Billy Mitchell a supporter of Millwall’s attempts to help ease people’s pain during cost-of-living crisis

Billy Mitchell is pleased that Millwall are starting to get some recognition for the hard work they do in the local community.

The 21-year-old won the 2022 PFA Player in the Community Award for the Championship and attended an EFL initiative at The Den on Wednesday.

The EFL has launched ‘Together – Supporting Communities’, a scheme to support the communities and fans of the 72 league clubs during the cost-of-living crisis.

Clubs will provide community services and matchday offers to help people in challenging economic times and will contribute towards the Government’s ‘Help for Households’ initiative.

Millwall have weekly coffee mornings, Lions Food Hub, discounted after school and holidays clubs and the ‘donate a coat’ scheme.

Mitchell said: “They’re really important. You don’t realise sometimes the privileged positions you’re in as players and the size of the impact that just a small coffee morning that the clubs puts on – how much it can benefit the community.

“I’ve only been here a couple of hours and already I’ve seen how much of a smile it puts on some people’s faces to just come in, have a coffee, have a pastry, talk with their friends about what’s been going on in their week, share their plans for Christmas, it’s quite an uplifting thing.

“Being a Millwall fan – first hand – you get to see the club putting on events like this, it’s good for their reputation, it helps the fans and ultimately they’re the ones that help you on the pitch on Saturday’s so it’s all interlinked. The more the club can help them, the more they can help us.

“They [Millwall] have so many schemes and the vast majority of it goes unnoticed but I’m really pleased that it finally seems to be getting the recognition it deserves, it’s not a quick progress but year on year, the impact that they have in the community is going to be bigger as they grow.

“I know that Millwall are not the only club doing schemes like this, there’s obviously a lot of clubs in the EFL and that’s pretty much going to take care of local communities across the breadth of the country so it’s a good thing.

“Yes we are busy [as players] but equally we have a lot of time off when we finished training or on your day off so it’s also been nice for me on my day off to come and have a coffee and a pastry as well and just sit down and talk to people.

“It’s not exactly a hardship, it’s a nice thing to do. Whether you want that spotlight or not, people do tend to look up to you just as a player especially if you play for the club they support. There’s only a benefit in using that podium to make a bigger change.”