SO, AN EXCITING second city derby between high-achieving teams, both run by British managers whose records are as good as any in the game. Not United versus City, although I suppose one would have to concede that the description holds true of Mark Hughes and the perpetually sclerotic Sir Alex, but 100 miles down the M6, beyond the grip of the Premier League.

Come on, bear with me for a moment, you can tear yourself away from the Cesc and William Show and all that stuff about Cristiano Ronaldo believing himself to be the best three footballers in the world (Father, Son and Holy Ghost, one assumes). The meeting of the two best blue-collar sides in the West Midlands (Villa are terribly highborn, remember) is always an event to be savoured. The race for automatic promotion from the Championship has become, these past few years, the most compelling and unpredictable of struggles in the domestic game; fierce regional rivalry just gives it that little bit of added spice.

Alex McLeish is, on paper and maybe beyond, the most successful manager Scotland have ever had, a record perhaps artificially enhanced by the brevity of his tenure, but still pretty impressive. An average of 2.10 points per game puts him well ahead of a respectable (uh, with certain German exceptions) pack, even Sir Matt Busby, whose tenure was even shorter. A 50% success rate at Rangers (two titles in four years) is beaten only by the remarkable achievement of having hoisted Motherwell into runners-up spot for the first time in 60 years (and presumably the last). His Birmingham City side are slightly less lumpen and vicious this season than I had expected; McLeish is doing a good job at St Andrew’s and playing attractive football. For various historic, Millwall-related, reasons I do not much like Birmingham City, but I have begun to hope they go back up this year.

There are very different Millwall-related reasons for liking his opposite number at Wolves, Mick McCarthy. He was signed as a player for my club to stop us shipping goals and to this end, delightfully, on his debut, scored a decisive own goal himself and later described himself as playing like Bambi on ice. This shaft of wit, its natural self-effacement and honesty, is typical of the man. Appointed manager at the Den, he somewhat counterintuitively fashioned an attractive and at times thrilling side that narrowly failed to gain promotion to the top division. That self-deprecatory sense of humour remained: it was rumoured one close season that we were close to signing a top goalkeeper. Is it true, Mick was asked by a journo, that Kasey Keller is at the club? Kasey Keller at the club? Don’t know about that. There’s a case of Stella, though. Some blame McCarthy for Millwall’s relegation a few seasons later; but we were ninth when he left and only five points off a playoff place: I remember him fondly.

On paper, he is one of the most successful captains and managers Ireland ever had, despite being about as Irish as Colonel Gaddafi or Jack Charlton. His win rate of almost 43% is beaten only by Jack, of the managers who stayed for a reasonable period of time, and Ireland’s performance in the 2002 World Cup was their second best, and on scant resources. McCarthy’s achievement in getting an appalling Sunderland side into the Premier League in 2005 was a real triumph of mind over matter, regardless of how badly they were found out the following season.

This season McCarthy has papered over Wolves’ endemic fragility and inconsistency. There were plenty of Wolves fans who wanted him out at the end of the last campaign, and the favourite name to replace him was that of Paul Ince. How pleasing it would be for McCarthy to see his Wolves team replace Blackburn Rovers in the top division, or even Sunderland, managed by that old disdainful nemesis of his, Roy Keane. You would not bet against either as a likelihood right now. The fans should be reminded that sometimes in football you are unlucky enough to get what you want; fortunately, for the impatient Molineux hordes, the board stuck by their manager and can point to the current campaign as an immediate vindication.

Beneath these two fine teams there is unholy tumult, a desperate and thoroughly entertaining scrabbling. QPR’s boast of being The Richest Team Anywhere In The Known Universe has, oddly enough, not manifested itself into regular competence on the field of play and at the bottom of the division Nottingham Forest are beginning to realise that promotion, at long last, was not a springboard from which to launch another assault upon the European Champions Cup. Instead it is a springboard upon which to hurtle back downwards at approaching the speed of light.

God surely could not be so benevolent as to persuade Charlton Athletic, luvverly family club, bless ’em to join them, could He? There are other big names lurking near the trapdoor to ignominy, Southampton and Norwich preeminent among them, and no great indication that Leeds United will restore the natural order of things and climb back up. Their outraged fans should be assured that ignominy is not quite so bad as it is painted. There is as much pleasure to be had in League One as in the Championship, and a hell of a lot more than two divisions above.