Midweek Mention... The Bromley Boys

The Bromley Boys

Reegs: Did you make us watch this just because it features a bit of West Ham stuff in it? Is that?

Dan: I'd forgotten all about that actually. But, It was a film.

Sidey: No, it's no sailing in it. Just gonna point that out, out of the gate.

Dan: that out out here.

Sidey: No. That comes later in the week.

Dan: later. That's right. This was The Bromley Boys. It was a film, a coming of age story.

true story. based on true events. Anyway And I didn't just choose it because it had West Ham, no.

Sidey: Yeah, it's about a young lad called David, a. k. a. Dave. And He's introduced to Bromley Football Club by his mother. I think she has previously like, noshed off the entire team or something.

Reegs: We get like a little bit of intro scene setting stuff, don't we?

He puts a record on which dates. I think it's, I only want to be with you. I only want to be with you.

Sidey: wanna be

Dan: Well it's the late 60s

Reegs: early 70s.

Sidey: Yeah,

Reegs: Yeah, probably. And we see that he's a kind of blotchy faced nerd

Sidey: He's mad, he's madding up real

Reegs: Beat up and kind of he's gone is like parents have sort of aspirationally sent him to like a sort of slightly posh middle class school and he's doing like interviews with himself.

Isn't he? At the beginning, like talking about what a catchy must be.

Sidey: ha, ha, ha,

Reegs: And his father hates football. We see them on a camping trip really early on. Don't we? It's just the two of them because mom has been ever in and out of the hospital ever since he came out sideways is what he says. Yeah. And they're, they're in a field and it's the 1966 World Cup Final going on.

And his dad is like doggedly cooking sausages in the rain. And he's in the tent listening to the World Cup Final. So

Dan: which,

Reegs: ignites a kind of passion for

Dan: Yeah, when, when Hurst gets there.

Sidey: It is now.

Dan: four. Here it is now.

He, he kind of stands up in the tent and runs

Sidey: off the tent on him. Yeah.

Dan: the tent on him. He's loving football. Absolutely just an addict.

Reegs: Yeah, but his father is really anti it. It's on the list of things that disgruntle him, including British Rail hippies, Edward Heath, modern comedy, the music of John Lennon, and then football as he writes at the bottom. It's Alan Davies, but his mum sort of supports him, doesn't she?

She sneaks a ridiculous package that's a scarf under his under his door and he's like, Oh, what am I going to be? Am I going to be like

Sidey: West

Reegs: West Ham? Am I going to be Tottenham? And he opens it up and it's like a Really shittily handmade Bromley FC scarf.

So he's

Dan: local team.

Reegs: Yeah, they're at the bottom of the Isthmian League or something.

Dan: Yeah. Which

is which is actually quite a decent level of football, but maybe not in the 60s then.

Sidey: No, I think they're outside of the football league, aren't they?

Yeah.

Reegs: So the, the, it flashes forward from that, getting the scarf back to the sort of beginning bit again, the time catches up and he's been three years supporting this football team, hasn't he? But secretly going as a scout, pretending he's going to scouts because his dad, Alan Davies,

Sidey: He turns up in his waggle.

Reegs: Yeah. And he cycles off. He wants to get early to the pre season friendly because he's worried about not getting a seat. So he sets off

Sidey: hours. But they're playing a, they're playing a proper team, aren't they? Is it Westham?

westham

Dan: to begin with and he thinks it's going to be the start of something absolutely amazing.

He's waiting outside. He runs to the coach expecting he can't wait to see Jeff Hurst and Bobby Moore and, and They're all like the b string that have come out to Bromley and he asked them is anyone good playing piss off

Reegs: And

Dan: And they still get beat like 15 nil and that

Reegs: Yeah, well because the Bromley guys come on and they're all, it's proper like Sunday League isn't it?

Sidey: smoking ciggies, yeah.

Dan: Scratching their

ass I mean they've got boils and things and

Reegs: He's, one

Sidey: yeah, the set up is totally amateur and it really reminds me of Foots Lane in Guernsey, the stadium, it's like

Dan: like that actually,

Sidey: a, you know, ramshackle, single stand, standing room only with a man and his dog kind of watching and that's

Dan: You've got a, a fence around with a couple of advertising boards and that's it,

Sidey: The businesses are probably long since gone though, you know.

