‘I’m a football hooligan – there’s nothing worse than meeting one team down a dark alley’

Millwall’s hooligan reputation precedes them – and a former Manchester City hardman admitted they’re the firm you’d least want to meet down a dark alley.

Mikey Francis was once leader of City’s Guvnors, who were one of the most notorious hooligan gangs in the 70s and 80s. They clashed with a whole host of other fans.

But of them all, it was the Millwall-supporting Bushwhackers who Francis was most frightened of. “When it comes to fear, there are few things to match being bushwhacked in a dark subway by several hundred Millwall boys,” he wrote in his aptly-named 1997 autobiography ‘Guvnors’.

“It makes you wonder why you ever became a football hooligan. Our Donald rates Millwall as the best firm in London. He and some of the lads had a big ruck with them at the train station one year when we played Arsenal.

READ MORE: Two of most violent fights Man City’s hooligan firm ever had were against the same team

“I crossed swords with them in two of the most violent encounters the Guvnors ever had. The first was on September 16, 1987. We were both in Division Two.

“There were some good firms there – Millwall, Middlesbrough, Leeds, Birmingham – and we all wanted to be top dog. So we planned a big ambush.

“It was a Wednesday night game and Millwall came on the train. They had a huge police escort to the ground and we couldn’t get near them.

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“After the game (we won 4-0, if anyone’s interested), the cops locked them in the ground until 10pm. About 300 of us made our way to a small housing estate off Lloyd Street and gathered every milk bottle left on the doorsteps.

“As we waited in the darkness, a lone police dog handler drove up in his van. We were all massed there, with everything you could think of to throw.

“There was no way he was going to stop us. Then we saw the Millwall escort coming down the road. We waited until they were about 15 yards away and let fly. The sky filled with missiles. Millwall got on their toes and we ran them down Lloyd Street.

“The police baton-charged us but we ran right through them. Millwall are made of stern stuff, however. They stopped and came back at us.

“Lads were laying into each other right across the road. The police got together, sirens blazing and horses charging, and finally chased us off through the estate.”

After leaving his hooligan days behind him, Francis worked as a pub landlord and a security boss, as well as dabbling in professional wrestling. But he was jailed for four-and-a-half years in 2016 for running a loan shark business.