Bromley 1-2 Wrexham

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

A modern-day attendance record of 5,027 saw Bromley and Wrexham put on yet another ding-dong battle. This one ended with the Welsh league leaders taking the W and going three points clear at the top of the National League. 

By now, everyone knows the Wrexham story. But, thanks to the FA Trophy miracle of May 2022, Bromley’s story is closely entwined with it.

In that context, the game at Hayes Lane was always going to be a tight affair with no quarter given. 

The clubs’ tightly-packed fans witnessed an intricate tactical battle unfold on the pitch, while Hayes Lane looked to be bursting at the seams off of it. 

As ever, I reflect on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly from Bromley’s 2-1 home defeat to Wrexham. 

Have a read and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

The Line-up vs Wrexham

The Good

While it’s true that Bromley went toe to toe with Wrexham, there should be no doubt that the league leaders carved out the better chances and, on the balance of play, deserved the win. A look at the stats will show you that Wrexham had six shots on target to Bromley’s two.

I say this not to diminish Bromley’s efforts but to highlight how well Bromley actually played given how young the side was. Ten of the sixteen players in the matchday squad were 22 years old or younger, and this team full of teens and early-twenty-somethings never wilted in the face of the Wrexham juggernaut. 

Our under 23s were:

Sam Long 20

Deji Elerewe 19

Harry Forster 22

James Vennings 22

Kellen Fisher 18

Besart Topalloj 21

Jude Arthurs 21

Charley Kendall 22

Ryan Stirk 22

Ben Krauhaus 18

That Bromley challenged Wrexham and, but for some individual errors, might have earned a result speaks to the club’s trajectory and the excitement fans should have about its future.

It would be easy to look at the league table and assume Bromley’s season will flitter it away to a meaningless end, but only five teams have lost fewer games than the Ravens. 

With so many exciting young players, loanees or otherwise, there is a clear sense that with one or two very shrewd acquisitions in the summer, and the right retentions, Bromley could be a strong play-off side next season. 

Of the youngsters on show on Saturday, Deji Elerewe was the standout. The former League One Apprentice of the Year demonstrated why he is so highly rated at Charlton with an assured display both defensively and in possession. Wrexham's experienced target man, Ollie Palmer, was largely anonymous and that was in no small part due to Elerewe’s dominance at the back.

Bromley’s next engagement is Yeovil away and it will be very interesting to see if Woodman makes any defensive changes. Personally, I think all of Saturday’s back five can lay claim to keeping their spots. 

Speaking of the loanees, if there is even a 1% chance that Bromley can re-engage Deji Elerewe and Ryan Stirk for next season then that should be an absolute priority. I would be shocked if Charlton and Birmingham City let that happen, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get. 

At the more experienced end of the squad, it was very good to see Michael Cheek hit double figures for the season. With his new contract still crisp in his pocket, we should remember that for all of Cheek’s struggles in the first three months of the season, he has hit eight goals in his last 16 starts. 

He is ending the season how we would’ve wanted him to start it. With nine games remaining, I would set Cheek the target of five more goals and we could call it a fair return, all things considered. 

I spoke with Andy post match to get his reflections on the game - have a listen to the recording below before you move on

The Bad

I promised I wouldn’t mention refereeing decisions anymore but it seems that no National League game is complete without a howler. 

credit for photo - Steve D

I’ll admit that, initially, I didn’t think the foul on Omar Sowunmi was a penalty. From my vantage point in the press area, it looked like Omar (if held at all) had gone down too theatrically for the referee to give a stonewall penalty.

It was only when others stationed behind the goal asserted it was a clear penalty that I went looking for evidence. On review, it’s incontrovertible that Sowunmi was being held by Tunnicliffe, but whether it caused Sowunmi to fall is another matter. If Bromley includes it in their highlights package, I’ll let you all be the judge. 

On the field, while there wasn’t a lot of The Bad in Bromley’s performance, it would be remiss of me not to mention the two mistakes that ultimately cost Bromley the game.

The first saw Besart Topalloj looking for a foul in our own defensive third and going down too easily for the referee’s liking. This gave Ryan Barnett the split second he needed to find Paul Mullin in the box. No mistake was going to be made from there.

The second was worse. Wrexham’s strong-armed centre-back, Ben Tozer, had been peppering Bromley’s box with his tricky long throws all game. Perversely, it was the easiest one to deal with that caused the most damage.

Sam Long, Bromley’s young loanee goalkeeper from Lincoln, should have dealt with it but he seemed to misjudge the flight. The fumble couldn’t have fallen at better feet for Wrexham. Star striker Paul Mullin hooked the ball home to make it 2-0, leaving the Ravens with a Brecon Beacon-sized mountain to climb. 

