Londoners, lock your doors and stay off the streets.
Chaos is coming because for the first time in 14 years, Millwall and West Ham are meeting in a football match.
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English football’s bloodiest rivalry is back with top of the table West Ham travelling across the River Thames this Saturday to meet their fiercest rivals for the first time since the ten-man Hammers won 2-1 at their old home Upton Park back in 2012.
That was the last time the two sides were in the Championship together, with a young Harry Kane featuring for Millwall while on loan from Tottenham.
It would also be the end of an era with West Ham moving to the London Stadium in 2016, it proved to be the last Dockers’ Derby on Green Street – which became known around the world for the 2005 film ‘Green Street Hooligans’ that made the two clubs’ rivalry infamous around the globe.
Both clubs’ firms are so hostile towards one another that former Aston Villa and England forward Gabby Agbonlahor was only half-joking when he suggested on TalkSport earlier this month that kick off will need to be at 8am if they were to ever meet again.
West Ham’s relegation from the Premier League, and Millwall’s loss to Hull City in the playoffs last campaign, has since made that a reality.
The anticipation has been so great that the match will be shown live on free-to-air television in the United Kingdom in a rare move.
It could be a weekend of carnage in England and Scotland.
The Black Country Derby, between fellow Championship clubs West Brom and Wolves, is back for the first time since the second half of their FA Cup fourth round match in 2024 was suspended for roughly 40 minutes due to fan unrest.
Glasgow’s Old Firm Derby is also once again taking place with Celtic hosting Rangers in the Scottish Premiership.
Millwall versus West Ham is the rivalry match fans have been truly waiting for, whoever.
Younger generations, who have only seen the movie and heard their elders’ tales of the violence and bloodshed between the two teams’ supporters, will now get to experience it first hand at Millwall’s home ground – The Den – at 12.30pm local time on Saturday.
“I can’t wait,” 20-year-old goalkeeper, and academy product, Finlay Herrick told West Ham TV after the Hammers’ League Cup loss to Fulham midweek.
“I’ve been seeing films, I’ve been told stories and I finally get to see it properly and be involved in it as well, which I’m looking forward to.”
The Lions’ 20,146 capacity home ground was once described by former West Ham manager Sam Allardyce as a “hostile and evil” place.
Millwall’s players and supporters alike will be hoping to live up to that reputation – even if their manager Alex Neil said his injury-riddled side are “running on empty” right now.
“I can’t wait. It was one of the first fixtures we saw when they came out and the lads are buzzing for it and excited,” Millwall defender Caleb Taylor told the BBC’s EFL 72+ podcast.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries at the start of the season which has not helped us, but the squad we have is still capable of getting a result.
“You know what The Den’s like, it’s such a good atmosphere, everyone will be up for it, we’ll give everything we’ve got to hopefully get a win.”
Taylor added: “Saturday we’ll try and be solid, they have some good players, come down from the Premier League, they have huge financial backing. We’ll make it a good game and really give it to them.
“Since I’ve been here the atmosphere at The Den has just been incredible. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like on Saturday, it’s going to be proper intimidating. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Times have certainly changed.
Football hooliganism is no longer rampant like it was in previous generations.
In 1976, Millwall fan Ian Pratt was killed among the fighting between the two club’s firms.
He ended up falling under a train and the Millwall firm responded by handing out leaflets saying “A West Ham fan must die next week to avenge him”.
A decade later, 19-year-old West Ham fan Terry Burns was stabbed to death by a group of Millwall supporters.
Tensions did not ease after the turn of the century.
When they met in the 2009 League Cup, a Millwall fan was stabbed outside Upton Park before the game.
There were several delays to the game as supporters invaded the pitch and 54 West Ham supporters were handed life bans as the club was hit with a £115,000 fine from the Football Association.
“I was in front of the Millwall fans, they’d ripped up the chairs and started throwing them on the pitch,” then West Ham goalkeeper Rob Green recalled to The Athletic.
“But then they started pulling out the metal framework that held the seats in. That’s when I realised, ‘S***, this is going to be a long night.’ It was venomous hatred.”
Green added: “The heavy police presence made it a different kind of game. On paper, we (West Ham) had enough to beat them, but they scored an early goal and that just heightened the tense atmosphere. It went to extra time and that was the last thing the game needed. The pitch invasions delayed it even further.
