Daydreams and Nightmares: Millwall Football Club in the 2000s - Part One

Millwall entered the new century back where they had spent much of their history - in English football's third tier. The end of the previous one had seen them finally start to claw their way back into contention for promotion to the Second Division, but the heady days of top flight football at The Den were a fast fading memory. The Premier League similarly appeared as nothing more than a blur on the distant landscape. Now, with money talking more than ever in football, reaching the top division appeared even more unlikely than back in those dark days of the late 70s and early 80s.
Fortunately, unlike most modern-day football fans, Millwall supporters don't see the Premier League as the be-all and end-all of following their football team. Which was just as well given the dire state the club had found itself in during the formative years of football's brave new Premier League world. Millwall fans just wanted their team to give them everything in every match. Finally, under the leadership of playing legends Keith Stevens and Alan McLeary, this was now happening.
Football fortunes can change very quickly, The Lions went from Third Division strugglers to the top of the world in a few seasons back in the eighties. The first five seasons of the new millennium would see The Lions not only pull themselves up and out of the doldrums, but to the brink of the Premier League, to an FA Cup final and even into Europe.
It was all just part of yet another colourful chapter in this unique club's history - and it's all in here.