The
2013/14 season will go down as one to remember for Bromley fans and although it
ended up being a tale of what might have been there was so much to enjoy on the
way.
Mark
Goldberg rang the changes to the squad during the close season bringing a
number of new faces and almost completely rebuilding the team. The side took on
a more rugged look with Rob Swaine & Jay May joining from Billericay, Joe
Anderson and Dean Poolley at full backs and Ashley Nicholls from Dorchester in
midfield. Plus some exciting young talent joined in winger Brandan Kiernan,
Irish U19 International midfielder Steve Smith and striker Samir Mullings from
Southend. By the end of an interesting pre-season managers son Bradley Goldberg
re-joined to partner Jay May up front.
The
league season kicked off with three impressive wins 2-0 at Hayes & Yeading,
plus 4-0 & 5-1 victories over Whitehawk at Tonbridge at home. On the August
Bank Holiday we lost our first game 1-0 at Rob Stringer’s solid Bishop
Stortford. A win at home to Gosport kept us up
in contention on the last day of the month.
With
Joe Welch injured all pre-season Lewis Carey came in as Keeper from Bournemouth and deputised brilliantly up until September
when Joe got the nod to start and Lewis departed for Tonbridge Angels. Popular
midfielder Mike Jones also went on his way to Canvey Island
as the squad was trimmed down to meet the budget restrictions.
With
the club celebrating 75years at Hayes
Lane in September the club launched a special home
shirt which was widely appreciated by the fans although it didn’t do players
carrying a few extra pounds any favours! After a narrow 2-1 defeat at Eastleigh we bounced back with four consecutive wins
which kept us top of the table, but October would prove to be a much tougher
month. Taylor Parmenter came in to provide cover in defence after being
released by QPR and winger Ben Swallow also joined.
A
last minute set piece saw us drop two points at Boreham Wood before we ducked
out of the FA Cup and then lost 1-0 at Sutton amid rumours of budget cuts and
with half a dozen players out injured. Fortunately a Jay May goal saw us pick
up a win at Maidenhead on the last Saturday of the month. After Keith Bird
& Mickey Paye left their roles as Reserve managers to take over at Cray
Wanderers Steve Smith, Warren McBean & Shamir Mullings departed on dual
registration The Wands in October along with most of the reserve squad, none of
them were to come back.
The
run into Christmas was broken up by blank Saturdays with other teams still
involved in either the Trophy or FA Cup, but when Bromley did get to play the
results continued to be positive going the whole of December unbeaten including
wins at Dover, Basingstoke
and Weston Super Mare. A bumper crowd of 1,344 at Hayes Lane saw us draw 0-0 with Ebbsfleet
on Boxing Day before two more away wins followed 2-1 at Whitehawk and 3-1 at
The Fleet on New Years Day.
Albert
Jarrett finally returned from a serious knee injury. Briefly in December Ryan
Hall also came back to Bromley following his release by Leeds before heading
off to MK Dons in January, while Swallow departed for Dartford.
The
New Year began with heavy rainfall all over the south and key games were lost
to the weather which would later take their toll. After 14days off a lethargic
performance at home to Concord Rangers saw us lose for the first time at HL 2-1
and after not playing for another fortnight we travelled down to relegation
threatened Dorchester and lost 3-2 on a very heavy pitch with one or two
players looking well off the pace.
The
cups took a back seat in the campaign with an early exit from both FA
competitions not helping the budget but helping the schedule, we withdrew from
the London Senior Cup at the Quarter Final stage after being drawn away at AFC
Wimbledon, who had delayed their previous game with Cray by three months before
demanding this tie be played in a week, and then Mark fielded a reserve team at
Dover in the Semi Final of the Kent missing out on a final at Gillingham to end
the season on Mayday.
With
only two games possible in February, the fixtures began to stack up for March
and April and just as the busy spell began the injuries hit the squad. After
very few problems all season three of the back four and all of the available
centre backs at the club were ruled out due to injury and suspension. With Rob
Swaine suspended & injured, Jack Holland crocked on England C duty and
Taylor Parmenter with cracked ribs, Devante McKain from Gillingham
and Max Fitzgerald from Walton Casuals were brought in on dual registration to
cover. Sadly they were ‘thrown to the lions’ on debuts against Sutton &
Dover at home and we were crushed on both occasions. Centre back Adam
Bailey-Dennis came in from Bury Town and winger Louis Dennis came in from Dagenham,
but by the time they had been brought in the positive momentum had gone and the
lead had disappeared with Eastleigh top.
By the time they were all back fit the eleven point lead had
disappeared in a terrible run of form and despite running Eastleigh close at
home for the whole game the 2-1 defeat in front of over 1,000 on a Tuesday
night pretty much sealed our fate. Although there were flashes of the previous
good form late in the season with wins over Weston, Bishops Stortford at
Gosport the team had never regained it’s momentum on belief ahead of the play
offs.
Finishing third we travelled to fourth placed Ebbsfleet for
the first leg of the play off semi final, but within eight minutes of the kick
off the tie was over as we trailed 2-0 and were down to ten men. Eventually
despite the players best efforts to recover from the terrible start we got
caught pushing forward rather than consolidation and lost 4-0. The second leg
although a mere formality at least allowed all involved with Bromley to restore
some pride with a Danny Waldren goal giving us a 1-0 win and ending a memorable
campaign with a home victory and our first clean sheet since 1 January.
In
the end a number of factors conspired to derail the title bid; the weather
causing several postponement when the team was playing well, injuries to key
defenders, budget constraints and other better funded sides hitting form at the
right time saw us slip from first to third in a few weeks. When other sides who
already had their grounds up to Conference Premier standard were adding players
to their squads we were spending thousands on installing seating to meet the
criteria. Only time will tell if this is a missed opportunity or the start of
an era where we compete at the top end of the table, but it’s certainly better
than facing the drop as we did in the previous two campaigns.
Col.
