‘We broke every protocol going’ Why former Millwall owner Theo Paphitis gave referee Jeff Winter 18-carat gift minutes before 2004 FA Cup Final vs Manchester United
For a time, it wasn’t that uncommon for sides outside the top flight to reach the FA Cup final: half of the finals between 1973 and 1982 featured a second-tier side, with Sunderland, Southampton and West Ham United even managing to win it.
But since the Premier League was founded in 1992, it has happened on just two occasions, with Millwall becoming the first club to break that run when they made it to their first-ever FA Cup final in 2004.
Former Dragons Den star Theo Paphitis was the club’s chairman at the time, with player-manager Dennis Wise inspiring the side to a showdown with Manchester United at the Millennium Stadium.
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United ultimately ran out 3-0 winners on the day – but Paphitis told FourFourTwo: “It was unbelievable that Millwall were even in the cup final, absolutely unbelievable.
“I’m sure the FA hated it. You lot in the media definitely hated it! The FA wanted a showcase of two big teams, right? Well, they got Manchester United, then they had to deal with an underdog. You all had to accept a minnow. A good story for a day, I suppose.
“I never really had much time for the Football Association stuffiness, even though I was on the FA committee – because I was on the Football League board, I automatically got into it.
“But I wasn’t part of the blazer brigade, I wasn’t really interested in the pomp and ceremony, even though I’d already changed the outlook of the Football League by creating the new Championship, and renaming the others to League One and League Two.
“I instigated the revamping of the Football League, I was damned if I was going to let the Premier League run away with everything.
“We broke every protocol going. I certainly wasn’t going to the cup final dinner beforehand or anything like that, either.
“To me, Millwall were the people’s club. I had 99 little gold lion lapel badges cast, as souvenirs of the day – I had one for every member of the club staff, so they could remember the moment.
“The cup final was [referee] Jeff Winter’s last game, he was retiring, and someone told me he collected badges.
“So I managed to charm a lovely Welsh lady who believed everything I said to her and who took me all the way into the bowels of the stadium, all the way down to the referee’s room.
“I knocked on the door, it opened and I introduced myself, but they knew who I was.
“I said ‘Right Jeff, it’s your last game, I know you’re retiring’. I shook his hand and wished him a happy retirement.
“Then I said ‘I’ve cast these 18-carat gold lion lapel pins for all of my team and the Millwall backroom staff – everyone, including the groundsman’. I said, tongue in cheek, ‘They’re 18-carat gold, they’ve got a little bit of value, so you can of course turn them down or declare them to the FA, as you wish’.
“But I don’t think anybody in their wildest dreams was going to think that a little lapel pin badge was going to influence the decision-making of the FA’s top officials in an FA Cup final.
“I turned to Jeff cheekily and said ‘You won’t care a monkey, because you’re retiring’. Then to his assistants ‘You guys have got a career ahead of you’. They looked at me as if to say ‘So is this guy totally nuts?’
“Jeff said ‘Well, that’s very kind of you, Theo’, and he graciously accepted the gift, as did the others.
“So, I presented them with the pins, which I’m sure they still possess to this day, as a memento of that unbelievable day for Millwall Football Club.
“And I still think it was one of the best displays of refereeing I’ve ever seen. Jeff let it flow.”
