Big 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 feature film ‘Bromley Boys’.
My first full season was in 1960.
My father first took me there in the 1950s. We’d show up at halftime because admission was free then – money wasn’t always plentiful. My grandma used to run a tea bar.
I started going to two or three away games, local games like Dulwich and Tooting, and then in 1962-63 I went to most of the games. I competed in every game since then and still do to this day.
I was on the Supporters Committee for 36 years and I’m still involved in everything there. We are volunteers, so in the summer you take care of the grounds, weeding, painting, whatever needs to be done,
One of the most important things about watching a team like Bromley, especially for me, is the friendships you make. Everyone knows everyone else. Everyone talks to each other.
My sons call me a complete mad historian. But I’ve always been interested in history. I always loved history at school so I learned about the football club… like our first jersey was worn on October 7th 1892.
After the war and into the 1950s, Bromley was one of the largest amateur clubs in the country. There are amateurs International players over there. All the top players wanted to come to Bromley and then some went to bigger clubs like Stan Charlton to Arsenal.
But the mid-sixties to mid-seventies were terrible years. The ground condition was terrible. Fences are coming down. The amount of sponsorship is not large. Then John Biddle arrived from Cray and the economy began to improve. We zipped around to the Isthmian Prime and back down again. This situation lasted until about 2004. Shocking.
There was a fire in 1992 too and the whole stand, club room and everything burned down. It’s pretty devastating. We have to play all our home games on the road.
But it’s a fun game, you know. Supporters are very fickle. They support the team when it wins and disappear when the team loses.
