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| Pre Season: Splashing the Cash |
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| New Sponsor Lewisham Council, Asda pay £3.7m Damages to former Chairman Alan Thorne and an old boy returns. |
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| Millwall announced a four year sponsorship deal with Lewisham Council worth £70,000 a year. |
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Millwall plan to unveil their new strip and the full details
behind their controversial link up with Lewisham Council at
a Special Press Conference on Monday.
By ROB BOWDEN
News of the £70,000 a year sponsorship scheme was
leaked out this week including the fact that next season
the players will wear shirts with the word Lewisham on the
font alongside the Labour controlled council's logo and the
club badge.
But chief executive Graham Hortop was quick to dismiss
reports that the club is also considering changing its name
to Lewisham Millwall.
"That's a complete non-starter," he said. "I'd like to kill
that story stone-dead before -people start getting upset
about it".
Under the new agreement Millwall will also allow the
council to advertise at the Den and in their match day
programme, and the players will take part in Lewisham's
anti-drugs and anti-racism campaigns.
Millwall
officials are quietly proud of the way they have improved
their club's image this season and they are hoping that the Lewisham
tie up will help finally kill off their 'hooligan' reputation once and
for all.
There
will also he a concession of 100 tickets for the old, needy and
the handicapped - but the deal' has already been slammed by local Tory
leader David Green.
"It
is a complete waste of money for the borough. It doesn't solve any
local problems and the only reason for it is to hype up Lewisham
council by giving money to a club that doesn't need it."
Millwall's
former owners have just been awarded £3.7 Million in compensation
against the Asda-MFI superstore chain, who agreed to develop part of
the Den site only to pull out -but the club won't see any of that
money.
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Lewisham Council Leader David
Sullivan with Alan Mcleary and Teddy Sheringham at the launch of the new kit. |
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| Millwall sign deal with Lewisham |
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Millwall have signed a four-year
sponsorship deal with Lewisham
Council worth £280,000.
By Sandy Smith
The £70,000 a year deal runs for
four years and will put the
borough's name on newly designed
blue shirts. The club hopes the
sponsorship will keep at bat the
property developers keen to move-in
on Cold Blow Lane.
The club spent some of the
sponsorship money today when they
shelled out £85,000 for one of
their former players Kevin
O'Callaghan, the Portsmouth winger
who left The Den eight years ago. |
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| Double Delight as Lions snap up Eire
Star |
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| Above:
Cally shows off the new kit
Below: Getting
all Agricultural: Laying of new pitch drainage System (Back
row) Alan Walker, Danis Salman and Groundsman John Plummer. (Front row)
Paul Sansome and Michael Marks.
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MILLWALL'S hopes of ending their 100-year wait for First
Division football got a significant boost yesterday, when they
splashed out £85,000 on Eire international midfield Kevin
O'Callaghan.
It meant there was a double celebration down at the Den on the
day that Millwall chairman Reg Burr formally signed the club's
new £70,000-a-year sponsorship deal with Lewisham Council.
By ROB BOWDEN
O'Callaghan kicked off his career as an apprentice at Millwall
and made 20 first team appearances before being sold to Ipswich
in 1979 for £220,000. He moved on to Portsmouth for £90,000
in 1984 and made 38 appearances last season as Alan Ball's men
clinched promotion to the First Division after two near misses.
"I was interested in signing Kevin before the transfer deadline in
March, but with Portsmouth going for promotion there was no way
Alan Ball was going to release anybody," explained Millwall
manager John Docherty.
Undeterred the Doc renewed his interest last week and after he
had agreed a fee with Ball, Chief Scout Bob Pearson flew over to
Ireland to sort out personal terms with O'Callaghan before Eire's
international with Brazil.
"I am quite happy with the fee, especially when you consider that
he is only 25-years-old and he has played over 100 First Division
games for Ipswich on top of his international experience," said
Docherty.
"We have had to fill in on the left side of midfield all season and
I am sure Kevin will help strengthen the squad considerably - it's
a great start to the summer.""I am hoping to sign two more players before the start of the
season, but they have to be the right ones, I'm not going to
sign anybody just for the sake of it."
While Docherty waited for confirmation that O'Callaghan had
come through his medical successfully, chairman Reg Burr
expressed his delight at the Lewisham Link-up "For too long football clubs have been at the mercy of people who
did not feel any social obligation towards either the community or
the supporters," he said.
"This agreement we have signed goes a long way towards
protecting Millwall from any outside interference."
"We are 102 years old yet we are the only club in London who
have not played in the First Division - it's about time we altered
that!"
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MILLWALL
manager John Docherty's summer team
strengthening got off to a flying start when Eire international
midfielder Kevin O'Callaghan signed on the dotted line this
week.
And O'Callaghan's £85,000 move from Portsmouth helped add
to an exciting atmosphere of change down at the Den as Lions
officials unveiled a new strip, their new sponsors and a new
package of ground improvements.
O'Callaghan (above), models the new strip with its diagonal,
blue shadow-striped shirts and white shorts, re- placing the
blue ones which the club favoured last season.
Meanwhile a £25,000 operation to improve the Den playing
surface is already well under way and new flood-lights will
also be installed in time for next season.
"Between the beginning of last season and the start of the
1987-88 season we will have spent just under £400,000 on
ground improvements" explained Millwall chairman Reg Burr.
"You would he hard pressed to find it by looking around the
ground, but what we are dealing with is 40 years of neglect
and we are not going to be able to put things right over-
night. The current board has been in charge of the club for
just under 12 months and during that time we have spent a
lot of energy, time and money on laying a foundation for the
revitalisation of Millwall."
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