By no means am I looking to drag these two youngsters. As Andy Woodman later intimated, it was a learning curve for both players and, other than the mistakes, they played well. 

However, those mistakes highlight the fundamental difference between the sides. Bromley have an excellent, well-coached young side. But in the heat of the big moments, at times, they’ve been found wanting. Wrexham, on the other hand, have used their big budget to amass a cadre of experienced Football League professionals who can mitigate such things. You get what you pay for. 

The Ugly

So much was said and written about Bromley giving up their “home” car park stand to Wrexham, but that wasn’t the real talking point on the day. Wrexham filled that stand with 930-odd fans, but it was significantly less than the proposed 1500. In view of the under-sell, the club extended the home allocation and freed the full length of the east terrace for Bromley supporters.

In that context, Bromley fans should have had more than enough of the ground to make themselves heard. Some fans will continue to argue about the decision to give Wrexham our stand, but that argument is finished for me. It was a one-off and we move.

That said, it can't or shouldn’t have escaped the top brass at Bromley that the ground did not cope with over 5,000 fans. I understand there was a desire to set an attendance record, but Hayes Lane has scarcely coped with over 4,000 fans for one-off FA Cup ties, so I’m not sure why we thought it would cope with 5,000.

From my vantage point, several things looked to be going on, but the main problem was that fans weren’t efficiently ushered into the very few available pockets of space in the ground. In addition, there appeared to be too many fans in the ground to be moved safely anyway. 

Even if Wrexham hadn’t been given an allocation of 900, or their position behind the goal, I saw nothing to suggest that the ground would have coped with the attendance all the same.

Why didn’t the club cap the attendance at 4,500? Was it hubris?

I’ve seen comments about there not being enough gates open for Bromley fans. As I arrived at the ground very early, I didn’t experience this issue first hand so I can only speculate. However, it seems to relate to the same point. Attendance record aside, are Bromley equipped to deal with a crowd of this size?

One thing that I will briefly defend is Robin Stanton Gleaves’ right to decide to earn a buck out of this game. I think we must be realistic here. 

Whilst in no way should it have come at the expense of fan comfort or safety, RSG owns the club and it’s his money that is sustaining Bromley at this level of football. At some point he will want to make money out of the club. The game is the game.

We can't have our cake and eat it, because eating it probably means dropping down a couple of leagues.

Don’t get it twisted though, I am not advocating for an unquestioning homage to RSG as our benevolent overlord who can do no wrong, but it certainly isn’t black or white.

He no doubt smelled a good business opportunity where the Wrexham game was concerned, and as the owner of the club he has his right to cash in on that. Although, I do wonder what the policing costs were.

Dare I say, if we don’t like it, we have our own individual decision to make. 

Either way, there were clear lessons on Saturday about the limitations of Bromley’s current situation. Learning from them will aid the club’s growth on and off the pitch. Let's hope those lessons are the main talking points behind the scenes as we approach the end of the season and look ahead to the next one.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. 

Get at me in the comments below.

Match ratings

Sam Long (6)

Kellen Fisher (7)

Callum Reynolds (8)

Omar Sowunmi (8)

Deji Elerewe (8)

Besart Topalloj (6)

Ryan Stirk (7)

Jude Arthurs (7)

Corey Whitely (7)

Michael Cheek (7)

Charley Kendall (6)

Subs:

Louis Dennis for Charley Kendall 56’ (7)

Harry Forster for Kellen Fisher 81’ (6)

James Vennings for Jude Arthurs 87’ (6)

Editor’s Footnote

Wrexham had two gates for their 900 fans. Bromley had one gate for their 4100. I think that says everything about the planning that went into this ‘modern day’ record attendance. 

Avoidable ticketing issues caused further delays at the already crowded gate. Concession season tickets were supposed to be unaffected by this fixture, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Many of our senior and more vulnerable fans were left seeking the assistance of the meagre number of available stewards. They were working hard those stewards but they’d clearly been shafted. Poor.

Regular season ticket holders were told their season ticket would be updated once their attendance was confirmed. It seems they weren't. I suspected this would be the case, so I had both my season ticket and my confirmation email open on my phone (season ticket didn’t work, email did). Others, more trusting than me, got caught out and were left fumbling with their phones while others pushed to get past. Poor.

Once inside the ground, the stewards were clearly winging it and so was the match director. Fans were piling up in the concourse and had little guidance. This was particularly galling for those sitting in the front rows and disabled seating of the Glyn Beverly stand whose view was needlessly interrupted. I also watched fans aimlessly wandering the concourse looking for a safe space to stand while stewards joked and chatted with friends. Poor.

This kind of attendance might not come around again for a while but, as Machel says, lessons are there to be learned.

I enjoyed the game, though. Good luck to Wrexham - hope this is their year.

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