Dan: And they're rubbish. And the pitch isn't much better, but they are awful. And

Reegs: Alan Stone.

Dan: the player's name. Alan Stonebridge. It's Alan. Stoney.

And

he is the hero of our young Dave hero. But he's,

Reegs: he's

Dan: Yeah, and he's got to hide it still from, from his dad.

Sidey: into it, but we do also meet the owner of the club.

And it's some sort of wide boy.

I'm not sure where he's made his money, some sort of trade, but

Reegs: Charlie McQueen. Yeah. You

Sidey: You'd Yeah, and he's gambling a lot. He's, you know, the club is on its arse and he's looking for a, maybe some sort of way out.

Reegs: Yeah, all of this is discovered through what I consider to be a quite tedious stretch of sort of very strained and forced farce where he, you know, he befriends Ewan McIntosh

Sidey: Oh yeah.

The three lads,

the

Reegs: rest of the supporters club and then sort of ends up forcing his

Dan: right.

The supporters club. It's three kind of,

Sidey: losers,

Reegs: it's the president, the vice president and the junior vice president, so

Dan: three lost souls that have got nowhere else to go on a Saturday either.

Reegs: Yeah, one of them's Ewan McIntosh from the office, sadly no longer with us. And yeah, they're just like a bunch of oddballs. I think, it doesn't he, Dave overhears them in a caff, doesn't he?

Yeah,

Sidey: sitting on his Todd having a Bre and they come in and he's like, oh, you like

Reegs: they're talking tactics and he's like, his eyes light up.

Dan: bracket he'd better come in. They're talking tactics he's like, his eyes up.

Reegs: Oh yeah. On Stony

Sidey: going to Man

Reegs: it says Manchester question mark Doctor or terms agreed or something, doesn't it?

Something like

Dan: That's right. So he believes this means that the best player they've got, Stoney, is, is going to be bought by Man United.

And that spells kind of disaster for him because he's got no one else really in that level in the team. But it will clear out the club debts that they've got.

Kinds finds its way onto the public onto the TV and the newspapers They're quite excited by it, especially the chairman who obviously does as we learn later, doesn't have a clue that this is going

he's mixed it

Reegs: There's some shenanigans with the manager. They want the current manager out, don't they? Dick Ellis. And there's like,

Sidey: Dick out,

Reegs: Dick out. Yeah.

Sidey: is coming back. They're coaxing him from his real life.

Reegs: him from the

Sidey: literally about

Reegs: It's literally about 12 people

Sidey: there, mate. Jacket off to expose the shirt, but he's actually sitting next to the bloke and he doesn't want to do it and

Reegs: he strikes up a conversation with him and he's dead nice and all that sort of stuff as well. So, and then the daughter, his daughter of the, the daughter of the chairman, Ruby, she turns up, she's like a doctor in waiting. She's a student, but she wants to be a doctor and she's got that really brilliant.

Narrative trope of having glasses on so she's a minger which she'll amazingly take off later and he'll notice she's really fit So that all happens as well. So it all builds up doesn't it around the club? I can't be arsed to fucking talk about all of the They're not even hijinks. They're medium

Dan: They're medium jinx,

Reegs: but it, it comes out to the press and all sorts, doesn't it?

And there's another offer that they discover to lead. So he overhears a phone conversation, him talking about now he's Don Rey's involved and all

Dan: Well,

he's got all this all wrong, hasn't he? Because it's all about Ruby's university offers.

She may be going to the University of Manchester, she may be going to the University of Leeds. And that's what the, the CAF the cash offers are about and the and the doctors because it's a dream to go to university.

Reegs: Yeah. So he has to admit this after a big party where it's all being celebrated. Stoney's transfer, the revival of the club's going to not be on its ass anymore. So this is we get to a bit where he basically decides. I wasn't sure what moment sparked in him like. The decision to kind of, he, he decides, right?

