Now a settled South Londoner himself, Richards also recalled how much last season’s trophy-winning successes meant to him and the people around him.
He smiled: "One thing about South London is that it's a bunch of hardworking people but also a lot of blue collar people, and so now, whether I'm in a taxi, a lot of the taxi drivers are Crystal Palace fans and they're always like: 'Thank you for everything that you've done for the club.’
“Being able to bring a club and bring a community something that they hadn't achieved in over a hundred years, I think it's hard to really comprehend it because I'd never seen something like that.
“To understand, I guess, the gravity of what we did, seeing the final whistle and seeing all the emotions from fans, from employees who have been at the club forever from people on social media, from taxi drivers, it was just… it was beautiful to see, and I still see it.
“Even yesterday in the park, I was walking and a guy pulled me and was like: 'Thank you for everything that you've done for Crystal Palace.' For me, of course I loved winning a trophy, but it was so much more than winning a trophy. It was giving back to the community that had never won something so I think it was amazing.
“ It was beautiful. It was every possible positive word you could say, that's what it was."