The conclusion of the 2024 National League Play-Off Final, which came down to the final kick of the season, was unexpected even for Bromley manager Andy Woodman. An entire season hinged on a penalty shootout to determine which club would be the 147th to join the EFL.
Upon 120 minutes of thrilling football played beneath the iconic arch, the Ravens and their Solihull Moors opponents at Wembley were level after a 2-2 draw. There was nothing more that Woodman, a methodical individual who prepares for every possibility, could do except to step aside and allow his players to decide what happened next.
“I was so detailed that I literally plotted our promotion 259 days ago,” Woodman claims. “I planned everything—every game, every month, every three months, every six months.
“We’re going to make history at this football club and this is how we’re going to be promoted. It wasn’t a talk of ‘we may’ from the beginning. We didn’t back down from the objective or the difficult talks. Some people are afraid to declare, “We’re going to get promoted,” for fear of being made fun of if they fall short.
Few would have predicted that Woodman’s team would be the favorites to win promotion when they began their 2023–24 campaign away at Halifax Town in August.
“We’d been there or thereabouts,” Ravens skipper Byron Webster adds. “Because we’d done so well and been so close, the next stop was promotion and there’s only so long you can say, ‘unlucky, Bromley’ and we didn’t want that. We’ve had that for three years and we had to get promoted.”
Over the course of the campaign, some eagle-eyed supporters might have noticed the defender – who spent 15 consecutive seasons plying his trade in the professional pyramid – wearing an EFL-branded armband. A sign of things to come, perhaps?
And it was hard to miss his new accessory when the camera trained in on Webster, lining up to take the fifth and final spot-kick of the shootout in the Final, on the brink of securing Bromley’s place in Sky Bet League Two for the 2024/25 season.
He explains: “The truth is, we had a kit man who came from Charlton and he brought it along with him. I don’t know if it’s one of those things where you kind of manifest it and think, ‘I’m going to where it because it’s going to come true’ or if it was the only one available, but I wore it all season.
“Coming towards the end of the season, a few teams’ captains picked up on it and were like, ‘you’re a bit confident there, aren’t you?’ and we had a bit of banter. It became a thing where I wore it all season, so why change at Wembley? I find it comical that people believe I’d go and change it for the penalty! Anything to make the story better, I suppose.”
When Woodman first arrived at the Club in March 2021, leaving his post as Arsenal’s head of goalkeeping, he could understand why his sanity was brought into question. The 52-year-old, who spent the best part of his coaching career working in the Premier League with the likes of West Ham, Newcastle United and Crystal Palace, grasped his “last chance to be taken seriously as a manager”.
The ex-shot stopper went from having a whole host of staff at his beck and cal to working out of a Portakabin – formerly Bromley’s Club shop – with just two personnel at his disposal. It was something of an eye-opener.
But it didn’t take long for Clubs to sit up and take notice. Despite offers from elsewhere, Woodman committed his future to Bromley and it was a move that paid off.
“It’s almost pinch yourself stuff – a little Club in Bromley that has been a non-league Club all its life and now we’re going into the big leagues,” Woodman continues. “I know a lot of people probably rolled their eyes when I said I wanted to get this Football Club into the League. I’ve got a record of saying it just became an unhealthy obsession of mine to get Bromley Football Club into the League.
“Weirdly enough, the shootout was the most relaxed I was in the game because it was out of my hands. The game itself, we started off so well and then from 55 minutes when they scored to 80 minutes, I thought we were done – I thought there was only team going to win this and it’s not going to be us.
“It went to extra time and I know we’re a seriously fit team, so I felt confident. You hit the bar and hit the post and you suddenly start thinking the footballing gods are not with you.”
For Webster, two previous visits to the National Stadium – both of which ended in triumph with Yeovil Town in 2013 and Millwall again in 2017 – dispelled any nerves he might be toying with, although the Leeds-born centre half admitted he didn’t get the chance to put up his hand to take a penalty when the time came.
