Our story: Bromley FC
Bromley are a Football League club for the first time in their 132-year history.
Sky Sports visits Hayes Lane to hear key figures tell their promotion story.
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The Manager: Andy Woodman
The 52-year-old gave up his role as head of goalkeeping at Arsenal, having worked as first-team goalkeeping coach with Newcastle, West Ham and Crystal Palace, to become Bromley manager in 2021.
Woodman won the FA Trophy with Bromley at Wembley in 2022 and turned down an offer from Gillingham before leading the club into League Two as National League play-off winners on penalties.
This job nearly cost me my marriage. Imagine going home to your wife and telling her you’re leaving Arsenal after five years to become manager of Bromley.
She said, "Are you crackers?" People at Arsenal were saying, "Are you sure this is the right decision?" It was bizarre really but sometimes you've got to just trust your gut instinct. I like to gamble on things in life.
Beyond all of that, I felt I would be good at management. I'm not saying I'm Pep Guardiola or Alex Ferguson. I'm young in my management, but I do think there's a way of managing people.
When I first came here, there was no manager's office - they worked out of the bar. I wanted to make sure that I brought some Premier League qualities.
You can't spend the money they've got but you can't ignore the professionalism. That's not a big thing to bring. That's just standards. Then you've got to have players and staff that want to make the change and buy into it.
The new players' lounge at Bromley.
The new players' lounge at Bromley.
We had a bit of paper at most. My belief is that we're going to spend more time here than we are in our own houses. You've got to make sure that this place represents what we're trying to achieve and represents what we are, our DNA and our fabric.
The owner Robin Stanton-Gleaves was completely on board with that. He's worked tirelessly with me and helped me. I can't stress that enough. He's a hard man to work for because he demands, but he demands in the right way.
My assistant manager Alan Dunne – 15 years at Millwall - has worked with me from day one and is a relentless character.
With everything that I've got in place around me and how we've kept pushing, it'd be wrong of me to just take the plaudits on my own. There's a lot of people around this club that have done a lot of work to help us get to where we've got to.
'Goalkeepers can't be managers - what rubbish!'
My first game in charge - Stockport away - there were a few off comments about how I got the job and how I didn't deserve it.
It was a weird statement. I was like, "I've only been in the game 37 years, I've done a 37-year apprenticeship to get this job!" We had a 17-year-old playing, a couple of 18-year-olds and we drew 0-0, it was an unbelievable result.
Everyone says goalkeepers can't be managers. What a load of rubbish. Why? Do they think we're just standing in goal and having a cup of tea?
Andy Woodman worked under Alan Pardew (right) at Charlton, Newcastle and, here, with Crystal Palace.
Andy Woodman worked under Alan Pardew (right) at Charlton, Newcastle and, here, with Crystal Palace.
I've worked with Arsene Wenger, Alan Pardew, Sam Allardyce and Steve McClaren. People think I've just gone to work and not watched what they do and how they do things - and what I would do differently. Then, when we've played against opposition managers, how they act and what they do.
You should be judged on one thing and one thing only and that's winning football matches. That's what I've done.
All of those moments when people doubt you, become your drive and your energy, and I love it. I didn’t love it at the time, but then I turned trying to win promotion into an obsession.
'I didn't plan a penalty shoot-out!'
It became an unhealthy obsession. It was eating away at me quite badly. I could see how this game gets you. Why would Jurgen Klopp quit when he has the best job? I can see it now.
You zone out from your family, from your friends, from real life. You just constantly come into work, onto the next training session, onto the next match and you keep going. I was here every minute of every day trying to work out how we were going to get out of the National League.
I sat with all the staff at the club - not just the players - all the kitchen staff, the cleaners, the office staff, everybody. I said this is how we're going to do it, this is why we're going to do it, this is what we're doing it for - and then planned it out.
All of that planning and it came down to the last match of the season on penalties. I didn't plan that!
'No stone unturned'
I said in the pre-match interviews that we hadn’t practised penalties and that you couldn’t recreate it. But we practised them non-stop. Behind closed doors, we let nothing out of this football club.
I've become a bit obsessed with that, even to the point where we went to Wembley the day before we played in the final. We went around the pitch and the dressing rooms and I said, ‘If anyone posts any pictures before the game on Sunday I'll fine you two weeks' wages’.
If the opposition sees that, they might use it and say, "Look at them, they think they’ve won it already". They might not have seen it, they might not have thought it, but it was just my way of saying, "Let's keep everything in-house until we get there".
We tried to leave no stone unturned.
'My focus is getting to League One'
Relief was the biggest thing for me on that Sunday night. Relief that we'd done it. I had a moment where I stood with a beer in my hand and just watched everyone else and saw what it meant to everyone. That really got me. It still gets me now, to see what it meant to everyone else.
That still drives me. I wanted to do it for this town, for these people that work here, and for this club. Football isn't a very loyal business. I felt I owed loyalty to the owner. The owner took a chance on me. I felt I owed it to the players and the supporters here too. I felt I had to get this club into the League.
