Black Millwall: memories of football and neighbourhood in South London

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that ‘doing’ football – as in playing, watching, talking about – constitutes a social field that cuts across otherwise racially coded urban landscapes. Where most work on fan cultures explore social practices and rituals inside that sacred space, the stadium, the focus here is on the interweaving of ‘doing football’ with the wider socio-cultural fabric incorporating neighbourhood spaces and stadiums. Expanding on Les Back’s notion of localised cultural spaces, oral histories of black Millwall fans will be used to critically engage with the popular perception of Millwall as a ‘racist club’. It is argued that the use of racial markers at The Den is used to target the opposition, whereas black Millwall supporters are accepted as contingent insiders.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural space
• football fan cultures
• contingent insider
• millwall
• oral history methodology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The mural was put up inside Highbury, Arsenal’s stadium at the time, and was intended to cover ongoing building work in the North Stand. During training two Black Arsenal players picked up on the fact that the crowd depicted in the mural did not include any black fans. This was immediately rectified, but the designer admitted to an implicit bias: ‘At no point did it occur to me’, he said, ‘that I was drawing white, middle-class London’ (The New York Times 2020).

2. Psedonyms used throughout the article.

3. While overall a much more ‘sanitised’ experience, there are still instances of racial chanting at The Den, and in January 2019, a number of Millwall fans were recorded chanting ‘I’d rather be a Paki than a Scouse’ in the stands at The Den (Metro 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Lottery Community Fund [OH-16-02337].