He goes back to the chairman, put all your money, sell your car, and put all your money on the team winning, which he decides

to

Sidey: He just turns up his gaff, doesn't he? I think it's because he's trying to talk to the girl through the window and he comes out.

yeah,

Reegs: he when he

Sidey: just about the funniest bit of the film. And so, but all the crux of the matter is they've got one game left to save the season. They're bottom of the league if they win.

They will stay up, but they're playing the top of

Dan: playing the top of the league and there's like odds at the bookies 10 to one and he somehow convinced the, the chairman to sell his sports car and put it all on Bromley winning

Reegs: And to let him be the manager for the day as well.

Dan: Yeah. I dunno how he's kind of managed to, to swing this, but I think that

Sidey: well they are managerless.

Dan: Yeah, the manager's

gone.

Sidey: spin a yarn. He's won a contest to do it. And he gives them some impassioned Well, that's me, that's actually the half times he's done it. The first

one,

Reegs: time detail.

The first one It's

Sidey: fella Jeff. It's just like, I'm not listening to this fucking little dweeb tell me how to play

Dan: at football. No, he's lost the changing room

Reegs: before

Sidey: so they go out and I think at halftime they're one nil

Reegs: think at half time they're 1

Dan: well. But that's not bad for Bromley.

We've seen him lose a lot.

Sidey: is key because he has a tantrum doesn't he? He's got his dad's satchel and he throws it in a fit of despair and all these newspaper clips because for some reason his dad's carrying around all these

Reegs: all these newspaper

Dan: It's what you did in the

Sidey: played Alan Davies, the actual Alan Davies had played for England and had had some sort of hideous leg injury and not been able to continue

Reegs: been able to continue playing. He never played football, and then everyone

Sidey: He had been able to play football and then had that taken away. Everyone else was not allowed

Dan: football No, He

hate, he hated the game.

It was just

Sidey: was bitter about it. He was very

Dan: pain,

Reegs: else could have a dream. So

Sidey: no one else can have a dream.

So he reads all this and it all gets too much for him so he has a little cry in the shower.

Reegs: too much for him, so he

has a little cry in the shower.

Sidey: of, he's on side. Yeah.

Dan: Also is the best player that they've got. Despite him not going to Manchester United, he doesn't hold any bitterness because he kind of knew he wasn't good enough anyway. And he helps get the team on side to listen to the tactics Dave employs at halftime from the shower floor.

They go and turn it around.

They get

Sidey: get a, Well, let's not go too early because they equalize.

Dan: Yeah, they

Reegs: equalised.

The

Sidey: is running out. Yeah. And someone makes a barnstorming run into the area and is fouled, but the referee pulls it back.

Reegs: blatant pen. It was a blatant pen, by the

Sidey: No VAR in those days, so they had to bring it back and it was just, in my opinion, too close to score a free

Reegs: It's hard, from that, because you get it

Sidey: Especially with, you know, those old Boots and then a big heavy leather ball. Anyway, it's so fucking tense, right? Because we don't

know, if they're going

Reegs: know, my heart was in my mouth.

Sidey: And he does score and it's fucking right in the middle of gold I thought that was the worst re kick ever

Reegs: I wondered how many takes they went, Ah, fuck it, that'll do. Like, did they get to like 25 and go, Jesus,

Sidey: in the corner, it's not it's like under it's just under the crossbar. So I guess it was hard to save whatever So cue rapturous celebrations They stay up

Reegs: cue rapturous

Sidey: He fucks the

Reegs: They stay up. There's a

Dan: play for England again. Isn't there

Reegs: script about,

Sidey: there's a, there's a post script about the, the real guy and they're all still alive, I think supporting the team still. And he's written three or four books about Bromley.

Yeah. But they're a real treat

Dan: Well they, they're kind of risen up a little bit now Bromley,

Sidey: saw they were playing yesterday or this weekend in the FA Cup.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And this was actually, it wasn't foot Lane in Guernsey, it was filmed, it was at Crock and Hill fc, which is somewhere in Kent.

That's Kent not,

Sidey: No, nothing else.

Dan: Vanilla.

Reegs: Milk

toast.

Dan: Milk Toast,

Reegs: Toast. Yeah. I, I, there is probably a really good film to be made about supporting lower league teams, but this is kind of the level of BBC one.

