“It’s a little bit unusual today,” said Millwall’s PA announcer as kick-off approached. He could probably have left it there, but was not swayed from explaining the West Bromwich Albion team to those who had turned up. “They’re youngsters and don’t have squad numbers,” he continued, picking out the starting XI, listed alphabetically, from the back of the programme in what almost amounted to a look-and-read session with the crowd. It was a worthwhile exercise; none of the away side’s outfield players were over 19 and the visiting party had a single first-team appearance between them.
In the event, West Brom Under-23s – a detail omitted from the official match literature – let nobody down in their first Checkatrade Trophy fixture. It took 63 lifeless minutes for a much-changed Millwall to break them down through Jimmy Abdou – at 32 the oldest starter on the pitch – and it was only when the striker Steve Morison emerged for the final quarter to deliver an object lesson in centre-forward play that any chasm in experience became glaringly evident.
Morison, who scored from the spot to wrap up a 2-0 win, set off straight down the tunnel at full time, shaking only the hands offered to him en route. Job done, point made. The prospect of facing a weatherbeaten centre-forward of his ilk was one of the reasons West Brom and other clubs with category one academies had signed up to augment a competition previously reserved for the lower divisions; it may have seemed unbecoming for Morison to be tasked with brushing aside a team of teenagers but that was an apt enough summary of the deep unease surrounding this season’s controversial revamp.
Millwall were just a goal away from reaching last season’s final at Wembley, losing to Oxford in the southern area final, but were one of the 30 clubs to vote in favour of allowing category one teams – to take part. Financial considerations – £10,000 for a win during the group stage, a figure that will escalate with progress – were a significant factor and there was little sign of any additional shot in the arm on a night when £5 tickets for adults did little to enhance the game’s appeal.
“Will it bring the crowds back? No, if I’m being honest I can’t see it,” admitted the Millwall manager, Neil Harris, afterwards. In fact, Millwall fared respectably in that department. Back in 1986, just 967 had watched a Full Members’ Cup tie at the old Den. The opposition that night were West Brom and the potential hook for any journalist with an interest in proceedings 30 years on seemed obvious. The given attendance this time was 2,054 – four clear of the crowd at this stage of the competition against Peterborough last year – and thus averted humiliation, even if the atmosphere never rose above the perfunctory.
To neutral eyes it felt like an unwelcome preview of how football might develop should such an occasion be replicated on a more regular basis, as well as a glimpse of the feeling that might surround lower-league clubs should the Premier League’s bigger sides cannibalise the market much further. Yet Millwall were one of the night’s success stories: at Fleetwood, just 392 watched an under-23 team sent by Blackburn, the Championship’s bottom club, lose 1-0 and attendances were notably low elsewhere too.
The #BTeamBoycott hashtag that had circulated over the preceding few weeks had taken effect, and several managers opted to cut corners too. One, Wycombe’s Gareth Ainsworth, came off the substitutes’ bench late in the win over Northampton at the age of 43, setting up their third goal; another, Paul Tisdale of Exeter, was an unused replacement for the tie with Oxford; while Luton made the schoolboy Connor Tomlinson their youngest-ever player, at 15 years and 199 days, for the victory against Gillingham. Portsmouth made 11 changes to face Yeovil and will consequently be fined under the tournament’s rules; Harris himself named only five Millwall substitutes and gave full debuts to his youngsters Kris Twardek and Noah Chesmain, citing injuries. The sense was that, with many lower-division clubs finding their matchday resources increasingly stretched to the limit, a point was being made: it is all very well using this tournament to nurture Premier League squads but how about helping the rest of us conserve what we have?
“One thing I would judge this on is the timing of the games,” Harris said. “That was our eighth game in four weeks. It’s a joke. A joke. It needs to be looked into and that’s not a criticism, it’s a request.”
That had been problematic from the start. West Brom, for their part, had been unable to call upon their academy’s star turn, the England Under-17s winger Jonathan Leko, because of the international break; Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham and Arsenal were among several clubs who declined to enter teams for similar reasons and it certainly raised eyebrows to hear the Football League chief executive, Shaun Harvey, admit last week that the idea changes had been made “on the hoof” was “a perception you can draw now”.
For the West Brom coach, Jimmy Shan, the night had been one from which his players “could learn more than in half a season in the under-23 league”. He saw Kane Wilson, a 16-year-old right-back who made his first-team debut in the League Cup tie at Northampton last week, perform with the confidence of one far older and was pleased with the way his players retained possession in the first half. That education, notwithstanding the misguided and populist bluster that the England national team will be the end beneficiary of Premier League sides’ involvement, will do Wilson and his peers no harm, but there was little on Tuesday night to suggest anybody else will come out the better for it.