I feel like I've repaid that loyalty. It doesn't mean I'm leaving, by the way. It means that I trusted my gut instinct. It's normally been right so far. I'm really happy here.
At the moment, my journey is with Bromley and my focus is to get into League One, believe it or not. People are laughing a bit at that but why shouldn't it be?
'Ludo and Fanta Orange'
We're not going to aim for just staying up, we're going to aim for the play-offs.
It's been a hard pre-season, but the lads have come back in really good shape. We've really pushed them because we know we've got to be right at our max this season in everything we do.
We went to Portugal on a training camp for seven days and played two 60-minute games in hot conditions against Cambridge and Bristol Rovers - and got good results.
The players had a night out, but their nights out aren't like the old days. If that had been like my nights out, I'd still be there. Football's changed now. Their nights out are a game of Ludo on a laptop and a couple of Fanta Oranges.
We’re not blessed with riches compared to other clubs. It’s been important to keep the core of the squad together because ultimately they've got us promoted. They're honest, they're hard-working and they fit into the model that we are at the moment and the DNA that we are at Bromley.
It was a case of adding some more players around them and hopefully, then they have that buy-in into what we're about and the DNA and the fabric of this football club. It's important we don't lose that.
This club's 132 years old, it's been like a dormant volcano waiting to erupt, so hopefully we can keep it erupting.
The Goalkeeper: Grant Smith
Grant Smith made his League Two debut for Lincoln in 2018 after working his way up through non-League from Bognor Regis Town. The 30-year-old signed for Bromley in 2023 and played 48 times last season, saving two penalties in the play-off final shoot-out.
I had a meeting with the manager two days before the first game of last season where he either picked me or Teddy Sharman-Lowe as the No 1. I can remember it so vividly. He said, "I've got no reasoning behind it. It's 50-50 and I'm going to pick Teddy".
That is one of those little setbacks that you have to overcome. I just got my head down, kept on training. Teddy got a little bit of a knock in that first game so a few days later I was playing. That's how quickly it can turn sometimes.
I didn't feel physically ready. I didn't feel mentally ready. My pre-season was very stop-start with little injuries. I kept having a week on the pitch and then a week in the physio room.
But once I got that shirt, I made sure that I wasn't losing it.
'He knows how hard being a goalkeeper is'
I wasn't sure about Bromley initially, more so location-wise, that was the only issue, but I had three or four different offers from the manager. That’s what really turned my head, because I was sitting there thinking, "This guy really wants me".
I always wondered what it would be like when I came here. Does he get involved with the keepers? Does the goalkeeping coach feel a bit on edge? But no, he lets the goalkeeping coach do his work and he just gets on with managing the team.
He's been there and done it and knows what you're going through. He's never been shy to praise me, because he probably knows how hard the job is. But then, likewise, if you make an error, and it's a clear and obvious error, then he'll be the first to get on your back and have a go at you.
He treats you as a person and not just a footballer. With football, if you're happy off the pitch, nine times out of 10 you'll be happy on the pitch, and that's when you can express yourself and perform.
'I didn't know who the penalty takers were'
The 120 minutes of the play-off final felt like I was in a video game - almost like you're reacting half a second behind everything. As soon as the penalties came, that was the most comfortable I felt all day.
I knew I was going to save one. Thankfully, I saved two. Ironically, my penalty-saving record wasn’t great last season. Leading up to the final there were jokes with the coaches about subbing me off in the last minute and bringing on someone else to give it a go.
I had a drinks bottle with the number and name of their players and where they'd gone for their last three or four penalties, but every player that I knew from their face wasn't on the pitch anymore. Whenever a player was walking up, I didn't know their face and they didn't have a number on their shorts.
I was screaming to our team and they were trying to give me the numbers with their fingers. Nine times out of 10, I didn't even know who the penalty taker was. Sometimes you can do all the research in the world and then it's just off the cuff.
'I have no doubts now'
When I played in the League for that one year, I didn't really feel like I truly belonged there.
I started off as the No 2 and when I did get my chance, I always felt that whether it be a mistake, a loss, maybe I didn't keep a clean sheet, the next week I'd be looking over my shoulder and thinking I'm not going to be in the team.
I played a lot of that season in fear. Which, for any player, but especially a goalkeeper, is never going to work out.
Going into this season, I fully believe I'm more than capable of playing, and I believe I'll have a good season. Those doubts I had before are gone.
It's very hard to get out of the National League so you don't want to come straight back down. You really have to try and go again and keep that winning feeling, keep that winning mentality and hopefully that will put you in good stead.
The Club Secretary: Matt Hall
Matt Hall is a Bromley fan, who became programme editor and PA announcer - a role he still holds today - before becoming full-time as head of community and, now, head of football operations.
Matt Hall announces the Bromley team at Wembley.
