Former Crystal Palace, Bristol City and MK Dons caretaker manager Keith Millen has been named as the new manager of non-league side AFC Croydon Athletic.
Millen joins the club owned by Wilfried Zaha – the former Palace winger currently on loan at French top flight side Lyon from Turkish giants Galatasaray – and the rapper Stormzy.
Both Zaha and Stormzy are from Croydon. The rapper grew up in South Norwood, attending local school Stanley Tech (now Harris Academy South Norwood), and was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Croydon last year.
The club, which competes in the Isthmian League South East at step eight of the English football pyramid, was bought by the pair alongside former Palace head of player care Danny Young last summer and won promotion through the play-offs in their first season in charge.
Millen was manager of Bristol City on a full-time basis between August 2010 and October 2012, while he was also appointed caretaker manager at Palace on three occasions.
The first was in October 2013 for a month after Ian Holloway’s departure, then in August 2014 when Holloway’s successor Tony Pulis left on the eve of the new season, before a third and final spell when Neil Warnock was sacked in December 2014.
He has also taken charge of Swedish club Orgryte IS and spent four months as manager of Carlisle United.
The 58-year-old also has significant experience as an assistant manager and enjoyed a playing career which spanned over 500 appearances across three clubs – Brentford, Watford and Bristol City.
He was born in Croydon and continues the link with both the area and Palace, with a significant proportion of the club’s players having emerged through the ranks of Palace’s academy, including Nya Kirby, who was part of the England side which won the Under-17 World Cup in 2017.
Millen has spent the last four years working as an FA coach educator – a role he will continue to do part-time – and his appointment at Croydon comes after Michael Kamara, another former Palace youth team player, guided them to a 10-game unbeaten run to push them into mid-table as interim player-manager – with Young also taking charge of three games.
They have been without a permanent manager since the departure of Jermaine McGlashen in September.
The club plays at Mayfield Road Stadium in Thornton Heath, which has a capacity of 3,000 and is roughly a 30-minute walk from Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park stadium.
“I know Danny really well and I’ve worked with Wilf when we were at Crystal Palace together,” Millen said. “That was probably the main reason for joining. I’m a Croydon boy anyway, Crystal Palace is my team but after that, Croydon is my area. So that got me interested.
“It fits in to where I am in my to coaching and management pathway because I work now with the PFA in this region. When I took that job I said I still wanted to coach myself.
That’s that’s my real love. This role being part time fits very well with my PFA work and is a great opportunity for me to work with players that I’ve worked with before.”
(Pete Norton/Getty Images)
