The season started with Stuart McIntyre in charge of the team and Jerry Dolke and his consortium finally in charge of the club. Following a promising end to the previous campaign the club’s new Press Officer heralded a much hyped promotion push for the Ravens this term and Macca was even quoted as saying we would be promoted!
With not only the local press but the national Non-League Press receiving almost daily press releases about BFC we soon became targets for all the other clubs scorn.
Macca made several close season singings including many from his old connections at Kingstonian. Eddie Akuamoah, Richard Thompson, Colin Luckett, Chuck Martini and Eddie Saunders were all big names at this level of football and all rumoured to be on wages to match.
The football finally began in mid-July with a friendly against AFC Wimbledon in front of over 1,400 at The Nest. We won 2-1, but the game will be best remembered for AFC Don’s first ever goal and the sense that we had been involved in the start of something very big. The programme notes read that both sides would be celebrating promotion came May 2003. Sadly it proved to be embarrassingly too optimistic for both clubs!
The team then undertook a further 7 home friendlies leading into the new Ryman League Division One season, only losing once, 1-0 to Kent League Thamesmead Town. The best find of the pre-season campaign was young striker Adolph Amoako who we signed from Crystal Palace and had scored in every appearance coming into the real thing.
The league season began at a very hot Croydon Arena. With Bartley and Drewett missing we lacked something going forward and going into injury time found ourselves 1-0 down to a team who had barely met each other before that day! Then that man Amoako popped up at the far post and knocked in the equaliser for a 1-1 draw to start the season. This was to be the only point we would pick up in the fist four games of the season, losing by one goal at home to Tooting and Worthing and heartbreakingly 1-0 away to Lewes in the last minute on the Bank Holiday Monday. From that point onward we were playing catch up with the rest of the promotion hopefuls and never quite managed it.
With Macca under pressure we got a much need FA Cup win over Abingdon Town 3-2, Drewett scoring the winner in injury time! Our first league win came a week later over Bracknell and we then went on an unbeaten league run until the last Saturday of October. The FA Cup was to provide more drama than we could really have done with. After struggling to beat British American Tobacco 2-1 in a very ill tempered game we drew fellow Division One side Leatherhead. The tie was to be played only 4 days after we travelled there in the league, but prior to that the stakes had been raised even higher by Bromley’s Press Officer publishing a scathing John Myatt scouting report of the Tanners on the official website! Needless to say word soon spread via the web and Leatherhead were even more determined to win and make us choke on our words.
The league game finished 1-1, and so did the cup game, which meant a replay at The Nest the following Tuesday. In front of 415 fans creating a madly tense atmosphere, Bromley buckled under the pressure and lost 4-2. The role played in this by referee Andy Legg cannot be under estimated. He was almost ridiculously one sided in his decisions and also sent off Chuck Martini for a non-existent foul. Relations between the two sides will be forever soured by the events of the two week period at the end of September and hopefully some lessons were learned by Bromley’s propaganda machine.
October saw Carl Bartley leave the club after a very public falling out with Macca at Tonbridge Angels during a 3-0 Kent Senior Cup win. Many fans were very sad to see him go. He was soon followed by Richard Thompson, who failed to score a single goal in a competitive game for us, and Eddie Akuamoah who following some very nasty criticism from a certain fan on the web decided it was time to go. Wade Falana came in from Tonbridge and soon made himself a firm favourite behind the goal with his wholehearted attitude and performances. The league defeat 2-3 at home to Met Police was one of only three further defeats we would suffer before the end of the year. They all came against lower placed opposition and all in games we had more than enough possession for it not to have happened. The 1-2 home defeat to Egham also saw Eddie Saunders suffer a very serious knee injury, which would keep him out for the rest of the season and beyond. This coming just as Eddie was really starting to show the Bromley fans how good he really was! Then on the back of another good run of form we lost away to Molesey on 21st December, 2-1 in an extremely frustrating game.
On the Monday after we won 2-1 at Ilford in the London Senior Cup and this heralded another unbeaten run of over a dozen games going into March. Annoyingly too many of the non-defeats came in the shape of draws! The most notable results being a 1-1 draw at table topping Horsham on a frozen pitch in January, followed by a draw with Dulwich and wins over Bognor, Carshalton and Lewes. The 4-1 win at Carshalton will go down in Bromley history. New signing Leke Odunsi alongside Jason Mckoy, Gary Drewett and Kirk Watts in midfield put in performances belonging to a much higher level of football. After the 3-2 win over Lewes 3 days later we found ourselves poised to strike at promotion, but with Adolph Amoako and Grant Watts injured and Wade Falana suspended for 4 games our goals dried up. Bobby George came in from Banstead but Steffan Ball, who had been signed from Dulwich and put in some awesome displays, sadly though too often had missing the target and after a shocking 0-1 home defeat to Croydon Athletic incurred Macca’s wrath and was released. This proved to be a far too hasty decision leaving the striking options threadbare and with further injuries and suspensions the results started to fall away.
Five league games without a win saw us fall off the pace at the top of the table, and saw Macca blow up at the fans after a 3-3 draw at Banstead. Luckily it was a different story in the two county cups where we reached the semi finals of both the London and Kent Senior competitions. We beat Uxbridge 1-0 away to secure a place in the London final, but fell to 2 Welling penalties away in the Kent Semi in front of a very good Bromley turn out behind the goal. The league results coming into the end of the term were a microcosm of the whole season. We beat Horsham, Chertsey, Dulwich, Tooting, Staines and Epsom, but lost to basement boys Bracknell and Molesey! Deservedly the players did get some reward for their efforts over the season when they beat Ford United at Dagenham 1-0 in the London Senior Cup Final, playing the last 10 mins with only 8 men! It gave everyone connected with the club the incentive to push on for next season and go through the summer in optimistic mood about what was to come.
If Macca and the players can improve their results against the poorer sides then we really must have a chance of going up in May 2004.
-- Col.