Scunthorpe 3 - Millwall 0 (Back to Report Lists) Supporting Millwall for any number of years can be hard work. How do you try to explain your love affair with a club that continues to tug on your heartstrings, making you fill yourself with false hopes only to dash them onto the rocks of reality at some Godforsaken place like Glanford Park? A series of wins has that effect on you, doesn’t it? Only a few, cynical, seen it all before, miserable bastards could claim not to have been buoyed up by the recent run of form. I am old enough and ugly enough to know better but even I got sort of sucked into the mild euphoria surrounding our recent run of form. Why do I do it? Why do I follow Millwall all over the place like a demented puppy craving the attention of a disinterested owner, feeding off scraps, wagging my proverbial tail for meaningless results that very quickly become statistics of yesterday’s news. I confess. I love following Millwall. It is an unconditional sort of love. I go because they have always been my team. I have made some very good friends following Millwall. Millwall is intrinsically entwined in my life and I can’t let go of them despite getting repeated kicks to my Jacob’s, as happened yet again at Scunthorpe. My old sparring partner Freddie Mercury once sang, “ I don’t want my freedom, there’s no reason for living with a broken heart”…. I concur. And because I follow them they can fucking well take note of the following report and I hope they choke on the words that tell them how truly awful their collective performance was. Please don’t believe the pathetic reports from official sources. We can consider ourselves extremely lucky to have escaped with such a low score. 3-0 flattered us. How we managed to get to half time at 0-0 is a bigger mystery than the whereabouts of Lord Lucan. Lets examine the line up in a bit of detail, shall we? Lenny Pidgely is to goalkeeping what Jade Goody’s old dear is to lipstick lesbianism. Senda is an average player made to look better because of the dross around him. Tony Craig is no better than Ronnie Bull. Shaw is too old and his hair is too long. He has no pace at all and needs four yards start to have any chance at all. Robbo is a tryer but he has no concept of leadership and the captain’s armband merely acts as a token gesture not too dissimilar to the cowardly lions heart given out by the wonderful wizard of oz. Jody Morris is back, unfit, slow, lacklustre and clearly still half cut from his latest piss up. Ardley, is still carrying some sort of injury and just cant seem to get that extra yard he so desperately needs. Brighton is simply not fit enough to be thrust straight in to the relegation battle. Marvin Elliott is about as useful as a chocolate teapot…oo-er..is that racist, I’ll have Robbo on my back before long, wont I? All right then, how about as useful as an ashtray on a Harley? Harris is just Harris and with the best will in the world will still take time to get his act together with the rest of the team. And finally, Ben May. What can I say about Shanksy that hasn’t already been said? If this man is a striker then I am in line for slimmer of the fuckin’ year. There is more chance of Shelma Shitty drinking from Jade Goody’s furry cup than this bloke becoming a 20 goal a season merchant. Can he be done under the trades description act? If not then the law is an ass!! Right from the kick off it was clear that Scunny were going to give us a hard time. They adapted to the heavily sanded pitch immediately and started carving us open at will. More by luck than judgement our beleaguered defence managed to keep the rampaging hordes at bay and when Beckford breezed through the laughable off side trap he found himself one on one with Pidgers. To his credit Pidgers made a good save but only managed to get the ball back to Beckford, who, with the goal at his mercy, fired straight at Senda who cleared the ball off the line. Almost straight after, prolific striker Sharp hit a goal bound shot that Pidgers got in the way of. The ball span up and found its way to Beckford at the far post who must’ve thought he’d scored only to see his shot cannon off the sprawling Pidgers, then the post, then Pidgers again as the ball flew harmlessly out for a corner. From the corner the defence was all over the place. Pidgers flapping, Shaw pointing, Robbo hiding and Sharp heading over from a free header. When the half time whistle blew we had to take stock to clarify that it was actually 0-0. Now then. MISA where were you! I had already spoken to Elephantman, seen Simba, Damian ‘big show’ Fox and met with New Dawn (I know you didn’t speak to me just to get a mention, but rules is rules and in you go ). The ubiquitous Herman Boring was sitting alongside me & MrsB and NickB came over to plead on a few others behalf’s but I am sorry people, I cannot be compromised on this! I’m sure you can live with it!! What about the ground itself? It is not unlike Northampton, very small but easy to get to. A big car park right next to the away end as well, very civilised. But they didn’t sell Bovril. They had oxo instead. If you haven’t had a cup of hot oxo it can best be described as Bovril’s younger, slightly camper, brother, Not quite full of beefy goodness but just enough flavour to get you interested. What the fuck am I going on about? My team is about to get torn apart and I am waxing lyrical about hot beefy drinks. God stone me, never mind…. The second half started and the fear and dread that we had all experienced finally came home to roost. No, I am not talking about Zebroski coming on for Morris, although that did send a shiver or two through the hardy 300 odd Millwall fans. No, I mean when disaster finally struck. It was mercifully quick and painless. Five minutes in and straight after Pidgers got a yellow card for time wasting (yes, time wasting after four minutes of play ) yet another Scunthorpe attack saw Pidgers make yet another feeble attempt at a save and it left Goodwin to tap home the simplest of goals. 1-0. A collective sigh from the away fans, an almost understandable acceptance even. We knew it was coming and we knew there wasn’t a thing we could do to prevent it. A bit like when you feel the orchestrations starting in your stomach and you know that you need to get to a khazi before the proverbial ton of boots fall out the attic. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not. We didn’t have too long to wait to be put totally out of our misery. Two minutes, to be exact. Robbo made a clumsy challenge on Billy Sharp and the ref pointed straight to the spot. The Millwall end looked like a mass of ‘Churchill’ nodding dogs as heads waved from side to side. Abject misery prevailed. Crosby fired home and at 2-0 we knew we could be on the end of a right pasting. I am sure we did have some attempts at goal but misery has a way of dragging you down into it’s murky depths and even the odd shot from distance is quickly confined to the ‘empty recycle bin’ of this tired old hacks brain. I know oor Wullie shuffled the pack straight after the second goal with Williams coming on for the jaded Brighton and Marvin did make an effort to use his pace but it really was all huff and puff with no real end product. Scunthorpe were toying with us now. They knew we were a beaten side and they poured the pressure on relentlessly. Shots were firing across our goalmouth at a rate of knots and the woodwork saved us on at least two occasions. The second occasion was from a free kick that smacked the underside of the bar with Pidgers well beaten. The ball rebounded into the six-yard box and with an open goal beckoning Beckford ( I think) headed past the post. When the third goal came with about ten minutes left it was another simple tap in, this time by Beckford, after the Millwall defence was again torn apart. We didn’t stir. We sat there, staring into space, trying to rekindle the memories of a few short weeks back when we were winning and winning well. It’s funny how quickly those memories fade. The ref put us out of our misery, blew for full time and all it left us to do was watch a bunch of misfits wearing Millwall colours trudge off to a chorus of boos from the travelling contingent. We made our way back to the Bonemobile, freezing cold, pissed off and glad we had booked into a local hotel. The drive home straight after that would just have been too much to contemplate. So what now? Yeovil away and is it possible that we can be on the end of a hat trick of 3-0’s. You fuckin’ better believe it, people. I suggest all you punters and prediction leaguers get your bets on now for that statistic. See you at the Huish? Now what else did my old mucker Mercury sing…” I want to break free…..” No fuckin’ chance Frederick….no chance.