Nethercott equal to demands of The Den

Millwall 1 Wimbledon 1

These are hard times for football in south London, an area that a dozen years ago boasted four clubs in the top division. This season, Charlton are almost bottom of the Premiership, while Crystal Palace in 18th place are the highest placed of the First Division trio. Neither Millwall nor Wimbledon managed to improve their position yesterday as the home captain Stuart Nethercott enlivened a dull derby between two struggling teams by scoring at each end in the final 20 minutes.

His equaliser spared Millwall and their manager, Mark McGhee, the full fury of a demanding crowd, who have become used to better things – promotion and then a play-off place – under his stewardship. This season the team have missed their main goalscorer and Ireland international Richard Sadlier, Steven Reid and Tim Cahill, "three of the four quickest players at the club", according to McGhee. "Without them there's a shortage of pace."

Imagination and control were at a premium as well yesterday, and McGhee infuriated the New Den by taking off Neil Harris, one of the few players to demonstrate either quality. "We deserved a point but the result was about right," he said. "It wasn't a quality game of any sort." Harris, now fully recovered from testicular cancer, was a livelier attacker than his partner, Kevin Davies, who is on an extended loan from Southampton. Harris it was who brought a first save from Wimbledon's goalkeeper, Kelvin Davies, as late as the 27th minute, twisting inside his man for a low drive pushed round the far post. Six minutes later the same player got his head to Dennis Wise's corner but was off-balance and nodded wide.

Millwall understandably channelled much of their play through Wise and Andy Roberts, the two former Wimbledon men in the centre of their midfield, though Christophe Kinet on the left flank also saw a lot of the ball and hit a post in the second half. The first half had best been summed up by the little Frenchman, taking a corner after a Wise free-kick had been pushed wide, when he managed to kick the corner flag.

Wimbledon had offered almost as much, or as little, in the way of scoring chances, Neil Shipperley trying to lob Tony Warner from 40 yards and Jermaine Darlington cutting in from the left to shoot at Warner. Little was seen until later on of their young prospect Jobi McAnuff, a slender little winger, who then set up a goal as his team caught Millwall on the break. He did well in making ground and striking a low cross that Roberts missed and Nethercott diverted past his own goalkeeper. But the villain became a hero eight minutes from the end, heading in a centre by Kinet when left unmarked six yards out. Millwall would barely have deserved the win that Kinet almost brought them in added time, Kelvin Davies tipping away a well-struck 30-yarder.

An average attendance of 2,616 illustrates the well-documented problems facing Wimbledon, who were last week asked to produce some documents of their own before the Football League gave a formal blessing to their move to Milton Keynes. Even for a local derby, the number of visiting fans yesterday could be counted by sight and totalled 84.

But after four successive league defeats they seemed satisfied with an away draw, as did the manager Stuart Murdoch, who blamed the referee for impeding one of his players before the equalising goal. "I'm very happy to get a point," he said, "especially as at the beginning of the week we didn't have 16 players. There's a lot of clubs with financial difficulties. But we can't suddenly find 5,000 people from somewhere." Not even Milton Keynes.

Millwall 1
Nethercott 82

Wimbledon 1
Nethercott og 71

Half-time: 0-0 Attendance: 8,248