The Bromley Boys

by David Roberts

  At the last second, instinct took over and I swerved to avoid them, before turning right onto Shortlands Road and quickly putting a few hundred yards between me and my pursuers.

  But even then I wasn’t in the clear. Cruelly, the lights at Shortlands Station were red so I obediently stopped. I could hear the dull thud of Doc Marten boots hitting concrete getting louder and louder as the skinheads closed in on me.

  If I’d been thinking straight, I might have got off the bike and wheeled it to safety or just gone through the red light, but I wasn’t thinking straight.

  I was in a state of high panic. But despite this, I remembered to use the basic skills which had earned me my cycling proficiency badge. My right arm, which was shaking, was stuck out at a 90-degree angle to indicate my intentions.

  Just as I was bracing myself for a beating, the lights changed to green and I raced off and kept on at full speed until I got home.

  Once inside, I hung up my sheepskin, locked my bedroom door, closed the curtains and lay curled up on my bed, feeling terrified.

  It seems I just wasn’t cut out to be a skinhead.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I stayed on my bed until it was time for Match of the Day, which made it easy to avoid the football scores. This meant I had no idea what I was about to witness.

  An hour later, I was sitting on the couch in a stunned state. George Best had almost single-handedly beaten Northampton Town in an incredible FA Cup fifth-round tie.

  He’d scored six of United’s eight goals, equalling the record. But it was the style he’d taken his chances with that was so impressive, frequently walking the ball into the net after he’d run out of defenders to beat.

  I felt inspired.

  In the morning, Hayesford Park Reserves were taking on Forresters, the league leaders. I was determined to put in a George Best-like performance and I drifted off to sleep that night fantasising about rounding the Forresters goalie with almost embarrassing ease and tapping the ball home to complete my double hat-trick.

  •••

  The only good thing about the 21–0 defeat that morning then was that it happened to Hayesford Park Reserves and not Bromley. In a season of lows, this was the lowest.

  One incident will be lodged in my memory forever. Roy’s attempted back pass from 30 yards out scorching past a bewildered Derek and smashing against the crossbar. If it wasn’t for that piece of luck, we would have conceded 22.

  Another memorable aspect to the loss was the fact we were playing against ten men.

  By the end of the game, the Hayesford Park Reserves players had been reduced to watching in horrified admiration as their Forresters counterparts took it in turns to score.

  It was a measure of their total domination that Derek was voted as our player of the day. To add to the humiliation, I had recklessly told several boys from school to watch out for our results. It was my way of telling them that our games were so important, the results were printed in the paper.

  This had now backfired horribly. It wasn’t something I’d be able to keep secret. But I was going to try my best. I wasn’t going to tell anyone what the score was – not even Dave. This was going to be particularly difficult, especially as I would be going to his house for the first time after school on Monday.

  •••

  By the time I’d told Dave about the weekend’s post-Bromley-game incident, the amount of skinheads involved had grown to about a dozen, while the amount of goals Hayesford Park Reserves had conceded had shrunk to a much more respectable ten.

  Dave lived on the RAF base at Biggin Hill and when we arrived, I was pleased to see a set of 5-a-side goals on a large play area. A slightly older boy, thin and lanky with unfashionable glasses and unruly straw-coloured hair, was dribbling a brown plastic ball past imaginary defenders then kicking it into the unguarded net.

  Dave explained that the boy’s name was Keith and he was undoubtedly pretending he was Paul Aimson. Aimson was, apparently, the star centre-forward for Fourth Division York City, Keith’s favourite team.

  We wandered over to join him. I went in goal, Dave went out to the right wing and Keith stayed in the middle for Dave’s crosses. Naturally, we each adopted the identity of our favourite player, so Eddie Kelly was crossing the ball for Paul Aimson, who tried to head the ball past Alan Soper.

  We were all fairly convincing in our roles, in that Dave crossed the ball like a midfielder who couldn’t get a regular game for the first team, Keith headed it like an obscure Fourth Division striker and I kept goal like someone who had conceded a club record amount of goals.

