Millwall’s party in the sun lasts three minutes but Lions take pride in playoff prize

Femi Azeez after scoring his side’s second goal. Photograph: Alan Stanford/PPAUK/Shutterstock

With 55 minutes gone Azeez even reeled off a blocked Rabona cross, and people laughed and shouted approval, rather than ripping up their season tickets in disgust. It’s all changed around here. You can buy artisan pickle on the Old Kent Road.

For a while early on it was probably good nothing was really riding on the result, as Millwall kept finding endless ways not to score, crosses fizzed across the six-yard box, shots wumped into the nearest desperate block.

Oxford were decked out in an eye-watering bright teal, the kind of colour your local bathroom supplier would call Spearmint Bidet. They hung on as Millwall ticked off a series of corners, Jake Cooper a reliably massive target, wheeled into place like a medieval siege tower for every set piece.

Barry Bannon was the best player on the pitch, always somehow ambling into the right spot. And on 33 minutes Millwall finally scored. It was a lovely goal from Azeez, a shift of feet and a shimmy, the ball spanked powerfully into the roof of the net. He made it 2-0 just after half-time, finishing nicely at the far post.

Either side, Millwall were as good as they could have hoped to be, in an empty game against demotivated and frankly not very good opponents. And from that point there was time to wonder about what next.

Something has shifted around the idea of Millwall going up. There was an assumption for a while that broadcasters and administrators Just Didn’t Want It, for whatever reason. They do now. It’s pretty clear. Millwall are on TV every other week. This is after all the content era: noise, heat, eyeballs. The product can, let’s face it, seem a little cold and processed at times.

Well, not around here. Name another Premier League club where a triumphant sunlit final day to a still-active season is going to end, as this one did, with a mass pitch invasion by local 10-year-old herberts, there to offer V-signs and fight intros to the 2,000 away fans, before being shouted off their own pitch by the rest of the home crowd.

So Millwall roll on to the playoffs in two weeks’ time. They will face Hull, who edged out Wrexham, thereby saving us all from the inevitable Hollywood plaything conspiracy theories. Who would the Premier League want on their screens, eh? Deadpool and the other bloke? Or Selhurst Timber and Building Merchants?

Southampton are probably the strongest team in the mix. But Millwall will fancy their chances of reaching Wembley, with a second leg against Hull back here at the Den; and a wider sense of pride at what is already the club’s best season in three decades.