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The Bromley Boys: The True Story of Supporting the Worst Football Team in Britain

Dave Roberts (Goodreads Author)

4.11 · Rating details · 118 ratings · 13 reviews

In the late 1960s, in the warm glow of England winning the World Cup, Dave Roberts, like most teenage boys his age, was soccer mad. There was just one difference: rather than supporting the likes of soccer teams Arsenal or Manchester United, Dave’s team of choice was the ever so slightly less glamorous Bromley Football Club—one of the last genuinely amateur soccer teams le ...more

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Paperback, 272 pages

Published August 18th 2008 by Portico

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Jan 24, 2019 Nigeyb rated it really liked it

The Bromley Boys: The True Story of Supporting the Worst Football Team in Britain, published in 2008, is an enormously enjoyable and nostalgic book by Dave Roberts in which he looks back on the 1969-1970 football season for non-league Bromley Football Club. In 1969 Dave Roberts was 14 years old and probably their most passionate and fanatical supporter.

There are a number of aspects that make The Bromley Boys: The True Story of Supporting the Worst Football Team in Britain so enjoyable: Dave hims ...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Kimberly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sport-football

Loved it. In most part a book about a non-league club having a horrible 69/70 season, in part about the author's life as a staunch Bromley supporter in his teen years (including getting kicked out of school but finding friends and a happier life at a new school) and by the end it's a commentary about supporting your team no matter what. It was funny but by the end rather touching as well. ...more

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Mar 19, 2018 Tim rated it liked it

Like Fever Pitch where the love interest is a football team. It's a very British football story - enduring a series of sporting failures with no happy ending, just lots of genuine self-effacing laughs at a very human obsession. It's a gently amusing tale, with some touching moments, but there's not much of a story here beyond the "diary of a football nerd". Only for those who absolutely love football or who live in Bromley. ...more

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Feb 03, 2017 Giuliano rated it it was amazing

This was hands down one of the best books I've read in the last 13 months (out of ~40). I liked it so much that I emailed the author to thank him for writing it - which is something I've never done before, ever. Bromley Boys was created with the perfect recipe: high levels of nostalgia, mixed in with a lot of football, a dash of 1970s pop culture and an ounce or two of irreverent self-irony. It tells the story of young Dave Roberts and his love affair with The Bromley Boys, a hopeless non-League ...more

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Dec 05, 2019 DailyMale rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Loved the Film Loved the book even more

I learned about this book just over a week ago when I bumped into the forward Bobby Lennox (who featured in the 1970 squad) while putting out my rubbish.

He started to tell me about this unsuccessful football team he played in and how this story of failure had been made into a book and film. Intrigued I downloaded the film and loved the fact that devotion was more important than success. The book is more focussed on football and Dave Roberts unwavering supp ...more

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Feb 08, 2019 Greenockian rated it liked it

More about the trials of growing up than about football. Paints a good picture of just how crap it can be to be fixated on something that your hormones won't allow you to see for what it really is. Although I enjoyed it I have to be honest and say it took a little bit of time to get into - the first 40 pages or so are not particularly well-written nor interesting but as the football season progresses and Dave faces more and more adolescent hills and mountains the book gathers momentum and gets t ...more

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Jan 07, 2019 Kay Smillie rated it really liked it

Granted my team, Dunfermline Athletic, were nowhere near as low down the pyramid as Bromley but I feel the pain and occasional, well less than often, joy. I have seen my club go through bad spells, including over three months without a win and when they broke that barren spell, I celebrated like we had won the world cup. This will appeal to older fans who lived for 3pm on a Saturday or 7.30pm on a Tuesday or Wednesday. The result on Saturday would set the mood for the remainder of the weekend. G ...more

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Jun 02, 2020 Niall Pickup rated it it was amazing

Being brought up in Bromley and having followed the team in the mid to late 70's this book was a little before my time there but it meant I was always going to read this. Adolescent obsessions though cross enough boundaries to make this an accessible read for anyone willing to admit to the same in their/our past. Great fun. ...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Paul Curd rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