  We carried on playing until the last bit of daylight had gone, before reluctantly parting company with Keith and heading to Dave’s house for tea.

  Once we got there, he made us both a cup of tea. He then introduced me to his sister, who I couldn’t help but notice had a wall covered with pictures of Jon Sammels, the Arsenal central midfielder. I happened to know from my obsessive reading of football magazines that his full name was Jonathon Charles Sammels, but what he was doing on her wall was a mystery.

  Dave admitted that he was responsible. A while ago, he’d decided that Arsenal should have a pin-up boy and managed to convince his sister that Jon Sammels was the best-looking player in the game, despite the existence of one George Best.

  He also insisted that Sammels would one day play for England, and that would be when his matinee idol good looks would be universally recognised.

  His faith had only been slightly shaken by constant references to ‘that powder puff’ from the other fans he stood alongside on the North Bank.

  Few shared Dave’s opinion about Sammels’ claims to an international cap and no-one else was converted to worshipping him for his looks.

  Touchingly, his sister had kept the posters up, long after it had become clear that she didn’t find him particularly handsome.

  Before I met her, I had felt complete indifferent towards Jon Sammels. Now I was extremely jealous of him.

  His pictures were on the wall of the most beautiful girl who had ever spoken to me.

  •••

  The next day at school, I tentatively approached Dave about his sister. I admitted that I fancied her and asked him to use his influence with her to get some inside information. He promised he’d do some subtle digging.

  I tried explaining that she reminded me of Linda Ronstadt, especially the picture on the cover of Hand Sown, Home Grown, but he seemed more interested in having a game of Killball.

  This seriously tested my patience. I really needed to talk about his sister, to find out everything about her. She was the first real crush I had had, or at least the first one I had a chance of going out with. The only other woman I wanted to go out with was Una Stubbs from Till Death Us Do Part, but she had recently got married to another actor. This news had affected me almost as strongly as Alan Stonebridge’s departure.

  This left Dave’s sister.

  Only by buying him a Mars bar did I manage to find out a bit more about the girl I had been fantasising about since I met her. The fantasies usually consisted of sitting side by side in the Supporters’ Club area watching Bromley together.

  When Dave told me that he didn’t think she had a boyfriend, my hopes soared. I vowed there and then that I would ask her out.

  I gave myself a deadline of the end of the season, which was three months away, to pluck up enough courage to ring her.

  •••

  While my love life was looking up, Bromley were still falling to pieces.

  Ginger Warman, who was second top scorer, had got a 28 day suspension for his misdeeds against Maidstone. He was also fined £5, which seemed a bit unfair to me. I didn’t know how much postmen got paid, but I thought he’d have to deliver quite a lot of letters to pay it.

  Pat Brown and David Wise were also in trouble. Neither had turned up to training for the second week running, although manager Alan Basham had encouraging words for the former.

  ‘Brown could be
a fine player if he was fit,’ he said, somehow missing the point that Postman Pat had consistently been a fine player for the past five seasons.

  He then damned several more of his players with faint or no praise, saying that Roy Pettet ‘has the ability to do well in midfield’, Alan Bonney ‘makes too many mistakes at the back’, while Eric Nottage has ‘never been a brilliant distributor of the ball’.

  The committee met to discuss the declining morale and decided that carrying on with Alan Basham as trainer-coach was the best option.

  His next task? An away game at Tooting and Mitcham, a club who had recently earned my affection by beating Corinthian Casuals 5–0. They had also earned my fear by beating Enfield in their next game.

  •••

  I got up early on the day of the Tooting and Mitcham match, eagerly awaiting the post. I couldn’t have been more excited if either Pat Brown or Johnny Warman had been delivering it personally.

  It was Valentine’s Day and I had somehow managed to convince myself that Dave’s sister had been so impressed with the two minutes she’d spent in my company, even though I hadn’t actually managed to speak, that she would be sending me a card.

