The Bromley Boys

by David Roberts

  I raised an imaginary black and white scarf over my head and screamed ‘Gimme a B’ to my fellow Bromley supporters.

  There was an embarrassed silence.

  I looked around desperately at the 43 people who had come down on the coach with me. Some stared back with bemusement. Others avoided looking at me.

  I wished I’d never started, but now felt compelled to carry on as it felt slightly less humiliating than asking for a B and then leaving it at that.

  ‘Gimme an R,’ I roared.

  No-one gave me an R. Not Derek, not Roy and not Peter. Neither did John Self, the Supporters’ Club Honorary Secretary. I thought I’d be able to count on him, but no.

  I felt my face flush with embarrassment. It was too late to pull out now. My voice was faltering and had taken on a pleading, rather than demanding tone.

  ‘Gimme an O.’

  At last, someone responded. The shout of ‘O’ came from an unexpected source – behind the Erith and Belvedere goal at the opposite end. One of the home fans had clearly taken pity on me.

  Satisfied that I’d saved face and proven myself as the leader of the Bromley end at the tender age of 14, I sat down on the cold concrete to enjoy my cup of well-made tea.

  Erith and Belvedere ran out onto the field looking supremely confident. They had every right, having beaten us twice already in the space of a few months.

  Postman Pat was controversially relegated to the bench and the number five shirt had been given to new signing John Miles. Eddie Green was ‘going away on business’, which puzzled me a bit as I’d thought he was another postman.

  Apart from that, the team was essentially the same side that had won just one game out of their last 26.

  The pitch was a mudbath. Only the odd blade of grass was visible and we later learnt that the referee had only passed it fit for play minutes before the kick-off.

  Bromley’s plan was soon obvious. At the slightest hint of danger, such as a corner, the entire team apart from Bobby Lennox took up defensive positions.

  Then Lennox, who had almost caused me to go to Ravenswood School instead of Langley Park when I found out he was a teacher there, came close to putting Bromley into the lead with a great shot from the edge of the penalty area. But apart from that lone effort, it was all Erith and Belvedere.

  Bromley’s ten-man defence was holding. At half-time, it was still goalless and we switched ends so we could still stand behind the goal Bromley were attacking. As we passed the Erith fans, who were also switching ends, I ruined my skinhead image by wishing them good luck for the second half.

  The next 45 minutes was similar to the first 45 minutes – plenty of Erith attacking and plenty of Bromley defending. Alan Basham’s plan had clearly been to play for a replay and his team seemed to be on track.

  Then, in the last minute, things took a turn for the worse. Not in the usual form, which was conceding a goal, but in the sending off of Roy Pettet.

  He’d been fouled by Brendan Greatorex, the Erith and Belvedere skipper, and retaliated by pushing him. The referee, Mr FR Pestell (Rochester) pointed sternly towards the changing rooms. Bromley had lost their inspirational captain.

  Overcome with emotion, I decided to try once more to inspire my fellow supporters into seeing our team through those difficult dying minutes.

  I raised my hands above my head, like I’d seen that North Bank fan do a few months back before the Arsenal v Burnley game. At the time, I’d been impressed by how rapidly everyone else joined in. I decided to adapt his chant, even though the name of today’s opponents made it all a little unwieldy.

  ‘Hello hello we are the Bromley Boys,’ I sang clearly, confident that this time I wouldn’t be a lone voice.

  ‘Hello hello we are the Bromley Boys,’ I continued, as Derek and the others groaned. Not at me, but at a Warman header that had gone just wide. That was when I realised I was being ignored.

  Once again, I was left to continue the chant on my own. As I was doing it, I became painfully aware of just how ridiculous the words coming out of my mouth were.

  What had sounded so powerful and inspiring coming from thousands of voices at Highbury just sounded pathetic coming from one squeaky voice at the Park View Ground in Erith.

