EA Sports FC 25: Bromley FC are in the game, so why aren’t I?

Why does playing as Bromley in EA Sports FC 25 leave me unfulfilled? Is it because they’ve mistakenly listed Callum Reynolds as left-footed? If only it were that simple.

If you think computer games are for kids and nerds, this article won’t change your mind. It’s not meant to. Instead, read it as a cautionary tale; one that makes us reflect on the things we think we want in life.

Blow some dust out of your cartridge because my first football game was World Cup Italia '90 on the SEGA Mega Drive. It was utterly crap and incredibly annoying, but being a football-mad kid, I played it on repeat. A few years later, a little-known game producer named Electronic Arts released FIFA International Soccer. I’ve played almost every iteration of the game since then.

Fast forward to FIFA 2001. Paul Scholes is on the cover, wearing a round-neck England shirt that’s had its nipple-chafing badge digitally removed, and the CD has a scratch-and-sniff grass smell for some reason (it didn’t smell anything like grass). This is the edition of the game I was playing when I started supporting Bromley.

Back then, it seemed impossible that my Ryman League swamp-stompers would ever grace the digital grass of a FIFA game. I would’ve given my PlayStation 2 to make that happen. Yet here I am, almost a quarter of a century later, typing up a bitterly reflective article about the very same thing I thought I always wanted.

In case you’re unfamiliar, EA Sports FC (formally FIFA) lets you play with English teams from League Two upward, so non-league stalwarts Bromley have never appeared in it before. Last season’s mind-bending promotion fulfilled a quietly held dream of mine to see Bromley in the game.

So why am I finding it so hard to love?

When you start a Career Mode game with Bromley FC, you get a pretty realistic version of the team to tinker with. All of your favourite Ravens are present, and the 5-3-2 formation accurately apes the wonders of Woodman-ball.

Tragically, some Bromley players are underrated. Take Corey Whitely, for example. In reality, he’s a vital fulcrum in the team, yet in EA Sports FC he’s a run-of-mill winger with a measly 58 rating. That’s 58 compared to Ashley Charles’ 62. Ashley is a good player, of course, but Corey is equal to him at the very least. Then there’s Lewis ‘Bruce’ Leigh, who is similarly underpowered on 57 points. Although, if they handed out bonus points for needlessly elbowing your opponent in the face, he would probably rank a bit higher.

The novelty of playing as Bromley helps me to overlook the wonky player ratings, but a sense of disquiet lingers.

For what it’s worth, I only play Career Mode. Getting screamed at by energy-drink-addled teenagers in the online modes isn’t my idea of fun. I get a few hours to play per week, I’d like to enjoy them.

When I started this save, I did so with the intention of writing an article that documented an entire digital season with Bromley. That idea quickly fell by the wayside, but in the spirit of the original concept, I set up my season as accurately as possible. I added long-term injuries to Elerewe, Passley, and Dinanga, and vowed to keep Bromley’s 5-3-2 shape as my main tactic.

A stickler for my own imaginary rules, I also barred myself from signing anyone in the first transfer window. Not that I could with a transfer budget of just £75k. That kind of money doesn’t go very far in the game. To boost the budget, I explored selling some fringe players. That’s where my disquiet became noisier.

Poor Myles Weston. Transfer-listing him gave me no joy whatsoever. When I close my eyes, I can still hear the sound of his play-off semi-final beamer hitting the top corner of the net. Cush! “We’ll always have the memories,” I thought as I pressed Add to Transfer List.

With the bit between my teeth, I started to look for other players to transfer-list. That’s when I realised that over a third of Andy Woodman’s squad is over 30.

Football computer games aren’t kind to players over 30; their stats fall faster than Black Friday prices. In the first few weeks of the season alone, almost every Bromley player over 30 lost one point from their overall rating. To compete in the back half of the season, I face the prospect of laying waste to this team of promotion-winners and Wembley heroes in the January transfer window.

How am I going to tell 37-year-old captain Byron Webster, he of the eyebrow-wiggling promotion-sealing penalty kick, that I’ve sold him to Oțelul Galați of the Romanian Superliga for just £25k?

From a distance, I imagine.

But isn’t electronic art just imitating life? Bromley’s ageing squad will almost certainly need a revamp in the next year or so. The team lineup in EA Sports FC 26, assuming Bromley are still in it, is likely to look very different to the one in this game. Perhaps I just don’t want that change to happen so soon.

Part of the fun of these games is wheeling and dealing in the transfer market, but that’s easier to do when you’re disassociated from the players. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not on first-name terms with the majority of Bromley’s ballers, but I’ve watched them scrap, hustle, fail, and flourish in the most dramatic ways possible. If I rip that to shreds, is it really Bromley anymore? I may as well be managing any team.

Then it dawned on me… I’ve felt these feelings before.

The year was Football Manager 2008. After Bromley’s promotion to the Conference South for the 07/08 season, they were a playable team for the first time ever in the addictive management simulator. Another one of my dorky dreams had come true.

When I started my FM08 save with Bromley, the same sense of anticipation helped me to overlook some similarly wonky player ratings (Garath McCleary was a donkey compared to his real dynamite self). But as I got into the nitty-gritty of the game, I realised I was going to have to tear the squad apart if I was going to compete.

How was I going to tell ‘Super’ Nic McDonnell (also woefully underrated in the game) that I was selling him to Wingate & Finchley for just £250?

My experiment with EA Sports FC made me realise I had forgotten the lesson that Football Manager 2008 tried to teach me: I don’t like being the architect of change when it’s my own club. I’ll barge into any other club on earth and transfer list their club legends without sentiment, but you’ll have to prise Louis Dennis out of my cold, dead database.

So, where does that leave me? I think I’ll carry on my Bromley save for a little while and see if I can find some joy in the rebuild. But just thinking about having to find Michael Cheek 2.0 makes the sense of fun ebb away. Perhaps I’m just too sentimental.

Is anyone else out there playing with Bromley on EA Sports FC or Football Manager? How do you get over the funk of saying goodbye to your favourite players?

And who do you sign instead?

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This article was written and edited by Peter Etherington you can find him here

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