What’s in a pair of shorts?

Peter Etherington takes a look at the Bromley kit debate

Jul 26, 2022

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. That old chestnut comes to mind when Bromley turn out in the all-white of Spanish giants Real Madrid.

The recent trend for Los Blancos kits began with the arrival of the club’s bombastic former owners, the Reading family. Their legacy wasn’t just unwatered trees and unpaid bills. One of their first acts was to change Bromley’s traditional black shorts for something altogether more flashy.

After a forgettable Surridge Sport number for the 2013/14 season, the Readings introduced an all-white Nike kit for 2014/15, no doubt designed to dazzle fans at their family-fun-day ‘matchday experience’. Bromley won the league in that kit and were promoted to the National League. A legend was born.

If you thought this was going to be an article bashing the Galácticos-look then reset your dial. But it’s not one in praise of it, either. Anyone for a game of devil’s advocate?

Wind the clock back to 1893, one year after the club’s foundation, and it seems our fledgling Ravens were taking to the pitch in black shorts and socks and a half-and-half shirt of black and white. In the years that followed, they dropped the half-and-half look and opted for a simple white shirt, accessorised with sassy black shorts and socks.

That classy colourway clung to the club as the Victorian era gave way to the Edwardian. It survived the decadence of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, too. But mid-century modernism brought the first signs of disobedience.

The 1967/68 team photo is a minimalist masterpiece of white shirts, shorts, and socks. There they stand, Bromley men, stacked like teeth, their gossamer youth aglow in alabaster… Alright, too much.

Was it controversial at the time? I don’t know. Had it happened before? I don’t know. Why did they make the change? I don’t kn – Now, at this point, you’re probably realising that I’m no club historian and my research has all the hallmarks of a Sunday night homework project.

Anyway, what do I know? I don’t date from the mid-century. I’m a child of the 80s who started watching Bromley when Robbie Williams was warbling about the millennium. Therefore, on this matter, like most matters, I invite my elders to push their glasses up their noses and give me a dose of that “I think you’ll find…” wisdom.

But the fact remains, Bromley have, for the majority of their existence, played in white shirts and black shorts. If it ain’t broke…

The boring grown-up in me thinks of the practicalities of an all-white kit. Even on Bromley’s crumb-filled astroturf, I look at those white shorts and socks and ponder how much Daz it’ll take to get them ready for the doorstep challenge (kids, Google it).

To that end, pull up any team photo from the 1890s to 1910s and you’ll see dark shorts and socks are de rigueur. Practicalities. Quagmire conditions were common in those early games, so dark colours were a safe choice for hiding the mud and blood of last weekend.

As football pitches and washing machine technology improved, clubs got more adventurous with their colours. But not Bromley. Not until recently, anyway. So why the change?

Fulham, a club very much rooted in its history, have stuck with the white shirts and black shorts look. Through that lens, Bromley’s recent change to an all-white kit could be seen as a rejection of their history.

The Amateur Cup finals of yesteryear, for example, were won in black and white, and the club have gone to great lengths to keep their memory alive. But that word ‘amateur’ hits the ear like a hand-stitched leather ball on a cold December morning.

Are the modern colours a deliberate step away from the club’s amateur and non-league past? Galáctico-white seems like a statement of ambition, a flash of glitz and glamour, a private jet from Madrid to Biggin Hill. Just like the Readings envisaged back in 2013.

Filigree flashes of gold have also entered Bromley’s “drip” of late. Depending on how you look at it, this move is either delightfully Belle Époque or naffly nouveau riche. My new-money is on the latter, but I don’t hate it. Why don’t I hate it?

I hate the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses gold ring around the club’s badge; the design equivalent of digging a moat around a quaint country cottage and filling it with Swarovski crystals. But more on that another day.

Then there are the away kits, a perennial afterthought. That is until this season when a competition was launched to decide the design of Bromley’s third kit. David Bowie got a lot of love in the concept designs, but where were the Siouxsie Sioux-inspired ones?

Engaging with fans is a hot topic at the moment, and a third kit design competition seems a pretty low-risk way to do that. Putting aside my cynicism about third shirts in general, I offer my hearty congratulations to the competition winner. I’ve no doubt it’ll be a great honour to see the team run out in your design. Even if it’s only once. On a rainy Tuesday night. Away at Sittingbourne in the Kent Cup. See how I put my cynicism aside?

And dare I mention the all-black number for the FA Trophy final? Again, I didn’t hate it. But can you imagine the rumpus if, in 1949, Bromley’s club secretary telegrammed the FA to say: “Pip-pip, Old Sport. Amateur Cup final coming up. Mind if we turn out in the referee’s kit for this one?”

To be fair to Bromley, Wrexham pulled a fast one and the Ravens responded in kind. But it’s a sign of the times that clubs can just change their colours on a sixpence.

So, where do you stand? Are you a modernist or a traditionalist? A Cristiano Ronaldo or a Kirk Watts? Can you be both?

Pinning my shorts to the mast, I wouldn’t mind seeing Bromley in black shorts and socks for a season or two. Then again, next season it’ll be 130 years since Bromley donned that natty half-and-half kit... But where do you stick the gold?

From Bromley with love

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