All had not been well for Bromley supporters this year. For the majority of the season we’d had a plank who thought that he could manage a football team called Dave Swindlehurst. We all knew after the first few games that he couldn’t but he stayed manager for far too long. The job of trying to do the impossible (Save Bromley for relegation) was given to Joe Fascione. His first game in charge ended as a win against Hayes. Mass celebrations followed with the Spawny Fan Club doing the conga halfway around the pitch before a few of us found out how unfit we were. Anyway the last but one game and our last away day of the season was Aylesbury. We had won the two games before this one and with the points from those two games we had managed to do something that a lot of people thought impossible – actually got off the bottom of the league. We all met on the train to Victoria (far too early in the morning for my liking) at various stations. We took over a carriage all wearing our stupid hats, blowing whistles, singing and generally making as much noise as we could because, as we thought we were going to be slaughtered by Aylesbury, this was going to be our relegation party.
The guard on our train didn’t seem to want to join in the party as he threatened to chuck us off at the next stop, not that we cared as the next stop was where we were heading, so the noise continued. We eventually made it to Marylebone station to get on the train for Aylesbury. First things first though, get the beer in. After soaking one carriage and ourselves, we got to Aylesbury at around 12:00. Singing started straight away which made us get a lot of funny stares as we looked down the high street for something to eat. One of our lot was sick at 12:30, a remarkable achievement, even by our standards. After a long walk in the hot sun we got to the ground. We couldn’t get in the bar because you had to be a member, bastards! When we got in it was mass singing and the lads got a great cheer as they ran onto the pitch with black and white balloons going everywhere and loads of torn up paper everywhere. If you had gone to Aylesbury that day you would have thought that we were the home crowd, not the away supporters of a team second from bottom.
Two of our lot, Paul and Gaz P turned up just before the game after having slept on a roundabout for a while! The game started with the home side expecting an easy victory. After all, they were third in the league, had beaten Southend in the F.A. Cup and were still in with a chance of promotion. The first half saw few chances and the best one fell to Bromley’s little superman Paul Loughlin. We were noisy all the time but Aylesbury were quiet as mice. We were quite pleased with our performance and all thought we had a good chance of winning. The second half started and disaster struck, the bastards scored but it had been a good move and it was finished off very well. For the first time in the match the Aylesbury supporters made some noise. We were all well pissed off but smiles were soon going to return to our faces. Most of us thought that we were going to get stuffed after they got the first goal so early but within minutes of their goal an unstoppable long range effort from Martin “Maisy” Morgan went sailing into the nets. Mass celebrations started with everyone running everywhere they could. Singing soon started louder than ever. Two minutes later and Paul McMenemy has got the ball in the Aylesbury penalty area and after what seemed to be five minutes he passed it to that man Maisy who hits another goal in.
I had to pinch myself to make sure it was real. More running about and celebrating and by now I had to sit down for a while being the unfit git I am. About 15 minutes later after defending excellently (especially Spawny), the ref who hadn’t given us a decision all day decided that Aylesbury should have a penalty, why, we still can’t figure out. So up stepped their famous centre forward Hercules who done the decent thing and kicked to the moon, hahahahahah cunt! This was even better than scoring. The next 15 minutes seemed like a year but we held through with some superb saves from the best keeper outside of the league, Curtis Hayes. Saying that though, we should have scored two more at the end with our brilliant sub Graham Lane tearing the Aylesbury defence apart.
When the final whistle went it was time to go mental. We stayed at our end and clapped our lads’ magnificent performance. As we walked out of the ground cars with Bromley scarves hanging out were bibbing and people were shouting and celebrating. You would have thought we’d won the league.
Mind you, the joy only went on for a week when, despite Barking losing 6-1, we still went down after losing in the 85th minute to Slough Town on goal difference. Also, by beating us, Slough won the championship.
At the end of the game all the Bromley supporters were saying “If only Joe had taken over a month earlier” BUT the real point that should have been made is that the board never listened to the supporters who were chanting for Mr. Swindlehurst to be sacked at least two months before he actually went. Maybe that might be because Mr. Swindlehurst is on the board as a director. Power sucks, eh!
One last point – even though we were relegated we were still getting some of the best attendances in the league, a lot of the time second only to Aylesbury. Our away support was also one of the biggest and definitely the loudest. Yes, we’re that stupid!