  As I looked outside, eagerly awaiting the postman’s arrival, I noticed that the snow, which had started several days ago, was still falling heavily.

  It had been so bad that only two Isthmian League games were possible. Both of them were crucial to Bromley’s chances of avoiding bottom place. At the same time we would be playing Tooting and Mitcham, Corinthian Casuals would be taking on Dulwich Hamlet.

  Being superstitious, I was feeling quite confident of wins for Bromley and Dulwich, plus a Valentine’s card for me, as I reminded myself that good luck comes in threes.

  What I hadn’t considered was that bad luck also comes in threes.

  It soon become apparent this wasn’t going to be my day.

  Disaster number one was the sheer crushing disappointment of the mail. No card from Dave’s sister. No cards from anyone.

  Disaster number two was the loss in what seemed to be sub-zero temperatures at Tooting. Despite taking the lead twice, Bromley had gone down 5–2. The highlight was a great full-length diving save by centre-half Alan Bonney from a Tooting long-range effort. Despite the impressive technique, the referee gave the home side a penalty and they were level. Three more goals in the last 20 minutes compounded the misery.

  But the biggest disaster was saved until last. I heard later that Corinthian Casuals had beaten Dulwich to lift them off the foot of the table for the first time in living memory.

  Bromley were now rock bottom.

  It had been the kind of day to crush the spirit of any man, let alone a 14-year old boy. I went to bed at 8pm, just to make sure nothing else could go wrong.

  As it turned out, this was the worst thing I could have done. I lay awake until 4.15am restlessly thinking about the day’s disasters. The lack of Valentine card hurt most – although there was a slight possibility that something had gone wrong at the Post Office and there could still be one in Monday’s post.

  Being last in the Isthmian League was also an awful feeling. It hadn’t happened in my lifetime and I found myself wishing I’d been born in a different era – the 1948/1949 season would have been a much better time to have been a Bromley supporter than now. They had won the Athenian League as well as the Kent Amateur Cup. Not to mention the big one – the FA Amateur Cup.

  After that win, the team inched their way through Bromley High Street in an open-topped bus, as a crowd of around 20,000 cheered loud and long.

  A famous picture from the time showed a young chairman, Charlie King, beaming amidst an unprecedented haul of trophies. He had a look of pride I hadn’t seen on his face in all the years I’d been watching Bromley.

  At least he’d tasted the good as well as the bad. The team we had now was the only one I’d ever known.

  Last year, I had spent Valentine’s Day in hospital with appendicitis. The pain I had experienced then was nothing compared to what I was going through now.

  •••

  I was always the last one to catch onto new crazes, and the Esso World Cup coins were no exception.

  They had been out for a few weeks and most boys were already swapping ones they had doubles of. I didn’t get my first one until the journey home from Tooting.

  Derek had stopped for petrol and I noticed a sign advertising the coins. Curious to find out more, I went inside and came out a short while later with a blue presentation folder which had cost me 2/6, and a small blue and white foil packet, containing my first World Cup coin.

  It was Brian Labone of Everton.

  I was ready to start collecting. My aim was to get the whole set in time for the World Cup.

  As you got a coin every time you bought four gallons of petrol, and two coins for eight gallons, I began pressuring the driver of whatever car I was in to fill up at Esso. It meant I was accompanying my dad pretty much every time he went out, in the hopes of persuading him to fill his tank. I also kept a close eye on the petrol gauge in Derek’s car, letting him know every time it dipped below half full.

  There were thirty coins in all and when I looked through the names of Esso’s version of the England squad, there was one player I was delighted to see missing.

  My arch enemy, Jon Sammels.

  ISTHMIAN LEAGUE HOW THEY STAND

  14TH FEBRUARY 1970

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  On the journey to Kingston for our league fixture with Kingstonian, I added to my Esso World Cup coin collection with a Henry Newton and an Alan Oakes. I was a bit disappointed. The big names seemed to be evading me, although Dave had promised to give me one of his three Norman Hunters.

