A Personal Touch - Bromley Football Club

[MrTini23]

CALLUM JONES Played at the same cricket club as his old man. Top lad. Hope he goes well for you

 

[FM_TNSSO]

CALLUM JONES Played at the same cricket club as his old man. Top lad. Hope he goes well for you

Love this!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

As I signed off from my last update, I said I'd ideally look to add one more wide attacker to the squad if I could. I have now done that with the addition of Burton's Scott Banks who joins on loan for the season. He is ideal as he can comfortably play down both wings!

In this year's Papa Johns Trophy, we have been handed a really tough draw with no League Two club in our group! Millwall will be one of the favourites to win the whole competition!

This year's pre season has been our best yet. We haven't lost a game and recorded big wins over Championship clubs, Blackpool and Stoke, whilst managing a draw with Crystal Palace as well!

With the league about to kick off, the bookies have us down for a mid table finish this year, but odds of just 25/1 to win the title show just how tight this division is. No surprise to see the recently relegated sides all favourites to go back up, whilst Wrexham are now a League One club as well after back to back promotions.

Our first game of the season would be against Wigan. A tough opener, especially when you consider that they thrashed us 4-1 at the back end of last season!

Both my new on loan strikers scored debut goals but it wasn't enough to secure us an opening day victory as Wigan twice come from behind to salvage a point.

Due to the fact they have come up the divisions with us, we haven't played any other team more than Notts County in my 3 years in charge. And we will play an extra game against them this season too as we have drawn them in the first round of the Carabao Cup. Up until now, we have an exactly even record against one another.

It's not even anymore though as we thump them to cruise into round 2!

But before that, we had two more league games to take care of. And we took care of them in good fashion carving out two wins over Carlisle and Northampton! Ken Aboh has been extremely impressive, bagging 4 goals in those two matches.

That brought around a quick return to Carabao Cup action and we'd drawn League Two's Tranmere Rovers, so I firmly expected us to go through.

And go through we did with a pretty easy win.

We welcome Championship side, Bristol City, to Hayes Lane in the 3rd round and I actually think this is a winnable tie for us, especially if we can keep up our good start to the season.

Back to the league action for now and it was a home game against Crewe up next which brought about another win! Scott Banks turned in a man of the match performance as he bagged a goal and an assist.

The scoreline could have been much heavier in our favour, with the linesman and referee ruling out 4 goals in total for offside, 3 of which were for us!

Winning 3 of our opening 4 games has seen us lead the way in the early stages.

On transfer deadline day, I only really had one position I wanted to recruit for and that was our backup goalkeeper spot. I have managed to pick up ex Nottingham Forest and MK Dons keeper, Jordan Smith, on a free transfer.

Then an opportunity was presented as my scouts flagged up a player I simply couldn't ignore. Lewis Warrington was available on a free after being released by Everton and is an excellent capture for a club like us. He is versatile and can play several positions for us and immediately becomes one of our best players for sure. A really nice addition to the squad on deadline day.

Meanwhile, our first venture into the Papa John's Trophy this year would present us with a home game against Millwall. As I have often done with this competition, I took the opportunity to heavily rotate my team and although we were still the better side across the 90 minutes, we lose for the first time this season.

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[FM_TNSSO]

Ken Aboh has made a great start to the season and settled right in at Bromley. His 5 goals in 4 games in August were enough for him to land the first Young Player of the Month award of the season.

We had a two week break since playing Millwall in the Papa Johns Trophy, but then had to play 3 games in the space of a week! However, we handled it extremely well, notching up a maximum 9 points from those 3 matches without conceding a single goal, rounded off by a comfortable victory over our fiercest rivals, Sutton.

Ken Aboh scored in all three of those games and he already has 9 league goals this season in 7 appearances. He looks like a pretty amazing signing for us and could even beat the 27 league goals scored last year by Omari Benjamin!

The Carabao Cup 3rd round was next and Bristol City were the visitors. With us sitting top of League One and them sitting 22nd in the Championship, only 3 positions actually seperate us in the football pyramid and I felt we could take this tie by the scruff of the neck and advance in the competition.