  Especially the words:

  ‘And if you are an Erith and Belvedere fan

  Surrender or you die

  ’Cos we all follow the Bromley’

  I finished on a near whisper, just as Mr Pestell’s whistle signified the end of the game, which had ended in a 0–0 stalemate.

  There would be a replay at Hayes Lane the following Saturday.

  I hoped that not many Erith and Belvedere fans would make the trip. I also hoped they’d stay well clear of the tea hut.

  I really didn’t want to be recognised.

  •••

  There was a new comic called Scorcher, which had come out the previous week. Tempted by the free ‘great soccer wallchart’, I had bought my copy on the day it came out, but hadn’t got around to reading it until now.

  The story that stood out for me was Billy’s Boots.

  Billy Dane was a boy around my age who had found a pair of boots belonging to Dead Shot Keen, a 1920s England centre-forward, in his Gran’s attic.

  When Billy put the boots on, he was instantly transformed from being a rubbish footballer into one who couldn’t stop scoring brilliant goals.

  My new boots with the rotating studs had failed to have the same kind of effect.

  I still hadn’t added to my goal in the first game of the season and today’s game, the 13th of the season, was against Farnborough Youth, who had beaten us on the previous Sunday. By a strange coincidence, both Hayesford Park Reserves and Bromley were playing the same team two weeks running.

  Roy had been switched to midfield in a bid to stem the leaking of goals, while another dustman had taken his place at right back.

  No-one had mentioned my antics at Erith, much to my relief. But because I’d been ignored, I felt I had to prove myself all over again to Derek, Roy and Peter.

  My plan was to try harder than ever to help Hayesford Park Reserves finally get a win. Even when we were 3–0 down, I was running back to help defend, making tackles and hoofing the ball clear.

  And when we got our first corner of the match – in fact, our first corner for several weeks – the ball found me a yard from the line and I instinctively headed past the Farnborough Youth goalie before he had time to react.

  Instead of celebrating, I picked the ball out of the net and ran back to the halfway line with it, looking grim and purposeful, like I’d seen an Oxford player do in the Amateur Cup match when he’d scored to bring the score back to 3–2.

  I ran out of steam not long after, as did the rest of the team, and we eventually went down 7–1. But I’d had my best game in a Hayesford Park Reserves shirt and had never been happier with a six-goal defeat.

  •••

  The Grubby hadn’t changed at all, even though it seemed like ages since I’d last seen him. He had taken up his usual position behind the goal with plenty of time to spare before the Bromley and Erith and Belvedere players ran out for their Kent Senior Cup first-round replay.

  While I was waiting for the giant urn to boil, I wandered over to talk to him. The first thing I noticed was that he was smoking Benson and Hedges instead of his usual Embassy. He explained that now he was working he could afford a better lifestyle.

  I was surprised at his switch of brands. I knew he was quite close to being able to get a Goblin Teasmade with the Embassy coupons he’d been collecting. The Goblin Teasmade was pretty much his ultimate dream – a gadget that woke you up with a steaming cup of tea every morning.

  I arranged to watch the last quarter of the game with him. That was our least busy time and I was allowed to leave the hut until after the final whistle, when it was my job to collect all the empty cups.

  I was particularly excited by today’s game, as it represented a realistic chance of winning
as opposed to an irrational hope.

  In theory, Bromley had done all the hard work the previous Saturday. Successful cup teams are happy to draw their away games and win the replay at home. Manchester City, the current FA Cup holders, had done just that by drawing at Newcastle in the fourth round and winning the replay 2–0.

  Even the most pessimistic Bromley supporter (which would have been Roy) was confident of going through to the next round, where they would face either Tonbridge or Deal away, both of whom were beatable. Even by Bromley.

  To load the dice even further in our favour, Pat Brown was back in the starting line-up.

  An unfamiliar feeling come over me. Hope.

  So it was even more crushing than usual when Bromley made the kind of start we’d seen all season. Alan Soper inexplicably strayed out of his goal to try and deal with a speculative lob. It went over his head and into the net. If he’d stayed on his line, he would have caught it comfortably.