Dan: One, Like,

Well, it's a British film. Martine McCutcheon, the once darling of

EastEnders.

Sidey: EastEnders. Perfect moment in Blue.

Dan: Was the mother.

Sidey: Gertrude.

Dan: was it had some laughs.

It was, and

Sidey: kind of positioning itself as an underdog story?

I mean, there's millions of

Dan: millions of

Sidey: millions of those that are better than this. It, it's really forgettable. You know, it's harmless. Charitable, I say it's harmless,

Dan: lot to get

Sidey: out of it.

Dan: but I found him a little bit annoying, which is not really very to say,

Reegs: I found him a little bit annoying, which is not really very nice to say, but

Sidey: character's just played up to be uber dweeby, isn't he?

Reegs: he? Yeah. He's like a total fantasist as well.

We probably didn't really talk that bit. He's constantly making up bullshit as

Sidey: well throughout the

Reegs: movie. Yeah. Very much average, like on the low end of average.

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: mean, Jamie Forman, I've always quite enjoyed, he's quite good

Sidey: He would, yeah.

I mean, Jamie Forman, I always quite enjoy. He's quite good as a sleazy kind of horrible bastard.

he? The Chairman.

He was in Layer Cake, as the

Reegs: I thought, I thought, like, they did okay, but the, you know, the plot was very, like, formulaic, and

Sidey: his problem.

The Soundtrack?

Dan: a

Reegs: It was okay, actually, and the period detail and costumes was quite good as well, I thought that was

Dan: had, It had the potential to be a little bit better than it

was. It

Reegs: had a soundtrack that was kind of like You know, Spotify play me the best songs of 1968

to 1970, and, you know, that sort of level. So, there was some pretty good shit around

Sidey: level. So, there was some pretty good shit

time. No. Yes, a lot of it. Right. Well, I would hope it's a winner

Reegs: Well, I would hope it's a winner, because that's really not a lot what this was, really,

Dan: Yeah, I hope they could make more than that.

Sidey: Took $20,000.

Reegs: That makes it a you're the

Sidey: on the, it's on the fence there. . Very nearly break. We're near to breaking even.

to if you round up

Dan: paying for the sandwiches.

Sidey: Yeah. Not a great

Dan: Wow, is that all it

Reegs: you guys are well into an amateur local football So this, you should have been like popping boners for this.

Sidey: The trouble is because we're at, you know.

Dan: this. needed to be an

Reegs: living that thug

Sidey: the one that it reminds me of, the stadium reminds me of Footslade, which is where we, St.

Juan's, had a cup final against the Guernsey team. And we went over to play them and everything about that day is way more fun than anything

Dan: Oh, if you could, if you could have videoed that day, I mean it was more of an 18 though.

Sidey: Because when you're, when you're in it and you're doing that sort of stuff, you know, the sort of stuff that actually goes on, nothing like,

but more

fun than this, you know. And then, and this, obviously this film isn't from the player's point of view. It's from the supporters, you know, it's from this, just this one lad.

So,

Reegs: one lad, so, To me, I like the stuff about those clubs, that they live and die

Sidey: It's, it's more like, to me, I like the stuff about, you know,

those clubs that they live and die on the volunteers and all the people that actually fucking give up everything just to keep these things afloat, you know, and that's kind of more interesting than, you know, football results, because there's a million stories about that sort of

Reegs: But

Sidey: But again, I don't know how interesting a film that would be.

Reegs: how interesting the film that would be. It was based

Sidey: No, man. None.

Dan: Well, it was based on the book by Dave Roberts.

As you say, he's brought out a couple of Bromley books. And The poster says feel good film of the year.

Reegs: What year

Dan: year that was.

Sidey: Was, so Covid? Was

Reegs: mate.

Dan: Yeah,

it promised more than it delivered. Thankfully there wasn't any extra time. But lost on penalties

Reegs: Right, well, but you, yeah, that's, you'd prepared that, that's good as well. But you'd already seen it, and then you made me sit through it, knowing it was really kind of only okay. Yeah, I

Sidey: Still, it's still in credit, I

Dan: credit,

but this

Sidey: but this was a strong recommend for

Dan: Strong stuff.