The area around The Den is the kind of place your mother always used to warn you about. A place where the vast brick buildings and wrought iron fences cast their shadows in menacing lattices, where the rumble of the railway disquiets the stomach.

Dense housing estates rub against peeling industrial estates; roads end without warning. We are two miles from the centre of one of the world’s busiest cities, and nowhere.

It is just three miles to Millwall’s stadium from my front door, yet so poorly served is this area of London that getting there on public transport would take almost an hour. I park opposite a building site, where a stack of plush yuppie flats is going up. “Be A Part Of The Exciting New Bermondsey Regeneration Project,” a sign reads.

Round these parts, they have been regenerating hope since 1885. It is a freezing Tuesday night, and a few of the club’s staff have gathered in the main reception to keep warm. Peterborough are tonight’s visitors in League One, but all the talk is of the upcoming trip to White Hart Lane, and Tottenham’s attempts to restrict Millwall’s ticket allocation.

“They don’t want us there,” a receptionist says.