The Story of the Millwall Lion



It has been suggested that like Aston villa's rampant lion the lion used by Millwall was because of their Scottish origins. However, their original nickname was 'the Dockers' and they didn't become the Lions until 1900. In this year they certainly were as fearsome as lions, as they reached the semi final of the FA Cup and won some notable victories on the way. They also reached the semi finals in 1903 and 1937 and reached the final in 2004. So the lion nickname came from the cup run of 1900, as they wanted to be seen as fearsome, and also because of the Boer War everything African was in vogue at the time. However, the badge wasn't added to the shirts of the team until 1936

Perhaps the most popular and well known interpretation of the rampant lion is the image shown at the top of this page. It first came into use in 1978. It wasn't until several years later when the club wanted to register the emblem as a trademark that it came out that the badge had originally come from a drawing by cartoonist Geoff Campion for 'Lion Comic'

In 1999 the second badge shown here was introduced and went back to the style of lion that was used in the 1960s and 1970s, it's also the badge that they used on the shirts of the 2004 cup final

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