  1–0 to Erith and Belvedere became 2–0 to Erith and Belvedere when a far-post header easily beat Soper, whose defenders seemed to have deserted him.

  The best save of the match came just after half-time, when Jeff Bridge leapt to his right to palm the ball over the bar. As he was a right-back and not a goalkeeper, a penalty was awarded and it became 3–0.

  Bromley were out of the Kent Senior Cup, just like they were out of every other cup.

  I was sick at the sight of Erith and Belvedere. They had now beaten us three times in the space of a few months and I never wanted to see them or their stupid all-blue kit again.

  The depths to which Bromley had sunk was perfectly illustrated by a photo that took pride of place on the back page of the Bromley and Kentish Times following the match.

  It showed David Wise, Colin Brown and Alan Bonney posing together, grinning happily. The caption pointed out that the three of them had all nearly scored for Bromley against Erith and Belvedere.

  Back in the Stonebridge era, you had to score at least one goal to get your picture in the paper.

  Now, apparently you just needed to come close to scoring.

  •••

  The next morning, Hayesford Park Reserves had a hastily arranged friendly with a Cudham XI. To be more accurate, it was a Cudham X as only ten of them turned up.

  This prompted Peter to make a tactical decision of such brilliance, I felt he should immediately apply for Alan Basham’s job.

  He offered them one of our players, as we had 12. They naively accepted, and welcomed Roy into their team.

  Hayesford Park Reserves had never have a better chance of winning a game for the first time in their history.

  I had been demoted from my striking role, despite my goal last week, and another dustman had been brought in. He promptly scored the opening goal.

  If there had been any spectators at Whitehill Rec that day, they would have seen Hayesford Park Reserves playing better than at any time in our history. It was as though the pressure had been lifted now that we weren’t playing in a game where points were at stake.

  Even Derek, freed from his role of watching balls flash past him and into the net, got in on the action. He scored a great goal, which was followed by a third and then a fourth. A team that was averaging less than a goal a game suddenly couldn’t stop scoring.

  By half time, we were 4–1 up and I felt wonderful, even though my contribution had been minimal. I had never been in a team that was winning – I don’t think many of us had.

  Predictably, we fell to pieces in the second half, which, coincidentally, was when their missing player turned up and replaced Roy.

  Panic seemed to spread through the Hayesford Park Reserves team as the enormity of what was happening sunk in. We were actually in the lead and had a chance of winning a game. Like many of my teammates, I was suddenly paralysed by fear.

  The Cudham XI pulled it back to 4–3, thanks to a goal from their centre-forward and an own goal from Sean, our right-back.

  We managed to hold on, and the final whistle was the cue for wild celebrations. The Cudham players looked a little puzzled.

  It was as though they didn’t understand why a win in an irrelevant friendly was so important to Hayesford Park Reserves.

  •••

  Alan Basham appeared to have devised a new method of giving false hope to Bromley supporters.

  He would regularly announce what seemed to be impressive new signings to make up for players who had left the club, not bothered getting in touch, missed training, got injured or gone on holiday.

  For the away game at Dulwich, the latest additions to the Bromley team would be unveiled. Defender Michael Miles was following in his brother John’s footstep’s by coming over from Maidstone. Tony Day, a left winger, had also joined. He seemed to be overqualified to play for Bromley, having represented both the London FA and the Surrey FA while with his previous club Croydon Amateurs.

  Miles and Day would be taking the places of Postman Pat Brown and David Wise, both of whom missed training. Under Alan Basham, missing training was pretty much the worst offence possible and it automatically meant not being selected for the next game.

  I think this was meant to be an incentive to attend training.

  Within a few minutes, the Dulwich game had taken on a depressingly familiar shape. Even though it had been identified as the second of the ‘must win’ games in Charlie King’s masterplan to avoid finishing bottom, Bromley were playing as though they were merely trying to minimise the margin of defeat.