We did get the win and we were good value for it as well. When we went 2-1 down I wasn't sure it was going to be our day, but the lads showed great character to fight back and win the game. Max Melbourne proved to be an inspired sub as he came off the bench to get a goal and an assist from left back to get us over the line!

In the 4th round we will face Championship opposition again in the form of Blackburn.

Our performance this season isn't going unnoticed as QPR come knocking at my door to invite me to interview for their manager's job. I quickly decline.

Barnsley are a team we failed to beat last year (drew one and lost one), so to win so comfortably this season shows just how much we have progressed and how much better we are this year.

That win actually made it 7 straight in the league!

And that sort of form will win you Manager of the Month all day long!

It'll also earn you new contracts! I extend my stay with Bromley for another couple of seasons and reach the £2k per week salary mark for the first time.

Our winning streak did come to an end though away at Sheffield Wednesday although this is still a good point and our unbeaten run in the league continues. I thought we'd actually nicked the points when Aboh put the ball in the back of the net on 81 minutes, only for it to be ruled out for offside.

Back in the Papa Johns Trophy, we pulled off an absolutely ridiculous result against Cambridge, even with heavy rotation of the first 11. Either my backups had a point to prove or Cambridge don't give a **** about this competition!

We carried that goalscoring prowess straight back into the league as well as we thrashed Portsmouth at home!

Newly promoted Wrexham got a beating as well. 3-1 really doesn't justify our dominance and we could have had 6 or 7 here if it wasn't for their keeper!

Eleven games into the season now and we remain unbeaten, which is enough for us to top the table by 2 points with a game in hand! I think we've made an early statement that we are here to challenge this season!

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[FM_TNSSO]

Preston were relegated from the Championship last season and are amongst the favourites to win the League One title this year. They've made a good start to their season as well, sitting 3rd, just 3 points behind us. This would be a big game.

We were very much in the game and actually created more than double the amount of chances they did, but a bad day in front of goal and some suspect defending from our back line handed them the win and we lose for the first time this season in the league.

It wasn't the greatest game for confidence going into our Carabao Cup 4th round tie with Blackburn, who are flying high in 4th place in the Championship.

For the 2nd game in a row we dominate the amount of chances created and for the second game in a row we are well beaten! Frustrating, but Blackburn were just too good in front of goal for us today!

I wanted to see a reaction back in the league against Reading...in fact I demanded it in my pre match team talk. And boy did the lads respond alright!

We followed it up with another rout against Lincoln as well - a team that we have struggled against in the past! Maziar Kouhyar was the star of the show with a goal and two assists!

With us flying again, I had no doubts we would overcome League Two side, Burton Albion, in the 1st round of the FA Cup and I was right. We cruise through.

Bournemouth are not known for having a thriving youth development programme, so it was no surprise to see us beat their U21 team in the Papa Johns Trophy, although it should have been by a much wider margin than it was!

It was a win that ensures safe passage through to the Southern Section knockout rounds.

Before we face off against Plymouth in that knockout game though, we had 4 more league games to play. And we took maximum points from them as we again prove that we are on another level this season! Big wins over playoff hopefuls Millwall and Swindon were included in this run that extended our run of wins in all competitions to 8 games!

Our excellent form sees us clinch a clean sweep in the league's November monthly awards!

As mentioned before, it was Plymouth away in the Papa Johns Trophy. We're into the first knockout round and this is the stage we went out of the competition last season to Arsenal's U21s. We've gone at least one round further this year though after winning here on pens.

I fully expected us to progress in the FA Cup as well as we'd been drawn against Maidenhead from the National League South!

It wasn't an overwhelming scoreline, but we got the job done with relative ease.

Back in the league, it was a rare defeat away at Birmingham! No real shame in it as they are still a massive club in comparison to us!

Despite that defeat, we still lead the way at the top of the table by 6 points and incredibly have 2 games in hand over both of our nearest rivals as well!

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