Kasey Keller believes Millwall is ‘a different club’ from its Championship rivals in that their unique spirit and culture set them apart.
The Lions reached the play-off semi-finals this season, desperately looking for a first Premier League promotion and a first top-flight campaign since 1990.
Keller first made his name with Millwall, where he became a fan favourite between 1992 and 1996 before moving to Leicester City for £900,000 following the Lions’ relegation to the third tier.
He then built a rare American career across Europe, playing in Spain with Rayo Vallecano, returning to England with Tottenham Hotspur, Southampton and Fulham, and also becoming a regular in Germany with Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Internationally, Keller was one of the defining US goalkeepers of his era, earning 102 caps, appearing at four World Cups, and later ending his club career back in the United States with Seattle Sounders, but he never forgot his Millwall roots.
Watching on from Seattle, where he now lives, he still believes they’re just different from everyone else, a spirit which is helping them towards their current success.
“Don’t get me wrong, Millwall is a different club,” he said.
“I remember having a conversation with one of my teammates at Leicester about maybe three months after I’d got there. We were on a bus ride home from an away match and he was asking me some Millwall questions. He was like, were you ever involved in a pitch invasion?
“It just kind of took me a second, and I was like, well, usually about three a season. But I didn’t realise how unique that was because I’d never been involved in another one since.”
It wasn’t just the pitch invasions that stayed with Keller, who was chatting to Football Lowdown not only about Millwall, but also Scotland World Cup odds (spoiler alert, they won’t win it).
He thought that the tightness of the Millwall community and the ‘us-v-them’ mentality was normal, un til he later made his way around England and Europe.
“Because Millwall was my first club, and because it is what it is, I just didn’t realise that wasn’t maybe as normal as I thought it was.
“Millwall, I know things have changed a little bit, but Millwall’s Millwall. No one likes us. We don’t care.”
Indeed, Keller certainly doesn’t care, and he had a real fondness in his eyes and a smile when discussing last season, and the success that feels so close for their supporters, 36 years since their last top-flight appearance.
