Tuesday 18th of August 2015.
Vanarama National League.
Bromley vs Braintree.
I was pondering wether to go to Bromley away on a Tuesday night, but with no where to go and £5 in fellow iron fan Simon's car to the game, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Also coming in Simons car was iron fan and mate Gareth, this would be his first away trip of the season after missing on on coming to Chester. My mate and Iron fan Dan Turner who you usually see on this blog. He's that long haired chap in pictures who never smiles (although he did smile in the selfie at Chester I'll give him that one) was unfortunately coming tonight, he obviously wanted us to win but he did say to me beforehand a little part of him wants us to lose so he doesn't miss out on a class away day.
The one hour journey down wasn't too bad, much of the discussion between the 3 of us was what the club could do to get more through the gate and me telling them about the away performance at Chester which neither of them went on, However I was in the front which did mean holding the Sat-Nav because Simon didn't have anything to stick it on the windscreen. Unfortunately I did happen to miscalculate a turning off, saying "I think we need to go off here" which was incorrect and we ended up driving 14 miles down the road to Maidenhead, we did get to see the Kent countryside though, which was nice I guess.
To be fair it didn't really matter because we left at about 4:30 so we got to the ground an hour and a bit before hand. Before paying the reasonable price of £5 to go through the turnstiles, the Bromley staff had to check our bags, because apparently the league has now gone completely mental about smoke bombs, every ground now in the national league is littered with "Smoke No Joke posters" after going trough and buying a programme we immediately spotted Maurice, fellow Groundhopper and Braintree fan who appeared in the Chester blog.
The ground itself is actually really nice. One main seating stand where the teams come out which reminded me of the main stand at Bishops Stortford. The one opposite Is a really nice open air standing terrace. Our fans had already made their way over to the terrace behind the goal, next door to the terrace was a fantastic little food stand. I was hoping to get a Pie but all they had were some pasties. Now please, don't get me wrong the pasty tasted fantastic, but the picture below makes it look really unappealing... It's sort of like a kebab, you tell your mate "Oh mate you got to check out this kebab place, they do the best kebabs" then they send you the pic and it looks like complete rubbish... So with that being said, if you go to Bromley. Try the Pasties they taste great.
Going into this game we hadn't won any of our three games we lost 1-0 away at Chester and 3-1 at home to Lincoln however we did draw 0-0 against promotion hopefuls Tranmere the previous Saturday. Bromley had also lost 2 of their previous games, but somehow did manage to beat Wrexham on the first game of the season.
The first half started lively for both teams with Braintree having a little bit more the chances in possession, new loanie boy Jordan Chiedozie look like the main play maker. Most of us found it difficult to pronounce his second name, so I thought of took inspiration from the Chelsea fans about Azpilicueta, and made this chant "We'll just call you Dave. We'll just call you Daaaave. Jordon Chiedozie. We'll just call you dave". Unfortunately no one really joined in, we were all zoned in on this game wondering wether we were actually gonning win this one or at least score a goal...
But that certain goal did eventually come. A header was stopped with a good save from the Bromley keeper. Dave himself picked it up on the left hand side of the box and put a cross over which found the path of Skipper Kenny Davies who had a shot from outside the box, it was going wide before quickly intercepted by Dan Sparkes who slotted home. We all went mental.
After that both teams had more chances Bromley themselves nearly went down the end and scored with a good shot from one of their players slightly going over the bar.
Our fans were in good voice with the typical "IRON ARMY" chant we always do. and "OH WHEN THE IRON GO STEAMING IN!!" we did put the Bromley fans to shame with our singing cause all they did was just say their name about 10 times over....
Going into the break I headed into the club shop. Which isn't too bad to be fair, like ours it has all sorts of pin badges and old football books which are being sold for about 50p or £1. They were mixed in with the usual shirts and scarves, I was going to get a scarf but instead wandered over to some shirts and found that they were selling some signed ones for £5 each. I said to myself "I'll get one at the end" After the match I wandered in the to the club shop and discovered they were all sold out, fantastic logic by me..... I ended up then with the Bromley scar to add to the collection.
We changed ends in the second half and so did the Bromley fans. When we stood behind the goal we were confronted with a bunch of 10 year olds trying to act hard for no reason towards us. All we did was stand behind the goal and they started saying "F*** Off" to all of us...
Within the first 10 minutes of the teams coming back we bagged in a second goal. A shot was saved by Kenny which came instantly back to him, who then passed in in the the air to Jordon "Dave" Chiedozie. who managed to produce over head kick into the back of the net. Maurice managed to catch in on camera, and as you can tell from the noise. We all went mental again. Link at the end. We then taunted the so called "Bromley 10 year olds" stewards eventually came and moved them away, and we started to sing things like: "Back to school on Monday na na na na!!"
15 minutes passed and Bromley somehow managed to pull one back. From then on I genuinely was panicking as they kept going down into our half with balls through to the wing and shots which Will Norris just about saved.
Then we heard the best noise when you are winning away. The final whistle. And as we clapped the Team in we all felt that feeling of happiness again. The feeling that Danny and Nicky Cowley have Finally found their feet at the club. The feeling that we've finally found our shooting boots again. And the feeling that there's better things to come this season.
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