Sport as a microcosm...

Can some good come of the Millwall CPO affair? Only if the club win of course, with a victory that would not just be for themselves. Anyone who has dealt with local councils in recent years, and tried to be heard – usually fairly unsuccessfully, through no fault of their own or want of trying – will not be surprised by what is happening in SE16. It's an area a short walk away from the Old Kent Road which is in developers' sights, and Bermondey which has in many parts long been in their hands. Part of Millwall's surrounds affected is known by most as Surrey Canal Road - but must now be called New Bermondsey. That small word – 'new' - is not unimportant; it signifies everything that the planners think is impressive, and that will impress those they want it to. Maybe it works – new London's newest destination for the new establishment (saw that on a magazine cover recently) all bright and shiny and MUST HAVE. This is not our home, but somebody else's 'opportunity area', a place they just must get to, have, because they want it, so they must get it and they will scweam and scweam until they make us all sick if they don't. This is probably best epitomised by neighbouring Southwark's insistence that they must be able to displace and trample on the human rights of people (some daring, shock horror, to ask for a fair price for their homes – how dare they?!) until they get what they want, especially as the land has been promised to developer friends, breaking promises to local people they should be instead helping. Maybe the good that can come from taking on billionaire Berylson and those who can make themselves heard is that the bullies, blinded by their own greed, have gone too far, and all this will shine a light on what has been happening in the whole of London.

The tactics are always the same. Firstly, pretend you care about the community, make a case not based on the deals sdone behind closed door but a pretence - talk about bringing in housing, cultural activities and regenerating an apparently run down area. Use this to try and deflect from the fact a club like Millwall is at the heart of the community, has been while the council has been absent; that the sport there is culture, that people in the surrounding area also to be evicted include artists, and that maybe those in the area while it has been left to be run-down by the council should now benefit when the funds are finally found. The idea of community and culture being a concern at the heart of plans is a joke – in the case of housing, information now shows councils do not ensure they get and deliver what is promised, and the only fans that are really liked by those who want to move Millwall are those who go to hospitality, pretending to like the game to be seen in the newest destination, or those they think they can exploit because they'll always come. This may seem like every fan, but there are those who think and care about what's happening, for example getting in the way of dodgy plans to grab land.

Secondly, blame the victims. This of course takes place after the locals have been used over many years until an area is deemed fit for the non-workers to move in. Artists may come first, no real problem when that's alongside those already in an area, but again as Millwall shows these are thrown out along with anyone else in the developers' way. As has of course been often noted elsewhere and mentioned in the 'Two Peckhams' post here, any genuine character is made by locals and not imposed by anyone, especially by people without the imagination to see before them anything but money signs. Pie-in-the-sky promises, to the people local councils should be helping, of those locals actually benefitting from plans are there only to keep them moving along, a pot of gold promised to get the proposals passed, and when the people complain this doesn't happen, they are blamed for the very actions councils should never have let happen. The club want to see benefits from the plans – again, the cheek of it...If the club has been here all this time, before it was designated a new opportunity area, improving the club and its reputation, fighting racism, providing opportunities, bringing in income (and not many clubs can have seen more ex-players go on to be top-flight household names) then when a council finally gets round to doing something too should not those who have believed and carried it this far get their reward, rather than thrown out of the way?

The problem is that the culture can sometimes get in the way – look at all the bright and shiny (and new?) things happening, and wilfully ignore what is going on beneath the surface. Blinded by greed, rather than having a sense of cooperation, Lewisham council may inadvertently finally have shone a bright light on council practice in a way that cannot be ignored, and that any right-thinking person finds shameful. That The Guardian has been at the forefront of reporting this story shows that finally it has brought people together and it is not a deserved consequence of the bullies' victims own actions, but something that is affecting people all across London, and has been for too long. The club has then brought all these people together in agreement. If there was any proof needed that Millwall is at the heart of the community, this is surely enough.