  We were in Derek’s car. As usual, there hadn’t been enough supporter interest for a coach.

  Also as usual, Bromley had given debuts to a couple of newcomers. These newcomers usually sounded great on paper and invariably disappointed in the flesh.

  Anthony Allshorne seemed the most promising – a former Chelsea youth player. Michael Lloyd was the other debutant. His career had had a less glittering start than Allshorne’s, having spent his early days at Croydon Amateurs.

  Although Bromley were now at the bottom of the table, we felt quietly confident of a win which would take us back above Corinthian Casuals. We’d won 4–2 at Kingstonian last season and it had been one of the easier wins.

  This confidence stayed with us for most of the game, even though Bromley only managed one shot on goal in the entire 90 minutes, which, in itself, was an improvement on some of their recent efforts.

  The shot was from David Wise and came after just over an hour of total Kingstonian domination. It was so one-sided that we moved behind Alan Soper’s goal in order to see some action.

  And we saw plenty. There were missed open goals, great saves, ten-man defence and a lot of shouting from Alan Soper. The home team looked great, though. They were wearing brand-new shirts, which had been donated by their supporters’ club. I wondered if we could do something similar for our team. I made a mental note to bring the subject up in the car on the way home.

  As for the Bromley newcomers, it was generally felt that Michael Lloyd would have made a big impression on Alan Basham. He was the kind of player the manager/coach seem to favour – very fit and with limited skill. I could see him having a long career under Basham.

  In the end, all Kingstonian had to show for 90 minutes of attack was a solitary goal. But it was enough to give them the points and keep Bromley at the foot of the table.

  The only good news was that Corinthian Casuals had also lost.

  I’d told Dave to tell his sister that my favourite player was Jon Sammels in the hopes that it would convince her we were meant to be together and that I liked Tom Jones, whose poster I had also seen on her wall.

  One morning at school, just before Killball, he told me that he’d talked to her about me. He said that he hadn’t mentioned my liking for Jon or Tom for my own good.
She didn’t really like Jon Sammels. And she didn’t like Tom Jones, either – their mother had persuaded her to get the poster against her better judgment.

  He hadn’t asked her what she thought of me, claiming that it would be best if he could build up my case for me before revealing his hand.

  I had mixed feelings about this – at least she wouldn’t be able to reject me if she didn’t know I was interested in her. But if she did like me, we could be going out by now.

  She was starting to take up more and more of my thoughts. The song that was on in her bedroom when I met her, ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ by Procol Harum, had become enormously meaningful for me. Every time I heard it, I thought of her. And I heard it up to ten times a day, since I owned the single and had taken to playing it with increasing frequency.

  •••

  It didn’t take me long to discover the downside of Killball.

  Having survived almost an entire corridor of feral boys kicking me, I was about to kick the ball into the wall when I felt a sharp pain in my ankle and went down in a screaming heap.

  My first thought was that it was broken. I looked up, expecting concerned faces filled with sympathy, but I should have known better. Most of them were laughing hysterically at the sight of my rapidly swelling and yellowing ankle.

  Would they have been laughing so much if they’d known that the injury could rob Hayesford Park Reserves of its centre-forward for the key clash with Barnet Reserves in 11 days time?

  Yes, they probably would.

  •••

  There were several mysteries going into the must-win Maidstone away game.

  Mike Mile’s mystery illness, for one. It had been variously diagnosed as German measles and a skin infection. Whatever it was, it had been enough to potentially rule him out for the rest of the season.

  His brother John was embroiled in another mystery. A rumour had swept the club concerning a possible move back to Maidstone, the club he’d recently left. Someone wanting to leave Bromley wasn’t unusual, but wanting to do it after just three weeks smacked of indecent haste. When Peter asked him about it, the elder Miles brother denied there was any truth to the story.