2) Head-to-head
I was amazed to discover that we have hardly played Millwall – since the first meeting in 1900, we have only played them 32 times in all competitions. We don’t have that great a record either – we’ve won 14, lost 8 and drawn 10. The majority of our matches came in the late 1960s and early 1970s when we spent a fair amount of time outside the top flight. The last time we were promoted in 1988, Millwall also came up, as Division Two champions.
We then played a series of matches against them between 1988 and 1990, but it would be a further 23 years until our next meeting, a 2-1 FA Cup reverse in 2013. Honours were even in a fairly uneventful (and totally forgettable) 0-0 at the start of last December.
George Graham is the most high-profile figure to have ties to both clubs, having started his professional career at Villa Park back in 1961 (8 appearances in three years) and subsequently beginning his managerial career with Millwall in 1982. More recently, Australian defender Shane Lowry made the move from Villa to the New Den back in 2012, having made only three substitute appearances for Villa in his four-year spell.
