We had been to the Den and loved it…

Another working day but today is different as football and Newcastle United is on the menu.

I set off home to meet my lad as my top mates have dropped digital tickets to me late afternoon for the Millwall Carabao Cup game.

Everyone has been there, tickets promised and then the anxious wait, but once again the Gossy lads come good.

Tickets in the wallet. I am out of work on the button and walking through a distressing land that is the disturbing Cement Garden. Scene of the seventies novel and later film.

A landscape of poisoned soil debris and centuries of neglect. The part of London that no one likes and no one cares for.

The broken landscape becomes historically interesting by the mesh of nineteenth century railway viaducts and arches that house…well…who knows?

I had been to the Old Den a few times, just down from New Cross. New Cross, what a place. Skinhead bars and punk venues.

But back to today and the world of my fifteen year old son who will be going to an away game at Millwall.

Off to London Bridge on the 344 from Vauxhall and then it’s a jump off at Borough Market.

My lad says he can’t see many Geordies and at that exact moment a guy appears with a black and white mohawk haircut and a toon top. A bit worse for wear but that Newcastle United fan obviously hasn’t spent a day at work and has been on the sauce from early.

Into London Bridge station and the football chants are starting. Unfortunately, there are chants that are unacceptable in my opinion. I will leave that one there.

One stop and then funnelled into another identikit stadium. The atmosphere and police presence give a feeling of a time way back, a time that I do not want my son to experience, but then again maybe he needs to be shouted at and abused by angry South London geezers who know no better. Just like I experienced many times in the past.

With a victory under our belt, the Geordie mob are decanted from the south east train and great chants ring out around London Bridge and my daft lad is in full vocal capacity.

A great experience and then a short journey from the Cement Garden to Vauxhall.

Even though the game was actually rubbish and we got away with one, we had actually been to a part of London that no one likes.

We had been to the Den and loved it. Thanks Tony.

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