Bromley's next Football Manager

Did you take a wrong turn?

As you drive down the club’s long driveway, passing shit-sodden horse paddocks on either side, the stadium slowly comes into view. Hulking upward-mobility meets crumbling non-league concrete. You fall in love instantly. Welcome to Hayes Lane.

Team sheets have fluttered in the chip-fat breeze here for aeons. Some of those teams became legends. Some were so bad they turned them into a film. The Bromley Boys. You’ll watch it on Netflix later.

In the car park, you bump into the owner, Robin Stanton-Gleaves. He’s effusive, excited for the future, bouncing on the balls of his feet with the energy of a Labrador-Velociraptor cross.

You’ve got the job, just don’t tell anyone. They haven’t told the last guy yet and he’s unlikely to go quietly. Baseball caps will fly.

Atmosphere

It’s matchday at Hayes Lane. They’re expecting 2,000 through the electronic turnstiles but they wish it was 3,000. They crammed 5,000 in for a recent clash with Wrexham. Can we play you every week?

Blending in, you descend into club’s aircraft-hanger-sized bar: Broomfields. You’re shattered by the din. What’s up with the acoustics in this place?

With a pint of unspecific in your hand, you perch at the nearest pillar and scan the club’s Wikipedia page.

Founded in 1892. Home kit white and black. Nicknamed The Ravens. Yadda-yadda. It’s un-buttered toast. You want butter.

Over your shoulder, hundreds of fans chatter and clatter in the bar. On the bench table next to you, a group of friends chat while a jug of cold lager sweats in front of them. Pin-badges jangle and flushed faces pucker as they talk of legends past. Butch Dunn. Super Nic McDonnell. A cat named Gareth. It makes no sense. Will it ever?

Conversation turns: Name a harder league to escape from. It’s two up four down in the National League. An absolute bear pit. Teams that go up stay up and teams that come down struggle. Always. Some of them even get relegated. Whisper it loudly: The National League is more competitive than the league above.

You Google the National League and instantly recognise some of the names. Oldham? Premier League founder-members Oldham? It took them twenty years to fall from the penthouse to the carpark but here they are. Luton Town, meanwhile, clawed their way up the elevator shaft in half that time. From the fifth tier to the Premier League. Could it be done again? Could it be done faster?

Just as you’re about to opine that Italy’s Serie C trumps the National League for escape difficulty, a smouldering baseball cap lands at your feet. The deed is done. The team is yours.

Hallowed Astroturf

You’re ushered out into the stadium by a club suit, passing a replica of the 2022 FA Trophy as you go. Beside it are photos of black-kitted heroes draped in medals, smiles as big as Wembley’s arch. Another photo makes you double take. A bus-top parade through suburbia?

Ahead of you, your squad warms-up on the pitch. Christ, they’re athletic. Not a drop of sweat on them. These boys don’t tika-taka, they run you into the ground. You’ve got some Puma Kings in the car but you decide to save them for the 5-a-side; leave the warm-ups to the coaches.

The hum of damp rubber crumb fills your nostrils as you pace towards the shed end. A wayward ball smacks the corrugated metal roof, scattering flakes of rusted metal onto the fans below. They don’t flinch. Up go flags from the Bromley Geezers and Bromley Boys. You look down at the astroturf. Are those scorch marks? Did someone throw pyro onto a plastic pitch?

While fans have been filling the banks around the pitch, you’ve been watching one player in particular. This guy looks like an estate agent, but he’s been robotically dispatching balls into the bottom corner for five minutes straight. Over and over again. From every angle. You’re watching Michael Cheek, the top goal-scorer in National League history. He plays for you now. You Google him. The top goal-scorer in National League history doesn’t have a Wikipedia page.

A balcony seat

You’re in a different world now: the hospitality suite in the John Fiorini stand. It’s warm up here, and everyone smells like Malbec and Range Rover. You pass a round-table. A ruddy-faced executive thrusts a business card into your hand as he wipes pommes dauphinoise from his chin. His plastering company is sponsoring the match ball. Keep your job long enough and maybe he can plaster your extension.

Through a glass door and out onto the directors’ balcony. There’s a seat reserved for you.

Fans swell behind both goals as the match kicks off. Robin slides into the seat next to you and delivers his vision. Your budget is mid-table, your aim is the play-offs. And the first round FA Cup, don’t overlook that one. He insists these aren’t minimum requirements but you can read between the lines.

Youth development comes up a lot on the balcony. The club’s academy has swollen like a twisted ankle of late and needs to pay its way. There’s talent there, though. Bromley recently sold a teenager named Kellen Fisher to Norwich City in the Championship. There was good money in that. We like money.

On the pitch below, there’s a teenager midfielder gliding between the lines. He’s Ben Krauhaus, a prototype Emile Smith-Rowe. Don’t block his path now, will you. We like money.

You look Ben Krauhaus up online. The new Emile Smith-Rowe doesn’t have a Wikipedia page either.

During a lull in conversation, you study the game playing out beneath you. Wing-backs and thrusting midfielders move the ball forward quickly. There’s very little side-to-side. At the heart of Bromley’s defence is captain Byron Webster; hewn from unmovable Yorkshire rock; 36 and in the shape of his life. He and the hulking centre-backs either side of him soak up pressure before firing percentage balls toward the opposition’s back line. It’s brutalist but the architecture is sound.

Michael Cheek, the quiet goal robot you observed earlier, turns nothing into something time and time again while busy midfielders overlap for the scraps. When their enterprise earns a corner, the hulks rumble forward and take up their positions. They score. They don’t look surprised.

You sit alone on the balcony at half-time while the hospitality suite murmurs behind the glass door. You’re looking through the squad list. It’s big and baffling. Six centre-backs? And Dennis Bergkamp’s son? Is he here? You look up Louis Dennis, too. The fans were singing his name. He only cost a grand.

As you scroll on, it dawns on you.

A National League club with an Argentinian Under 23’s manager, a squad is full of loanees from the Premier League, wonderkids in the academy, and Dennis Bergkamp’s son...?

You’ve wondered into a Football Manager save.

First published by From Bromley with Love 17/11/23

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