Our Story: Bromley FC – Meet the EFL’s Newest Club | Football News

The Diehard Fan: Roy Oliver

Roy Oliver has supported Bromley for 64 years. The 77-year-old is the club’s historian and an original ‘Bromley Boy’, starring in the popular book and film ‘The Bromley Boys’.

My first full season was in 1960. I saw all the home games but never went to an away game. I was only 13 at the time.

My father first took me there in the 50s. We went during the off-peak hours because it was free to get in – money wasn’t always much. My grandmother ran 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 went to most games. After that I went to every game and I still do.

I was on the supporters committee for 36 years and I’m still involved in everything there. We were volunteers, so in the summer you did the pitch, the weeding, the painting, everything that needed to be done,

One of the greatest things about watching a team like Bromley, especially for me, is the friendships you make. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone talks to each other.

My sons call me the complete mad historian. But I’ve always been interested in history. I always loved history at school, so when I was learning about football clubs… for example, 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 in the 1950s. There were amateur internationals in that team. All the top players wanted to go to Bromley and then some went to bigger clubs like Stan Charlton who went to Arsenal.

But the mid-60s to the mid-70s were terrible years. The ground was in terrible condition. Fences were falling down. Sponsorship was low. And then John Biddle came from Cray and the revival started. We flew around and went to the Isthmian Premier and then came back. And this went on until about 2004. 22 years later we are now in the EFL. Mind-boggling.

There was also the fire in 1992 when the whole stand burned down, the club room and everything. It was quite devastating. We had to play all our home games away.

But it’s a funny game, you know. Fans are very fickle. They support the team when they win, and they disappear when they lose.