AND IT ALL STARTED SO WELL.....

Bromley FC's 1998/99 season was to say the least eventful! We used thirty five different players, six goalkeepers, had three managers and after being top of the league in September, yep you guessed it, got relegated.

October saw Dace Stevens kicked out after refusing to train or travel to a mid-week game at Aylesbury, he went to Dulwich. In the same week 'keeper Dave Wietcha and all action striker Kevin Allen both left the club due to work and travelling commitments. We went out of the FA cup and FA Trophy, everything was beginning to fall apart. By the new year we were lower mid-table and only left in the London Challenge Cup and the League Cup. The brilliant Landey Zahana-Oni was sold to Luton Town and a week later George Wakeling was tempted away to manage Ashford Town, who offered him a deal too good to refuse. Long serving club captain Frank Coles took over, but an alarming slump in form had already begun. Bromley were taking 2-0 leads in games but still struggled to hold to a draw. The common saying among fans was, "Thank God we had such a good start, or we would go down" Oh dear!

With the better half of the all conquering opening season line up gone Frank had little chance to turn things around. After nearly three months with Frank in charge we had only won one game and that was in the League cup, 5-0 over Met police. Humiliating defeats were inflicted by Enfield and Dulwich, with Dave Stevens scoring twice against us. March saw Frank Coles step down as manager, but fortunately stay on as a player and former Harrow and Bishops Stortford manager Dave Edward’s took control.

Top scorer Danny Carroll, who had come all the way through Bromley’s youth and reserve system, was dropped for Edward’s first game in charge and within the week he left for Dulwich. League results did not pick up despite personnel changes, although we did get out first point since December away at Basingstoke by drawing 1-1.

Amazingly in the League cup there was no stopping us, with wins away at Uxbridge and Chesham United. These wins lined up a two legged semi-final with Aldershot, but before this we sadly exited the London Cup away at hated local rivals Welling.

The first leg of the semi final at home to Aldershot was disaster as we went down 1-3. Heroically in the away leg we came back and were 0-2 up at the end of ninety minutes tot take the game into extra time. The effort put back into levelling the game took it's toll and we eventually went out 4-3 on aggregate. Sandwiched in between this was our first League win in 1999, 1-2 away at Gravesend on Easter Monday. Striker Colin Simpson had been signed from Leyton Orient and was involved in both goals.

The last month of the season saw us third from bottom in the table, but with games in hand on all around us and things were looking on the up. Sadly the crunch came with us failing to win home games against Walton and Hampton. We got draws where we needed wins and didn't take our chances. Against Hampton, two days after our heroics at Aldershot, we failed to get started and drew 0-0, and that was the to be the final point we gained. A series of six consecutive defeats left us needing a win on the last day and hoping for a draw between Carshalton and Stortford to have any chance of staying up.

A good number of our support travelled to our final game at Slough Town and made a good noise to help the lads raise their game. Bromley did play to the best of their abilities, but at this stage that still wasn't good enough and we went down losing 2-1. After the game we said our goodbyes to four of our best players, Keith Sharman, Joe Francis and Dean Wordsworth are all on their way to join George at Ashford and the brilliant Ollie Adedji will be joining Aldershot.

I have seen Bromley relegated twice and come back within two seasons, but I really don't know if we can do it again. Dave Edwards will be in charge for the start of the new campaign, this time with his team. We'll have to wait and see......