Rather than criticise the Millwall fans who boo players taking the knee, manager Gary Rowett has alienated others
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. It’s a good line – an inspirational quote for a tea towel or a meme, very much the tea towels of the Instagram age.
The quote itself actually comes from John Stuart Mill’s inaugural address at St Andrews University in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” It’s unlikely Mill was thinking of tea towels or memes when he said it. Nor you suspect was he referring to how Gary Rowett might be feeling a century and a half later. But the Millwall manager now finds himself in the unenviable position of being a good man looking on.