“If I’m honest, I didn’t know I was taking it!” he laughs. “It was funny because I’d gone for the coin toss for which end it was going to be at and who goes first and I lost both the coin tosses. I was walking back to the group in the huddle and the goalkeeping coach Brannon (Daly) came up to me and said, ‘you’re going fifth’, so I didn’t even know where I was on the list or where I was going to be.
“I think that helped that there wasn’t a lot of time to overthink it or put my name forward. I was told I was doing it and I was ready to do it.”
Bromley keeper Grant Smith pulled off two saves in the shootout to ease the burden on Webster, who was confidence personified. The 37-year-old, who was likened to “a swan” by his manager, gave Solihull keeper Nick Hayes his best winning smile – quite literally.
Webster explains: “I didn’t think about anything – I was really calm. I just went up there and the keeper gave me a little bit of verbal as you would, I did the little smile and the rest is history as they say. If I’d missed, I’m sure it’d have been, ‘he’s an arrogant so-and-so’.
“I’ve been fortunate to have promotions with other teams and win at Wembley – and Bromley in the FA Trophy – but because of the armband and the smirk, it blew up a crazy, crazy amount. I’m not a big advocate of social media but I have my Instagram which got a fair few more followers.
“With Yeovil, it was a big thing and with Millwall getting promoted back into the Championship, it was a big thing, but this topped it all – it really did.”
Nobody needs to remind Woodman just how notoriously difficult it is to win promotion from the National League, with Bromley joined by Chesterfield, who wrapped up the title by the end of March, in this season’s League Two line-up.
And there is plenty to look forward to. The Ravens kick-off their inaugural EFL campaign away at Harrogate Town before hosting AFC Wimbledon in a South London derby in their first home fixture. Not to mention Woodman’s men will compete in the Carabao Cup and the Bristol Street Motors Trophy for the first time in the Club’s history.
“It’s been a hard slog to get to the EFL,” Woodman reiterates. “There are only 92 of us and to be one of the 92, I’m immensely proud. That said, we’ve got to make sure we don’t get overawed by it and be starry eyed about it.
“We’ve earned the right to be in the EFL and we’re going to go about it like we did in the National League. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of Clubs that aren’t relishing playing us and we’ve to make Clubs fear us. The home fixture for a lot of people is going to be ‘welcome to the EFL’.
“There are some big games at some big grounds against some big Clubs. Using Bradford as an example, they were in the Premier League in my day!”
Retaining the services of the likes of their Club captain could have untold benefits for Bromley. With over 150 appearances and counting for the Ravens, the experienced Webster opted to extend his stay in the summer and he could find himself coming face-to-face with some of his former teams this season, including Doncaster Rovers, Carlisle United and Harrogate to name a few.
“It’s a nice local one for my family as well – they’re probably about 20 minutes away from Harrogate,” Webster explains. “It’ll be good to see some familiar faces. We’ve got Wimbledon on the TV and it’s back up north again to Bradford. The crowds are bigger in the EFL and it is a different animal.
“I was always going to play on, whether it was at Bromley or another Club. I’m only 37 and that’s probably old in football but in life, it’s not. The buzz still hasn’t died down and it’s still bubbling underneath.”
As a Club, Bromley aren’t prepared to stand still, as long as Woodman and the Ravens’ owner, local businessman Robin Stanton-Gleaves – described as a “taskmaster” by the Bromley boss – are in charge.
The pair have already outlined a clear vision for this season and it might take their league rivals by surprise.
He asserts: “I can’t operate by taking every game as it comes and seeing where it leads us – it doesn’t work and it’s not how I’m wired. If I was to say we’ll see how it goes, the players would look at me as if to say, ‘that’s not really you, gaffer’.
“We’ve got a plan – we’re going to aim for the Play-Offs. I know that’ll raise eyebrows and people will think that’s brash and naïve. One or two people will be looking at that and thinking, ‘be careful what you say’. I’m a big boy and I know how football works – it can bite you – but I also know you’ve got to have something to aim for.
“I can assure you, this group of staff and players and Football Club will be doing everything it can to create its next bit of history.”
