It probably won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who’s been reading my columns and my website that I want to dedicate a short piece to one of my old clubs, Millwall, ahead of their FA Cup semi final with Wigan Athletic at Wembley this weekend.

I was in attendance for the biggest day in the history of Millwall when they took on another of my former clubs, Manchester United, in the 2004 final in Cardiff. That day was a special day – just getting to the final was like winning it for the Lions that day and that isn’t being patronising. No-one expected them to get a result but the fans were fantastic that day.

Millwall are a modest sized club and their list of honours is relatively short compared to other clubs. In that respect it’s incredible then to think that of their few trips to Wembley, who were their opponents the first time they played there? Wigan, in the 1999 Football League Trophy! Wigan aren’t the biggest club – some might even argue that historically Millwall are as big – but certainly in recent years they’ve done a great job at staying in the Premier League.

On that day in April 1999, Millwall lost to an injury time goal to Wigan, but this was a Lions side with a few names you might recognise – Tim Cahill, Paul Ifill, Steven Reid and Neil Harris all started that day. That was Millwall’s first trip to the old Wembley – on their first visit to the new one, they defeated Swindon Town to get promotion to the Championship in 2010. Funnily enough, that meant that Neil Harris played for the club in both of their first Wembley visits in each of his spells for the club.

Another player in his second spell at the Den is Danny Shittu and he has been a major reason for the club’s progression to the semi final this season. He not only scored the goal to get them there at Ewood Park but he scored a valuable equaliser in the fourth round tie against Aston Villa to give Millwall the renewed belief that they could go on. And what an achievement this is by the way – Darren Bent’s goal in that game was the only one Millwall have conceded in this season’s competition!

Wigan are doing as they always seem to and are staging a late run of good form to try and stay in the Premier League again – they’re coming into this game on a run of good form with five wins out of their last seven games, and they have players like Callum McManaman and Arouna Kone in great personal form too.

The manager at Millwall, Kenny Jackett, has done a brilliant job to get the club this far and he is dead right when he says the players need to play the match and not the occasion. That’s what got them this far after all and forget talk of Wigan being the so called easier draw in the semi final – they’re an established side in the top division and so every player will need to be at their best in order for my old club to pull off a shock.

But that’s the beauty of the Cup, isn’t it? Five good results, five wins however you get them can get you to a final – four wins gets you to Wembley! I’m not one who agrees with the semi finals being held at Wembley but it is what it is and Millwall will have a great day out that they thoroughly deserve. Sadly I won’t be able to attend but I’m ready to make plans to come back over to England to try and get to the final if they get there – with a little bit of luck, you just never know. What I do know is that I wish them all the luck in the world and I’ll be hoping that when I’m writing my next column I can congratulate Kenny and the boys for a job well done.

See you next week – all the best, Gordon.