Bromley 2-2 Boreham Wood

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Bromley’s form has been so good this season that a 2-2 draw at home to Boreham Wood seems like dropped points. But that would be the wrong interpretation based on the balance of play.

In previous seasons, Bromley may well have been dead and buried after 30 minutes. But, once again, this group found a way to make sure they didn’t lose a game of football. 

As ever, I reflect on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly from the 2-2 draw vs Boreham Wood. 

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

The team vs Boreham Wood

The Good

Since I challenged Corey Whitely and Ben Krauhaus to combine for a total of 16 goals (minimum), the pair have added another four goals to their tally. This takes their combined total to 13 goals and counting. It looks like they will go on to smash my target and then some.

The latest effort from Corey was another special goal to add to his collection. This 25-yard screamer was worth the entrance fee alone.

I note that Andy Woodman feels Corey should add more goals to this game and he has every reason to expect that. The Enfield/Dagenham/Ebbsfleet version of Corey was a free-scoring midfielder, so he’s clearly got goals in his locker.

Rising to the challenge, Corey has already scored more league goals than he did last season. If he can add a few more ‘simplistic’ finishes to his game then he could well be on for double figures in 2023/24.

Bromley dropping points notwithstanding, up until the final three minutes, they had showcased another example of being experts at, as Luke Garrard put it, “finding a way.” 

On the balance of play, the Ravens should have been out of the game in the first half. Rather than wilt, they found a way to go in level at the break, then found the extra gear required to be the better side for long periods of the second half. 

It all points to why Bromley have only lost four of their twenty-nine league games this season, and only two in their last twenty-seven. 

Good sides find a way to not lose when they deserve to. Bromley continue to hone this fine habit.

At the time of writing, teenage midfielder Ben Krauhaus has signed for Brentford Football Club and has been loaned back to Bromley for the remainder of the season. Yet another star boy has made a big-money move away from Bromley, but in Ben’s case he’s made it all the way to the Premier League.

What a humble young man he has been from his Academy days to now. Long before Ben featured for the first team, I lost count of the number of people who told me he was the real deal.

Former Bromley manager Neil Smith and former player Anthony Cook both told me Ben was an unbelievable talent when he tore it up on loan at Cray Wanderers when he was just 17 years old. 

Andy Woodman, to his credit, trusted Ben Krauhaus almost immediately. He brought the teenager off the bench last season from December 2022 onwards, then started him a month later away at Scunthorpe.

This season, the star boy has been ever present, which has attracted a flock of EFL and PL scouts to Hayes Lane on the regular. I’ve written extensively about Ben’s development on the From Bromley with Love pages and I’d like to think I’ve done him justice. I think we could all see where he was headed.

I’m made up for him on his big move. The next generation of Bromley Academy prospects need no further inspiration than to look at what Kellen Fisher and Ben Krauhaus have achieved. 

Credit must also go to the faith that Andy Woodman has placed in the club’s youth talent. He’s staked his reputation on the fact they would make the grade and was proved unquestionably right. 

Surely there has never been a better time to support Bromley Football Club in the modern era?

The Bad

Although Bromley avoided defeat on a day they may have deserved to lose, one cannot hide from the fact that when you concede an equaliser three minutes from time it looks like two points dropped. Balance of play be damned.

The more worrying thing about the draw was the nature of the goals conceded. As Andy Woodman mentions in his post-match interview, both goals were disappointingly easy, with Boreham Wood players twice stealing a jump on their markers at the back post.

Bromley don’t often concede goals as soft as that. In fact, you could argue that defending crosses in the box is very much an integral part of the Bromley DNA.

It is no secret how much Woodman and Dunne pride themselves on Bromley being difficult to break down, so those goals would have been a shock to the system. Worse for me though were the opening 30 minutes of the game, which arguably set the tone for a difficult day at the Lane. 

Bromley were very passive in their approach and seemed content to let Boreham Wood have the ball. Maybe the expectation was that they wouldn’t have the finesse to break Bromley down.

Instead, the Wood moved the ball with purpose and comfortably kept Bromley on the back foot. The direct running and trickery of midfielder Enrico Sousa was a constant threat, just as it was at Meadow Park in November.

In defence of Bromley’s game plan, they’ve successfully employed this tactic quite often this season. We’ve seen them rope-a-dope teams early in the game before slowly getting to work laying traps and moving the ball with quick transitions. 

But the usual gear switch didn’t happen in the opening 30 minutes of this game, which is probably why Andy Woodman described it as “a shambles.”

Ultimately, it took Corey Whitely’s screamer against the run of play to wake Bromley up, but they shouldn’t have needed that. If we’re being hypercritical, Bromley were still second-best for the remainder of the first half.

This is a game worthy of deep analysis for the management team; not only to unpick why it went wrong, but to serve as a useful reminder that the side still needs to earn the right to win.

The Ugly

Andy Woodman was furious about Michael Cheek’s disallowed goal with 15 minutes remaining. I get why.

Ultimately, having seen the replay, I can see why it was chalked off for handball. But Woodman’s point was that the ball was smashed right at Cheek, who didn’t attempt to stop the ball with his hands. Did it even hit his hands? I’ll let you all decide.

However, having disallowed the goal, the referee apparently explained that if the ball had ricocheted off of Cheek and rolled to another Bromley player, and that player had scored instead, then the goal would have stood. But as Cheek was both the alleged offender and goal-scorer it was disallowed. 

Can any referees out there confirm that this is in fact a real rule? 

If it is, then is such a rule fit for purpose? In one instance you don’t benefit from an alleged handball, in another instance you do. That doesn’t make sense. 

Did Andy have a point?

Anywho, let me know what you think about the above by getting at me in the comments below.

For those interested I spoke briefly with Boreham Wood gaffer, Luke Garrard post-match. Have a listen below.

Match ratings

Grant Smith (7)

Josh Passley (7)

Alex Kirk (7)

Byron Webster (6)

Callum Reynolds (8)

Besart Topalloj (8)

Jude Arthurs (7)

Ben Krauhaus (7)

Corey Whitely (8)

Olufela Olomola (6)

Michael Cheek (7)

Subs:

Myles Weston for Josh Passley 90’ 

Sam Woods for Ben Krauhaus 88’

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Thanks for taking the time to read the match synopsis above.

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