Millwall FC - Let Em Come!

Millwall – “Let ’Em Come”

Re-released in 1985, to coincide with the centenary of Millwall FC, Roy Green’s Let ’Em Come stands as one of the great football anthems of the British game. For many supporters it sits comfortably alongside Liverpool’s You’ll Never Walk Alone and Hibernian’s Sunshine on Leith as one of the defining songs associated with a football club anywhere in the United Kingdom.

Green, an avid Millwall supporter, performed as part of the Roy Green Trio, who held a residency at the Mecca Locarno in Birmingham. The song had originally appeared in 1979 as a 7-inch single released by Anthony Music Limited, backed with the B-side Come On You Lions. Even the catalogue number carried the unmistakable stamp of Millwall: DEN 1.

The timing of the song’s original release is also significant. Only two years earlier, the BBC’s controversial Panorama documentary The Football Menace had focused heavily upon crowd disorder and Millwall’s growing hooligan reputation. By the late 1970s, the club had increasingly become a media shorthand for football violence and intimidation.

Viewed within that context, Let ’Em Come can perhaps be interpreted not simply as a football anthem, but also as a response to the caricature increasingly surrounding Millwall.

From the outside looking in you could say that; Roy Green did not attempt to sanitise the club’s image; instead, he embraced its defiant reputation whilst simultaneously grounding the song in family, tradition and the everyday rituals surrounding life at The Den.

More than simply a football song, Let ’Em Come captured the spirit of Millwall and its supporters with remarkable honesty. The lyrics reflected the loyalty, resilience and defiance that have long surrounded the club, but they also revealed something else often overlooked by outsiders — a deep sense of community and belonging rooted in South London life.

The repeated chorus of “Let ’em come, let ’em come, let ’em all come down to The Den” carried an unmistakable edge. It was seemingly part invitation, part warning, delivered with the confidence of supporters who feared nobody. Yet the line “We’ll only have to beat ’em again” was less about menace than football bravado — the traditional confidence of a home support backing its side against all-comers.

In purely footballing terms, Millwall supporters perhaps had some justification for such confidence. For decades The Den developed a formidable reputation as one of the hardest grounds in England at which to take points, with the club once setting a Football League record for the longest unbeaten home run.

Perhaps the most revealing lyrics came elsewhere in the song. References to “Cold Blow Lane”, “jellied eels” and “our glass of beer” firmly anchored the anthem within the traditions of working-class Bermondsey and dockland culture. Even more striking was the line:

“Come rain or shine our families we'll bring”

This was not simply an anthem about confrontation or reputation. It was equally about continuity, routine and family tradition — generations of Millwall supporters making the same journey to The Den week after week. Roy Green’s lyrics painted a picture not just of football tribalism, but of a community gathering around its club.

The famous line “Everybody knows us, we’re called Millwall” perhaps summed up the club better than any other. Defiant, proud and unapologetic, it perfectly captured the siege mentality that increasingly surrounded Millwall during the late twentieth century. If the football world was going to judge them regardless, then Millwall supporters would embrace their identity rather than dilute it.

There was, you could say, a deliberate or at least interpreted duality to Let ’Em Come — a warning and a welcome rolled into one — aimed at visiting supporters arriving at one of football’s most intimidating grounds.

Few clubs in England carry a reputation quite like Millwall. Crowd disorder associated with the club stretches back well over a century, with one of the earliest notable incidents occurring at West Ham United’s Boleyn Ground in 1906, when rival dockers from the Thames came face to face. Over the decades, media portrayals increasingly turned Millwall into the game’s pantomime villains; a club often reduced to stereotype.

Yet the reality has always been more complicated than the headlines suggested.

Millwall developed a fiercely loyal and close-knit football community, deeply tied to its local roots in South London. The club became a symbol of working-class identity, pride and defiance. In many respects, the constant criticism from outside only strengthened the bond between the club and its supporters. A siege mentality grew around Millwall and, rather than weaken the club, it often appeared to harden its resolve.

That atmosphere became part of Millwall’s identity. The club’s other famous terrace anthem — No One Likes Us, We Don’t Care — perfectly summed up the relationship between Millwall and the wider football world. If the club was going to be condemned regardless, then many supporters embraced the role assigned to them and wore it almost as a badge of honour.

Ironically, in trying to demonise Millwall, the media helped create one of football’s great cult clubs. Few teams in Britain possess such a distinctive identity. Perhaps only FC St. Pauli in Germany carries a similarly powerful sense of outsider culture and tribal loyalty.

The nickname “The Lions” could hardly be more fitting. It evokes toughness, resilience and a refusal to back down — qualities long associated with Millwall players, supporters and the club itself. Beneath the hard exterior, however, there remains something admirable about the loyalty of the Millwall support. Generations of families have followed the club through good times and bad, bound together by an attachment that outsiders often fail to fully understand.

Indeed, Millwall and its fans might be surprised by just how many neutral football supporters quietly admire them. In an era where many clubs have become increasingly sanitised and corporate, Millwall still feels raw, authentic and unmistakably tied to its community.

Roy Green has now passed away, but his song lives on. To this day, Let ’Em Come still echoes around The New Den before home matches, continuing to stir supporters in the same way it did decades ago.

More than simply a football song, it has become a footballing cultural artefact — inseparable from the identity of Millwall Football Club itself. The anthem now belongs as much to the supporters and the history of The Den as it does to the man who originally wrote it. In many ways, Let ’Em Come serves as a soundtrack to Millwall’s story: defiant, loyal, tribal and deeply rooted within its community.

What Roy Green created was not merely a terrace anthem, but a lasting statement of identity from one of English football’s most fiercely loyal and distinctive clubs.

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