This week’s #FloodlightFriday actually lead to a court case….issue 11 of Black and White …and read all over was not the subject but they have sent us into the newspaper archives again with a sensationally bad photo.

The issues of Black and White that I have are superb, passionate, well written, perhaps lacking a bit of humour but that doesn’t matter when the general content is such good quality. They ran from 1989 to an indeterminate date with an online blog continuing from 2004 until 2014 and still available here https://blackandwhiteandreadallover.blogspot.com/

Anyway, on to floodlights which come via an away day match report at The Den vs Millwall. This is a true great of the fanzine floodlight genre, absolutely dreadful but still painting a picture.

The word photo doing quite a bit of lifting but the description of the ground and its condition is superb though and takes you right back to the absolute horrors of the 80s and 90s.

The report it a classic, an unimpressive new signing, a Srnicek bollock, Mick Quinn getting booked but nothing can beat the news that Leicester fans have apparently sued Millwall for the very view sort of on view in the photo.

A quick search of the British Newspaper Archive produced this equally fantastic picture of the left arm of one of the successful litigants. Whoever was on scanning duty on this day should be applauded, fits perfectly into a blog about fanzines.

The words “victory for the little man” and “far reaching implications” are doing as much heavy lifting as the word photo above, the New Den was already in planning by the time they won this case.

FACT FILE;

• In researching this I discovered that Millwall have actually played at SIX different venues through the years (nowhere close to the record, QPR have had 14 homes)
• A record The New Den does hold is that it was I think the first all seater built in Britain after the Taylor report (St Johnstone’s McDiarmid Park was being built at the time of the Hillsborough disaster).
• Meadowbank Stadium, home of the now mythical Meadowbank Thistle from 1974 until 1995, was the first all-seated football ground in the United Kingdom but was originally built for athletics of course..
• Quite a few others had converted before them (Chester, Ipswich, Coventry, Aberdeen) but the New Den was purpose build.

Finally, wrt floodlights, I’ve included the report for an amazing game at Crewe as well because mentions one of those old curiosities, a ground that couldn’t be located by it’s floodlight pylons, Crewe, drowned out by the railway yards as it was. (although the MASSIVE stand down one side was something to look for!)