for you. Then four wins in a row including goal festivals against Wolves, and then three against Derby County, Bolton and quite emphatically Wrexham 6-0, stabilised the club and set their season in proper motion. For those whose emotional investment in the club knows no bounds, this now feels good if only because things had to get better. 

The 2-1 at home to Charlton Athletic and a flat, listless 1-1 draw at Watford as well as the 2-2 draw at Burnley now feel like revolting smells rather than sweet perfumes. West Ham are now driving ahead at full steam, cruising and gliding rather than puffing and panting like an old steam train. There is a renewed appetite for the game, a genuine rediscovery of the kind of football most West Ham fans think they should be playing without any kind of prompting or reminding. Now it all seems to be coming together. And not before time.   

And so it was that Millwall came charging out of the block like seasoned greyhounds, flaring at the nostrils and going toe to toe with their London rivals. Jake Cooper, Jordi Osei Tutu and Mark Sykes were more than a match for West Ham's supposedly dashing aristocrats, not exactly foppish and full of their own pomposity but determined to make their mark on the game. All four stifled and smothered anything West Ham had in their collective locker. 

Then Millwall launched an ambitious cavalry charge against the visitors, flooding players into the attacking half and leaving West Ham baffled and bothered. The Lions roared vociferously, a meticulously well organised unit, full of running, chasing and gallantry. Their movements were purposeful, red blooded, masculine and often ruthless. For a while it also felt as if Millwall were too well co-ordinated in the middle of the park, a side primed for action, moving the ball quickly and precisely to feet and then bombarding the West Ham penalty area with a barrage of crosses. 

With Derek Mazou-Sacko, Camiel Neghli, Jenson Metcalfe, Zak Spurge, and the classy Tairyk Arcone lending an air of perfect synchronicity to Millwall's now rampant attack, Millwall opened the scoring. A long throw was launched into the West Ham box and, after a frenetic goal mouth scramble, Caleb Taylor was left on his own. Taylor swiftly latched onto a loose ball and thrashed the ball into the West Ham net with decisive conviction from close range. 

Then, remarkably, Millwall had the audacity to extend their lead. It hardly seemed possible and yet it did happen and we weren't imagining it. Shortly before half time another throw created havoc and confusion in the West Ham penalty area. This time the adventurous Camiel Neghli had joined the attack and as the ball came dipping into the box, another tangle of legs left Neghli to fire home mercilessly for Millwall's second. 

By the second half, West Ham had finally woken up. There was now a steeliness and firm resolution about their football that had deserted them in the first half. When Mohamadou Kante stepped forward as a substitute for West Ham, the game had now swung like a pendulum. Kante was forceful, much more aggressive and on the front foot than had been the case before the Frenchman came to West Ham's rescue. 

Now the whole balance and complexion of the game had changed irrevocably. West Ham were much more positive,  a model of fluency and fearlessness. Their football had focus, clarity and controlled aggression. Arne Engels, their multi million capture from Celtic, found himself strutting around the middle of the park like the most attractive of peacocks, finding his passing range and then measuring them rather like a tailor in a menswear shop. Divine Mukasa is slowly flourishing into a very competent and complete midfield enforcer and Manor Solomon, the Israeli winger who guided Leeds to the promised land of the Premier League, was slinky, slippery and breathtakingly stylish.

At the back both Kyle Walker Peters, Max Kilman and the ever influential Konstantinos Mavropanos and the superb Morato, were like minded individuals, Walker cutting in from the flank and then easing himself forward while Mavropanos has now given an important element at set pieces. Captain Jarrod Bowen, after a slow start to the game, began to pick up the ball and run with it, shuffling the ball between his feet deceptively before leaving his defender gasping in his wake. Bowen stretched Millwall quite frequently rather like an elastic band and the Lions could only admire the claret and blue scenery. 

The game now firmly camped inside the Millwall half, West Ham turned the screw and applied the necessary pressure. A delightful cross field movement involving firstly Solomon found Engels. Then the ball was switched to Pablo who neatly slipped the ball square to  Kante who fired a low, unstoppable shot past Millwall keeper Filip Marschall. West Ham were back in the game and flowing effortlessly. The claret and blue shirts were stringing passes together as if they'd been going through the same routine for ages.

West Ham's equaliser was another exquisite gem. A corner on the West Ham right was whipped in with some ferocity and, after Austbo, West Ham's summer signing from Norway, had finally crossed the ball  with a well flighted ball, there was Mavropanos leaping like  the proverbial salmon to firmly head the ball home for a well deserved equalising goal. 

That was that.  This had been a wholly fascinating, intriguing and thoroughly entertaining Championship head to head.. At times this was just riveting and engrossing, a London derby spectacle that had lived up to its hype. Sometimes you begin to question the logic of football played at Saturday lunchtime. But then who are we argue if this is to be the future of the game? And now both Millwall and West Ham took their feet off the accelerator and an international break follows. Football very rarely surprises you.