South London is ours

Well it hasn’t been ours in a footballing sense for about a decade.

In that long and painful period we’ve seen our two biggest rivals flourish, that was until this season and as the final lap of this season looms, both Crystal Palace and Millwall have hit the big red panic button. A fear and anxiety that we had pretty much copyrighted.

In that last decade we have stood by and watched our old noisy landlords from Croydon establish themselves amongst the game’s elite when the monies available have been the most obscene. Nonetheless Palace still contrive to lose money and have a stadium better equipped for the National League.

The old enemy from Bermondsey under John Berylson had taken our own long forgotten mantle of a well run football club and ran with it. Berylson should be fondly remembered but since he passed his son is now on their third manager of the season. I thought we held the rights to that one too.

Gary Rowett took Millwall to the precipice of the Premier League but his football was considered dull and boring and Millwall fan’s forced a change, and James Berylson obliged.

Palace’s owners and fans were very pleased with themselves when they hired the second coming of Pep in Patrick Veira. They loved the tippy-tappy-ness until they didn’t because it didn’t yield results and called for the steady hand of Roy Hodgson.

Berylson took a gamble on up and coming novice Joe Edwards and turned the club’s footballing culture and playing characteristics upside down. Millwall fans loved the passing game until they didn’t because it didn’t yield results.

Millwall have now called for crowd favourite and legend Neil Harris, who by the way looks to have left Cambridge in the lurch, which might do us a favour.

Harris on his own third job of the season, will bring his long ball and up and at them approach to a group of players that likes to pass the ball around at the back.

Just like Joe Edwards, Hodgson was also shot in the back and while he was sick, and Steve Parish and his partners have taken a step into the unknown with Austrian Oliver Glasner, who sounds about as polar opposite in personality to Hodgson that you can get.

So then here we are in this little corner of London with all *three clubs desperately hoping that a new manager can somehow wake up football team’s sleepwalking into relegation.

I write this fully aware that we can’t laugh or even smirk at anybody, and until today have refused to allow myself to even bother about the other two as we are the most calamitous of them all.

Still, will decision’s made in the past two weeks by the three clubs be consequential, and if so, in what way?

*Even Jacko at Wimbledon can’t seem to find that consistency to push them into play-off contention.