Having completed their National League season with a 4-2 win at Barnet yesterday, Bromley now focus on their FA Trophy Final with Wrexham at Wembley Stadium next Sunday.
Goals from Mason Bloomfield, Louis Dennis, Ali Al Hamadi and Michael Cheek at The Hive secured a tenth placed finish in the National League for The Ravens.
Manager Andy Woodman’s side had struggled with their league form since the end of January, not helped by injuries to Harry Forster and Omar Sowunmi, but the FA Trophy has proved to be a different story. The Ravens have beaten Dover Athletic, Aldershot Town, Tonbridge Angels, Solihull Moors and York City to reach this stage and set up a second visit to Wembley in the last four years.
The Barnet game offered some hints about possible team selection for the final, Louis Dennis and Omar Sowunmi made appearances after injury along with Harry Forster and top scorer Michael Cheek returned to goal scoring form.
With Wrexham winning ‘home’ advantage and opting to wear all white for the game, Bromley have a new black & charcoal kit for the final, made by Kappa and featuring a new shirt sponsor. The players and staff visited the stadium this week, taking the walk up Wembley Way from the tube station, getting a feel for the surroundings and taking part in a photo shoot.
The Ravens previous appearance in the 2018 final saw them lose on penalties to National League North side Brackley Town, having lead 1-0 with only 21 seconds of injury time left.
The only player at the club who was part of the team four years ago is Louis Dennis who has played for Portsmouth and Orient in the mean time before returning to Hayes Lane last summer.
This time though Bromley go into the game as underdogs against a Wrexham side who finished second in the National League and will have one eye on their promotion play off semi the following weekend. The two league meetings saw Wrexham win 2-0 in November at The Racecourse Ground, while the game at Hayes Lane in March ended 0-0.
Bromley have sold just over 10,000 tickets so far and are running several coaches from Hayes Lane, while The Red Dragons have sold the majority of their 29,000 allocation for the match and with the FA Vase Final between Littlehampton and Newport Pagnell Town taking place beforehand Wembley will be very busy on the day.
It will be a week of nervous excitement ahead for everyone connected with Bromley FC as they look forward to the big day at Wembley next Sunday and hope that this time they come back with happier memories than in 2018.
Away from the Trophy build up the club’s end of season awards on Sunday night saw Billy Bingham pick up the supporters and players ‘player of the season’ awards, while Byron Webster picked up the Manager & Chairman’s PoY awards and James Alabi the Community award.