The Diehard Fan: Roy Oliver
Roy Oliver has been supporting Bromley for 64 years. The 77-year-old is the club’s historian and an original ‘Bromley Boy’, starring in the popular book and feature film ‘The Bromley Boys’.
My first full season was in 1960. I saw all the home games but I didn’t go to any away – I was only 13.
My dad had first taken me down there in the 50s. We’d turn up at half-time because it would be free to get in then – money wasn’t always a lot. My nan used to run the tea bar.
I started going to two or three away games, the local ones like Dulwich and Tooting and then in 1962-63 I was going to most of the games. After that, I went to every game and it’s still continuing today.
I was on the supporters committee for 36 years and I’m still involved with everything down there now. We were volunteers so in the summer, you did the pitch, the weeding, the painting, anything that needed doing,
One of the biggest things about watching a team like Bromley, especially to me, is the friendships you make. Everyone knows everybody else. Everyone talks to each other.
My sons call me the complete madman historian. But I’ve always been interested in the history. I always loved history at school so finding out about football clubs…like our first shirts were on the 7th of October 1892. They were light blue on one side, and olive green on the other.
Bromley were one of the biggest amateur clubs in the country after the war and through the 50s. There were amateur internationals in that side. All the top players wanted to come to Bromley and then some went on to bigger clubs like Stan Charlton who went to Arsenal.
But the middle 60s up to the middle 70s were dreadful years. The ground was in terrible condition. Fences were falling down. Sponsorship wasn’t much. And then John Biddle came from Cray and the upturn started. We fleeted around going up to the Isthmian Premier and then coming back down again. And this continued right up to about 2004. 22 years later, we’re now in the EFL. Staggering.
There was the fire that happened in 1992 too when the whole stand burnt down, the club room and everything. It was pretty devastating. We had to play all our home games away.
But it’s a funny game, you know. Supporters are very fickle. They support the team when they’re winning, and they disappear when they’re losing.