  Their packed and overworked defence weren’t helped by Alan Bonney’s apparent determination to add to his season’s tally of two own goals. Twice he came close, twice Alan Soper was forced into making the save.

  Our lone forward, Eric Nottage, was playing with a heavy cold. This was obvious by the fact he kept taking a handkerchief from his sleeve and blowing his nose. The chilly, wet conditions can’t have helped and he was eventually substituted, much to the visible relief of an elderly woman who was sitting in the stand and might well have been his mum.

  Dulwich were a team on form and they played like it. The first goal came right at the end of the first half and their second came ten minutes from the end.

  Bromley had now no points at all from their must-win games. For the first time, I was having to acknowledge the possibility of us finishing bottom of the Isthmian League. This was something I had avoided thinking about until now. I’d always assumed that things would improve. But the tight feeling in my stomach as I studied the league tables trying to find a way out of the mess told me, for the first time, that Bromley might conceivably be as bad as they appeared to the outside world.

  It really hurt.

  •••

  Bromley were going through a terrible time, with no points to show for the year to date. Hayesford Park Reserves had a similar record.

  But at least I was enjoying school.

  Dave had invited me to his house after the weekend and he was proving an invaluable social asset. Even though he didn’t belong to any particular clique, he was on the fringes of several.

  By aligning myself with him, I was finding it much easier to make friends than it was at Sevenoaks. He even occasionally hung around with the skinheads, due mainly to a shared love of Arsenal.

  He still hadn’t forgiven me for allegedly jinxing his team. They had now gone eight games without a win since I went to Highbury and his anger with me was matched by my anger with him – Bromley hadn’t won in five games since he had been to Hayes Lane.

  There was also still some unresolved hostility over the Una Stubbs v Diana Rigg debate. But apart from those minor things, we were getting on well. It was just a shame my luck hadn’t spread to Hayes Lane.

  •••

  Alan Basham had seemingly decided that the best chance of beating Leytonstone would be to drop all our best players. So out went Ginger Warman, ostensibly because of his disciplinary record, while Pat Brown and David Wise missed out because they once again hadn’t gone to tra
ining on the Tuesday night.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  If I’d had a season ticket, I would have torn it up in protest, but as one would have cost me almost £2, it was never even a possibility.

  The whole obsession with fitness was incredible. Even I could see there was much more to the team’s problems than that. And now the players were coming out and saying as much.

  Roy Pettet went public with his belief that a lot of his teammates weren’t up to Isthmian League standard. Alan Bonney, who was possibly one of those Pettet was referring to, agreed.

  He added that the defence, of which he was a part, were not to blame. It was everybody else.

  There was a feeling amongst supporters visiting the tea hut for a pre-game cup of tea that if Bromley lost this game, everything could fall apart.

  Mutiny at Hayes Lane was a serious possibility.

  •••

  Leytonstone couldn’t have had an easier win all season. Or at least since they last played Bromley. This time, they won 4–1 against a very fit and very useless home side.

  We were now cast firmly adrift with Corinthian Casuals at the bottom of the table. And the men in chocolate and pink shirts were just one win away from overtaking us.

  As I cycled home, I was in a rage, working out my frustrations by peddling as fast as I could. I was now sure that Bromley wouldn’t win another game all season. I wondered if they’d ever win a game again.

  As I approached the junction at Shortlands, still seething, I realised that I was heading for a group of five or six sheepskin-wearing Palace skinheads, on their way home from their cup game against Chelsea. They’d seen me and were standing in the road, waiting.

  It was too late to turn around so I carried on cycling, hoping that the perceived threat didn’t really exist outside of my mind. It was when one of them shouted ‘get him’ that I realised it did.

  I tried ringing my bell, but that had no effect other than to make things worse. I then panicked and headed straight for them. I couldn’t think. Fear had overtaken me completely.