I remember working at the Showcase cinema at Junction 10 as a teenager and, one night, I spotted John Keister with his mates. He was watching a midnight showing on a Friday night (‘Reservoir Dogs’ or something like that). At the time, I thought it was odd. Even more so when I rocked up at the Bescot the next day and he was in the starting eleven! 
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Psycho, psycho John, Psycho, psycho John, psycho Johnny Keister. 
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I reckon even the refs were scared of Keane.
Not as scared as they were of Ferguson.
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I reckon George Kirby (you have to be old to remember…) was probably the hardest player Walsall ever had. Rarely baited the refs though, as I recall. I think he once took out a Millwall fan who ran onto the pitch at the Den.
George Kirby - one of my all-time football heroes. He was the making of Allan Clarke and probably the only player to flatten Maurice Setters (one of football’s REAL hard men).
Despite being a thug if the occasion demanded it, George was a cultured Scouser (is that an oxymoron? 
) and ex-grammar schoolboy. He used to sit in the Fellows Park changing-room, doing the Daily Telegraph crossword! When he retired from football, he ran his own insurance agency in Leamington, I believe. It is not known if the aforesaid Mr. Setters was one of his customers! 
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I was at the Den that day and wondered if I would get out alive!!! The coach windows were smashed and it was a cold journey home. It was a 1-1 draw and I was somewhat relieved when Millwall equalised as I feared a good beating when we were winning.
George Kirby was a real hero as PED. says and his flattening of Setters was a joy to behold .One of his nicknames was “gentleman George”
I was there to probably the only time I wanted the opposition to score millwall fans were real nutters.
Memory going wiyh age but I think they had been unbeaten at home for 50ish games ( maybe I dreamed it there are people on here who will know )
Also remember some millwall getting on coaches and fighting
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It doesn’t seem believable now but in those days, in most grounds there was no segregation of supporters. Most of the time it was OK but there were a few occasions when it was best to keep your mouth shut!
Kirby was interesting. Apart from Everton, where he only played 20 odd games over several years, he rarely stayed for more than a year or two at any club, even though he was a success at almost all of them - he scored 1 in 3 for us over a couple of seasons and he certainly was important in bringing on the teenaged Allan Clarke. God help anyone who kicked Clarke!
I remember the Walsall - Stoke league cup tie, which came soon after we beat them in the FA Cup, though Clarke had gone by them. Setters was completely knocked out by Kirby - he was out flat for several minutes. Carried on of course. Saddlers won 2-1 too.
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Is this the December 1965 game @WalsallOne? If so I hadn’t appreciated hooliganism was much of a thing back then.
It is and it was my first experience of it. I was 20 years old and was really frightened for the first time in my life. A younger lad on the coach was beaten up but me and my mate were ok until the bricks came through the coach windows. I wrote a long letter the FA about what happened and asking them to take action against Millwall FC. I had an acknowledgement but that was all. I cannot claim that I forsaw the years of segregation that followed and the near collapse of the game in the seventies and eighties caused by hooliganism but it made me realise that “away” fixtures, in particular, were places where I had to be careful.
Before then, of course, there was no segregation and it was really good to talk to fans of other clubs .It is something I miss in the game today.
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BTW it was bloody cold on that coach journey home!! Made worse by my putting sugar instead of salt on my egg and chips at the motorway services!!!
Millwall were pioneers of hooliganism and had their ground closed in 1920, 1934, 1947 and 1950 as a result of crowd trouble. As a nine year old, in 1966 (I think), my dad refused to take me to Fellows Park when we played Millwall as he said it wouldn’t be safe. But he was more than happy for me to go with a West Brom supporting mate and his dad to the Hawthorns to watch the bagladies play Spurs that day instead. So I got to see Jimmy Greaves live and missed us getting stuffed 4-1.
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1920? Crikey. I knew they were amongst the first (or THE first) but no idea it went that far back.
I was at the Den when Alex Stepney was in goal for Millwall against us. Those wonderful, warm-hearted home fans came over to introduce themselves to us Saddlers fans in their own inimitable way. There was an Asian lad (a rarity in the 1960s) among us, wearing a crash-helmet. As soon as a Millwall thug approached him, with malicious intent, he took off his helmet and used it to inflict grievous bodily harm on the Bermondsey boy who backed off in great haste! Our group had travelled down to Cold Blow Lane (what an appropriate address for the Den!) in a Bedford Dormobile minibus and we were trapped in it in the traffic leaving the car park, after the match. The local morons surrounded our minibus and started rocking it violently. They would have turned it over but couldn’t because of the rows of vehicles on each side. The locals of South-East London aren’t always the jolly, friendly folk that Del Boy would have us believe!
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What a diplomatic way of putting it.
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Lots of them live out here, enjoying their retirement years. having sold their council houses for half a million.
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Used to live near the Den. Midweek evening fixtures we’d go drinking after work till kick off so we could get home safely.
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Well at least you havn’t got that problem now. Jacinda just let’s you out for 15 minutes a week so you can nip down the offie.
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Level 2 here. Table service. Only Auckland is in full lockdown. Nice to know you have at least a superficial understanding of our process though.
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