From the playing fields of Lewisham and Bromley to the Premier League, south London’s football clubs have nurtured wave after wave of stars. And these players have become proud symbols of a place reshaped by each new generation of migrants
In the beginning I remember Saturday training sessions on the rec, sprawling green fields and the rolling hill we climbed like a mountain. I remember Golas moulded around size-four feet and metal studs screwed into Umbro soles. Mesh bibs and Mitre footballs. Part-time coaches and passing drills.
More than two decades have passed. But I still remember how things were back then. How we gathered on crisp Saturday mornings, seven-year-olds cut loose on Lewisham playing greens. We were young kids pulled into a sport handed down through the local family network, a Lewisham tradition slowly becoming our own, the crossfade of football and Saturday mornings shifting into ritual. Every generation just following the last. I still remember those weekends, still see the grass, the pitches where we were baptised. I still remember Hilly Fields. I still remember south London.
