Cod Almighty | Diary

Swings and roundabouts

7 May 2024

Miss Guest Diary writes: So, Bromley then. Watching the play-off game on Sunday was a curious experience as I was seriously conflicted about who I wanted to win. Leaving aside the utter obnoxiousness of Bromley's manager or the fact that Solihull Moors have been in existence for a mere 17 years, I began by thinking only in terms of my experience of the away fixtures during our promotion season in 2021/22.

The Bromley game came first – a Tuesday evening in September, and it was a game of firsts. My first time at Hayes Lane, the first time I've seen an entire opposition team run to celebrate a goal in front of the Town crowd instead of their own fans, the first time I've feared I might drown at a football match. It was so wet that, despite hanging my jeans over the shower rail in the hotel and going at them with a hairdryer they were still damp the following morning. But there are some things for which I was grateful: a first trip outside the East Midlands after lockdown, involving a first train journey and first overnight stay, made it feel as if life was getting back to normal. I can vividly recall sitting in the plaza outside Kings Cross Station the following morning, drinking coffee and enjoying the experience of simply being alive. The result? Well, in the context of how the season panned out, who cares?

The game at Solihull came in November during the poor run of form which lasted into the New Year and was a 2-0 loss. Also a Tuesday night game, it was also raining but at least we had a roof. Tony Butcher's description: "Bleak, featureless and forgettable; simple scaffolding covered with tarpaulin that is superficially sound but flimsy to the touch" encompassed both the ground and the Town performance. There were no redeeming features.

Mulling all this over during the play-off game, I remembered that we had got Omar Bogle from Solihull so that was a point in their favour, but also Marcus Bignot so maybe they cancelled each other out. Ultimately I couldn't shake the feeling that such a recently formed club was simply too young and, with average home attendance of less than 1,500, too small to be in the football league. I've got jumpers older than Solihull Moors – as evidenced by the one I'm wearing in a photo which appeared in the Town programme last season to accompany an article about John McDermott's last game, two months before their club was formed.

Then thinking about Bromley. That game at Hayes Lane has taken on something of a mythical quality – almost to the point where people who weren't there like to suggest that they were. Their promotion would give Town the chance to exact some revenge for the bully-boy tactics displayed by Andy Woodman and his team. The club will also have to rip up the artificial pitch and we'll see just how good Bromley are when they have to play all their football on grass.

At the end of the game I felt quite content that it will be Bromley who Town face next season. What finally swung it in their favour was recalling a film I watched recently called The Bromley Boys – set in the 1969/70 season and based on the memoir of long-time Bromley fan Dave Roberts, it is a nostalgic coming-of-age tale about the experiences of a teenager falling in love with his local non-league team described as "the worst team in England". Give it a watch – it's no Gregory's Girl but it'll pass a pleasant 90 minutes or so while we wait for some real football action.