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This may not be the majority opinion, or even a popular one, but the sooner Millwall are in the Premier League, the better.

The Den is a magnificent place to watch football. I can imagine it is also a brilliant ground to play in.

It feels like a Guy Ritchie-directed, late-1990s, flat-roof pub football club, with Ocean Colour Scene’s ‘The Riverboat Song’ as the soundtrack.

Nowhere else in English football are you as likely to hear “Lino, you’re a c***” being sung in unison during the first half — from the ‘Family Stand’.

At very few grounds in English football do you walk through the crowd before kick-off and think, “Is everybody here in the same WhatsApp group called ‘What we’re wearing to the game’?”

The cry of ‘MILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL’, whether you call it a chant or, better still, a rebel yell, attacks the eardrums despite there being fewer than 20,000 inside the stadium.

Outside stands an old-style decommissioned London bus painted royal blue. It serves Spitfire ale. They have a six-foot-six centre-half who plays exactly as you would expect. Even the commercial partners are proper working-man’s sponsors: Selhurst Timber and Builder’s Merchants, Masons Scaffolding — corrr, I have got splinters just thinking about them. Canary Wharf can be seen above the Dockers Stand, and they absolutely love a tackle.

I am not at The Den every week, but I would wager that the man who sits beside the press box and shouts, “They are f***ing pony”, with the same regularity as the London Bridge to South Bermondsey service, is both a regular and a local.

Plenty of clubs — Leeds, Everton and Newcastle among them — may claim they come close to Millwall in terms of Millwall-ness, but that is exactly what the Premier League is missing, and it is poorer for it.

I know what you are thinking: “Surely the EFL Family Club of the Year 2017 is a bit more welcoming than it was in the old days?” Naturally, that would be a fair assumption. Nothing is like the old days, but unlike other grounds, and some of Millwall’s nearest rivals, ahem, they have at least held on to some of the horribleness.

At a time when football has become increasingly polished and corporatised, there is something redeeming about visiting a stadium where everything still feels authentic. Sitting in a box at The Den would feel wrong, and like a waste of money. Paying more to miss the full experience? No, thanks.

Even the press room, with its low ceiling, a discarded mannequin torso and a worn Wetherspoons-style carpet speckled with ‘MFC’ woven into the fabric, looks like something from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s ‘The Office’.

The Lions went close to promotion last season, but were beaten in the Championship play-offs by eventual winners Hull City. They have lost star man Femi Azeez and were heavily beaten 5-1 by Southampton earlier this season, so this campaign may not be as successful as the last one.

Even so, with six teams now making up the play-offs, and Millwall having given a near full-strength Newcastle side a proper test in the Carabao Cup, there is every chance.