“The game finished late and we couldn’t leave the ground until it died down outside. Nothing about that game felt safe.”
Football officials, security guards and London’s Metropolitan Police will certainly be hoping there is no repeat of those ugly scenes this weekend.
They will be crossing their fingers and toes that TalkSport pundit and former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan’s jab that “Millwall fans these days are a lot more bark than they are bite” is proven to be true.
If it is wrong, there will be 400 police officers – four times the usual amount for a football match in London – ready to try put an end to any unrest.
On the pitch, Premier League referee Paul Tierney has dropped down a division for this match to make sure an experienced official is in charge.
Jordan’s comment has not sat well with some Millwall fans, who are eager to recreate the bad old days their parents and grandparents lived through.
One Millwall fan went viral on social media earlier this week after spotting injured West Ham star Tomas Soucek outside a shop and threatening him.
“Soucek, come here. If I see you at The Den next Saturday, I’m going to cut your f***ing face off,” he said.
The 31-year-old, who played of Czechia at this year’s World Cup, simply laughed back at him.
The incident made a splash on social media, but it was arguably one of the most tame Millwall-West Ham moments in 129 years of hatred for one another.
They have hated each other since Queen Victoria sat on the British throne and Australia was still a collection of English colonies.
The history books say tensions were always there from when West Ham was created in an ironworks and shipbuilding factory in 1895 – a decade after Millwall was started in a canned food factory less than 5 kilometres away.
The 1926 General Strike was the true birth of the hatred between the opposing working-class communities of East London, however.
Most West Ham supporters joined the strike, while many Millwall fans kept working.
The latter were viewed as traitors and there was no looking back for the distaste between the two clubs from either side of the Thames River’s old industrial area, ‘The Isle Of Dogs’.
In more recent times, several Australians became thrust into the middle of the Dockers’ Derby.
Socceroos legend Tim Cahill donned the navy blue and white when they made a stunning run to the FA Cup final in 2004, losing 3-0 to Manchester United.
That same season, he also suited up twice against West Ham alongside Socceroos teammate Kevin Muscat.
The notorious hard man Muscat is still much-loved by Millwall fans despite only spending two seasons with the club.
Arguably no player in their history as embodied their tagline of ‘no one likes us and we don’t care’ better than the hard-nosed defender.
Former Australian captain Lucas Neill never played for Millwall against West Ham.
His 152 appearances for the Lions from 1995 to 2001 came during a decade-long hiatus in meetings between the two rivals.
Neill was branded a traitor by Millwall fans, not when he left to join then Premier League club Blackburn Rovers, but when he joined West Ham later in his career.
The Australian flag is still flying proudly at The Den, however, with Massimo Luongo inking a new one-year deal for this season.
The player of the tournament from the Socceroos’ 2015 Asian Cup triumph will most likely be watching from the stands this Saturday.
The 33-year-old recently played a half in Millwall’s under 21s are part of return to action following an ACL injury last October.
Australian born and raised Scottish international Lyndon Dykes will be a near certain starter, however, having bagged four goals so far this season for the Lions.
Dykes will need to be on song if an undermanned Millwall are to cause an upset after West Ham showed they are intent on bouncing straight back up to the Premier League with a 6-0 thrashing of Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac’s Wrexham last weekend.
The Hammers have scored 16 goals in their last four league games, but the form line will almost galvanise Millwall’s supporters even more.
“They will feel that it is down to them to a degree to give the Lions a fighting chance,” sports reporter Nick Godwin said on BBC Radio London earlier this week.
That might be a scary proposition for West Ham and the authorities.
But there is a strong hope within the English football community the ugly scenes of yesteryear will be not repeated.
“There is a real line to be trod because it could be a ferocious atmosphere,” Godwin said on BBC Radio London.
“It could be a brilliant occasion. West Ham on song, but nevertheless, whoever does play for Millwall at The Den – (manager) Alex Neal is brilliant at extracting 115 per cent out of his players anyway – but on that occasion, whoever gets selected will give their all.
“There will be a passionate away support. It has all the ingredients of a classic.
“But that line has to be walked, and has to be walked very, very carefully.”