Marked for Benjamin Mitchell
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout3 Jul 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Bromley may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
Everything agreed with Northampton Town, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad3 Jul 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Benjamin Mitchell and Bromley agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Jul 2028
A falling-out at Bromley
Michael Laffey and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Matt Ingram falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
Crystal Palace have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
7 new boys at the Bromley academy
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
The dugout3 Jul 2028
When it matters, Jack Holmes plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Dec 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Corey Whitely
67 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bromley lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match4 Dec 2027
4 matches without a win for Bromley
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Bromley are no longer polite ones.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Matt Ingram was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match4 Dec 2027
Swindon Town left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Alexander Ellis left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad6 Dec 2027
A row about effort at Bromley
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sam Long was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Freddie Taylor named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Freddie Taylor is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Aug 2027
A one-man rearguard from Matt Ingram
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad16 Aug 2027
The step up is real for Nime Sacko
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Matt Ingram was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Jack Senior falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Walsall have kept their man, and Bromley go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match14 Aug 2027
1‑2 to Barrow AFC, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Alexander Ellis after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
A loan enquiry to Tottenham: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.