Most football fans (except my brother, who refuses to have anything to do with anything that has anything to do with the Arsenal) will have read Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby. It's the definitive book on what it's like to be a bloke who also supports a football team. It's also quite funny. It influenced every subsequent book about what it's like to be a football supporter. It also gave birth to a genre of writing that was subsequently termed 'lad lit'. Despite its imitators, nothing has been as goo Most football fans (except my brother, who refuses to have anything to do with anything that has anything to do with the Arsenal) will have read Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby. It's the definitive book on what it's like to be a bloke who also supports a football team. It's also quite funny. It influenced every subsequent book about what it's like to be a football supporter. It also gave birth to a genre of writing that was subsequently termed 'lad lit'. Despite its imitators, nothing has been as good as Fever Pitch. Until now.

Okay, Dave Roberts may not be in the same literary class as Nick Hornby. But The Bromley Boys (billed as 'the true story of supporting the worst team in Britain') is well written enough, and it captures absolutely to a T what it is like to be a pre-pubescent football-mad boy. It is also laugh-out-loud funny.

The book takes us back to the 1969–70 season. Dave Roberts was 14 years old, a slightly tubby child with unflattering collar-length hair and a voice that hadn't yet broken. Dave took up supporting Bromley because they played a short walk from his house and his parents wouldn't let him go to watch West Ham on his own. As the new season loomed, 14-year-old Dave was feeling confident about Bromley's prospects. The previous season had been a 'pretty good one' (they had finished 17th out of 20 in the Isthmian League) and, on the strength of the team having actually taken a 1–0 lead in a pre-season friendly against a West Ham reserve team (they eventually lost 1–3) Dave was predicting a top-five finish.

We know better. The book is a catalogue of the weekly humiliation suffered at the feet of such teams as Wealdstone, Kingstonian and the mighty Barking. None of these defeats dents young Dave's enthusiasm or dogged support for his team (although he does call for the resignation of the team's manager, sporting an 'Ellis Must Go' t-shirt to a match in one of the book's early hilarious episodes).

Just as I did (did every kid do this?) Dave takes his football boots to matches, just in case one of the players doesn't turn up and an urgent appeal goes out for a replacement from among the supporters. He longs for the day when he will be allowed to watch a match from the Supporters Club hut.

As a sub-plot to the football, Dave also recounts with equal humour his problems at school and the start of his journey to adulthood. But throughout the book, it is the football that takes pride of place. And although the team I supported in the 1960s were then and still are one of the top teams in the country, my experiences of being a football supporter at the time are almost identical to Dave's. It's a universal condition, it seems. Dave Roberts' memoir will strike a chord with every football supporter, whichever team they follow.

The Bromley Boys is a real treat. The fact that it is not a book about a top-class football team is a plus point, too. Because Bromley Football Club aren't big enough to be disliked by supporters of other football clubs the book will even appeal to the most partisan of supporters (like my brother). And, best of all, The Bromley Boys is a hilariously funny read.
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Jan 13, 2016 Tich Richardson rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 12, 2016 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Childhood Memories

A well written memoirs about the love and relationship between an adolescent boy and his football club. Being a Non-League team, the commitment and camaraderie knows no bounds as he recalls life as one of the "inner circle". Provoking many personal memories for me, this is a very good read. My only reason for only giving 4 stars is because I'd never give 5 !! ...more

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Jun 24, 2012 David rated it really liked it

The story of One boys obsession with his local non league Football team in their worsed ever season 1969/70.
The author provides a nice account of an obsessive 14 year old, following Bromley home and away, as well as school, Subbuteo,TV,girls, and anything else that entertained in 1969.

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Oct 08, 2018 Pete Clements rated it liked it · review of another edition

Entertaining

A book many football supporters of the lower and non league clubs can relate to! Entertaining and makes you realise there are others out there that share the pain!

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