1 LIVERPOOL 1 MILLWALL

November 12, 1988 Division One Millwall fan, Merv Payne

“My first football memory was sitting in front of a television, watching Liverpool win the 1977 European Cup Final – I was only five years old.

Thanks to my old man, though, I wasn’t doomed to become one of those irritating armchair fans who ‘supported’ Liverpool or Nottingham Forest (the other star turn of that time) miles away in London. I was indoctrinated into the family tradition of following Millwall two years later, standing alongside 3,000 fans in the Third Division. Two worlds that could never collide, right?

Fast forward to 1988 and I found myself in a packed Anfield Road End watching my Millwall, who by now had been promoted to the First Division, running onto the pitch with Liverpool’s players for a league game as equals. It was so surreal, as if I’d been transported into a film.

The journey to Merseyside had been eventful enough. We shared a ride to Euston train station with a newly released armed robber pal of one of our party, who hopped into the car from a side street by the River Thames after a few furtive looks around. It was like a scene from The Sweeney. Once in Liverpool, we got an escort from Lime Street station to the ground, flanked by bobbies with their huge batons, all the while being gawped at by the locals as if a freak show had rolled into town.

The unimaginable happened 10 minutes into the game: Millwall scored at the Kop end. Steve Nicol equalised and we earned a 1-1 draw, one of many magical chapters in our first ever top-flight season.

I can still feel the goosebumps my team gave me that day, plus all the elbows that battered my body as we celebrated Paul Stephenson’s debut strike. I also kept the programme and train tickets [above left] – memories that will live on forever.”