Matt Hall announces the Bromley team at Wembley.
I am probably on Andy Woodman's speed dial and he's definitely on mine. We've been talking a lot over the summer. In the National League, you can sign a player at any time but Andy said recently, "Don't worry we've got a transfer window now, so I won't be calling you at every point!"
We went to the EFL managers and secretaries meeting the other day and that was bizarre, walking in and seeing Michael Carrick (Middlesbrough manager) and Tom Cleverley (Watford manager), and thinking, "Wow, this is real. This is really happening."
It was always a pipe dream to see Bromley at this level. It hasn't really sunk in yet because we've been working so hard day and night to get ready.
The players' contracts have all had to change from traditional non-League ones to EFL contracts which has been a really time-consuming process.
There are new procedures and things we have to put in place, extra elements that we have to add to our work to comply with requirements. The pitch was taken up two days after we won the final to convert it from 3G to grass.
Other developments around the ground have been taking place and everything's ticking along quite nicely.
It's only been a couple of months, but it feels like forever. We just can't wait for the first game because then all the prep work that you've done will start to bear fruit.
The club’s really growing and credit's got to go to the chairman and the people who really drive this club forward behind the scenes.
He wants the club to be strong off the field in terms of its infrastructure and be ready for promotion, which we felt we were at the time, and then to build on the pitch.
Walking into Hayes Lane in 2011 for the first time, the club was nothing like it is now. The investment in the facilities and everything else that's going on is really exciting. It's great to have seen it evolve over the years and what it's become now.
When I first came down, Bromley were a perennial struggler in the Conference South. Seeing the club even in the National League, let alone in League Two, was always the dream. Just to get promoted one division.
The first game I went to, the attendance was 250 to 300, we're 10 times that now. We've gone from being everyone's second club when Crystal Palace or Millwall or Charlton weren't playing to now having a lot of people who are Bromley supporters through and through.
The Diehard Fan: Roy Oliver
Roy Oliver has been supporting Bromley for 64 years. The 77-year-old is the club's historian and an original 'Bromley Boy', starring in the popular book and feature film 'The Bromley Boys'.
My first full season was in 1960. I saw all the home games but I didn't go to any away - I was only 13.
My dad had first taken me down there in the 50s. We'd turn up at half-time because it would be free to get in then - money wasn't always a lot. My nan used to run the tea bar.
I started going to two or three away games, the local ones like Dulwich and Tooting and then in 1962-63 I was going to most of the games. After that, I went to every game and it's still continuing today.
I was on the supporters committee for 36 years and I'm still involved with everything down there now. We were volunteers so in the summer, you did the pitch, the weeding, the painting, anything that needed doing,
One of the biggest things about watching a team like Bromley, especially to me, is the friendships you make. Everyone knows everybody else. Everyone talks to each other.
My sons call me the complete madman historian. But I've always been interested in the history. I always loved history at school so finding out about football clubs...like our first shirts were on the 7th of October 1892. They were light blue on one side, and olive green on the other.
Bromley were one of the biggest amateur clubs in the country after the war and through the 50s. There were amateur internationals in that side. All the top players wanted to come to Bromley and then some went on to bigger clubs like Stan Charlton who went to Arsenal.
But the middle 60s up to the middle 70s were dreadful years. The ground was in terrible condition. Fences were falling down. Sponsorship wasn't much. And then John Biddle came from Cray and the upturn started. We fleeted around going up to the Isthmian Premier and then coming back down again. And this continued right up to about 2004. 22 years later, we're now in the EFL. Staggering.
There was the fire that happened in 1992 too when the whole stand burnt down, the club room and everything. It was pretty devastating. We had to play all our home games away.
But it's a funny game, you know. Supporters are very fickle. They support the team when they're winning, and they disappear when they're losing.
I remember when Dave Roberts first came down here. He was quite young, quite shy. He asked me about all my stories and did the same with fans Peter Batchelor and Derek Godson - and wrote this book called The Bromley Boys. It was then made into a film and we were the main characters.
It's based on the 1969-70 season when we were one of the worst teams - we only won three games that year in the league. The storyline is made up - I get arrested! - but the essence of the story is true. If you watch closely, you'll see me in the background of the actual film.
I was quite emotional at the end of the play-off final. I shed a few tears. It was absolutely marvellous.
It was just something that we never dreamed about ever doing. A lot of clubs in the National League, especially the ex-League clubs, all called us a tin-pot club. And no doubt we're going to be called it in the League too.
But we're looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to going to Accrington Stanley because of the advert - "Who are they?!".
Andy Woodman is incredible. It was quite a shock, actually, when Woodman came in, because we were all going, "Who's this guy?" But he started straight away by getting a team out there that was going to compete
I'll be going to Harrogate this weekend - I didn't actually get to go there last time we played them. I've heard it's nice. We've got two coach loads going up and some are there for the weekend.
You go through the bad days but I've loved every minute of watching us.
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