Away Days - Millwall

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This week's away days is from Swansea's trip to Millwall, five of Ugo's coaches left the Quadrant at 8pm, for what was our first away trip since Tranmere - pop and crisps at the ready - we were hoping for a similar result today. The mood was optimistic and most were hoping that Roberto's unbeaten start would continue.

We had a quick stop in a busy Reading services before heading off to Millwall, we were making good time until we got to London, our coach went through the centre of London - which is not quiet at the best of times - but we had a good tour of England's capital city.

I could have had a game of monopoly with the number of streets we passed on our way through to lovely Millwall, we also passed a number of famous landmarks (kindly pointed out to us by Ugo!) such as Big Ben, The London Eye and MI5 (Or am I not meant to know where it is!?).

We also passed The Oval Cricket ground, I never realised how slap bang in the middle of a load of houses it was. There was a guy by the entrance looking quite lost. We tried shouting through the window that the World Cup was in Jamaica! He seemed to hear us and walked off!

We were still stuck in slow traffic at this point; going through some rough areas of London, it's not the sort of place I'd like to live

We were making our way to a place to meet our police escort; a guy at the front of the bus kept saying that we should go another way, as after all he had a map!! (Even though it looked about 20 years old!). But I was happy to leave the directions to the bus driver and Ugo. But this man was getting awfully annoyed by the direction we were going.

Our police escort arrived at around 2:20, after another 10 minute wait for the other coaches - one got lost on the M25 apparently! - We were then on our way. I would like to say fair play the 6 Metropolitan Police on motorbikes for their efforts on escorting us to the ground safely and on time. They were blocking & stopping traffic on both sides, so we could get past - made us all feel special!

We arrived at the ground at around 2:50, so only just in time! There was no time for a drink, but that doesn't bother me. I think the whole of the Metropolitan Police were in and around the stadium and we were greeted by a nice welcome from some the home fans (not!), our coach only separated by police on horseback! Not a good time to get off the coach to buy a programme I thought! It was a little intimidating.

The New Den is quite a decent ground, it's quite big and it's an all seater stadium, we were behind the goal on the upper tier. It was a good view, unlike some of the grounds I've been to, we were quite high up. I could see all the pitch and it's good to see moves and attacks building up (though we didn't do that much Saturday!)

There was also a decent atmosphere at the start, from both sets of fans. But as the match went on there wasn't too much singing from the travelling Jackarmy. The only thing after that were the embarrassing chants relating to Millwall hooligans, also some fans thinking that they could take on all of the home end - Best thing to do is just ignore them. Why they couldn't sing songs about Swansea City is anyone's guess.

After the game we had to stay behind for around 45 minutes, we got escorted back into the busy London traffic, back over the Thames and I was hoping that we could get away as quick as we can.

After much discussion about the game, almost everyone agreeing that Alan Tate was partly to blame for the loss, as well as questioning the tactics. After the disappointing defeat we were back in Swansea by 10 o'clock, if we go back to that part of London again it'll be too soon!

It was another bad performance and result on the road again but it all starts again, where we'll be in a bubble, against Bristol City - I wonder who'll get an early bath in that game! Hopefully we can win there for the first time in the since 1989.

Ticket: £19

Coach: £16

Programme: £3

Total: £38

Current Running Total: £964.30