On supporting Romford FC.
If you gather a group of men[1]
together their conversation will at some point usually turn to sport in general
and football in particular. At this juncture it is quite likely that the
question of which teams everyone supports comes up, whereupon all the usual
suspects are trotted out; Manchester United, Chelsea, West Ham, Arsenal and the
like with the occasional Leeds, Crystal Palace or Leyton Orient thrown in.
Everyone understands these teams and why people support them, even if they may
patronise the Orient supporter a bit, but when I mention who I support the
reactions can be varied, because I support Romford FC.
When I explain that Romford ply their trade in the Ryman
League Division One North, which is a Step Four league within the non-League
pyramid, or more simply, seven promotions away from the Premier League, this
often prompts a question along the lines of “No, which proper team do you support?”
It is inconceivable to some that anyone should support a team outside the
Premier League, although it is gratifying that on some occasions there will be
a flicker of recognition among those more knowledgeable of the non-League game.
So why do I support Romford? Well, back in the late sixties,
when I first became interested in football I toyed with the idea of following
Manchester United, for no other reason than that they were top of the First
Division but even at that tender age I wanted to support a team I could go and
watch and as Manchester was over two hundred miles from my home I recognised
that my chances of seeing them play were limited. So in February 1968 I went to
watch The Boro (as Romford are known) for the first time.
The programme cover for the first Romford match I attended. The artist's impression of the ground in the picture is fairly accurate, if a little idealised. |
In 1968 Romford were
reigning champions of the Southern League, which was then the competition
immediately below the Football League. Sadly there was then no automatic
promotion, which instead could only be achieved by being elected by the existing
member clubs. Boro regularly attracted crowds of two or three thousand to their
ground at Brooklands, a magnificent stadium with a 20,000 capacity, a 2,000
seat main stand, huge banked terracing and imposing floodlight pylons. After my
first visit I was hooked. It wasn’t a
conscious decision, in these matters it is like falling in love; your heart
rules your head.
Romford FC - Southern League Champions 1966-67 |
If choosing the team you support is like falling in love
then actually supporting them is like a marriage; “for better for worse, for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till
death us do part,” well it certainly has been like that supporting Romford. The
investment the club had made in the ground and the players in their attempts to
gain Football League status had left them with huge debts and by 1978 the club
had disbanded.
If supporting a football club is like a marriage, then this
one had run its course.
Fourteen years elapsed, years in which having initially
flitted from match to match without any emotional attachment I eventually took
to supporting Leyton Orient, before news reached me in the summer of 1992 that
plans were afoot to reform Romford FC.
The new club were accepted as members of the Essex Senior
League and on 22nd August 1992 played their first competitive match
against East Ham United. It was strange watching the new club for the first
time, seeing faces I’d not seen for fourteen years, seeing a team in the famous
Gold and Blue again, but just like in 1978 the club had no ground to call their
own. An initial groundshare with Hornchurch has been followed over the next
twenty years with any number of formal and ad
hoc groundshare arrangements. When Romford reformed I still considered
myself an Orient supporter as I’d been a season ticket holder for twelve
years, but I watched the Boro when I could until eventually the old ties and
bonds drew me back into being a full time Romford fan.
There have been ups and downs aplenty in Romford’s history,
many more in the last twenty years than can be included here (a full history of
the club can be found on the club’s website here ), but briefly the club won the Essex Senior League in 1996 and merged with
Collier Row to become (for one season only) Collier Row & Romford. The next
season the club won the Isthmian League Second Division, but problems with the
Sungate ground at Collier Row eventually led to the ground being closed, the club
being suspended by the League and dropping back to the Essex Senior League. Yet
Boro bounced back and won the Essex Senior League again in 2009 to return to
the Isthmian League (now known as the Ryman League). Additional cause for
celebration was the decision by Havering Council to grant the club planning
permission for a new ground at Westlands in London Road, Romford. Having
planning permission is not the same as being able to build a ground however and
Boro still lack the financial wherewithal to even start construction. In these straitened
economic times attracting investors is no easy matter and Romford continue to
groundshare, having moved from Aveley to Thurrock this season.
Anyone who has a
few hundred thousand tucked away that they don’t know what to do with is
invited to contact the club or me as we would be happy to put it to good use!
Romford management celebrate the Essex Senior League championship in 2009. Left to right: Mark Lord (Assistant Manager), Paul Martin (Manager) and Colin Ewenson (Secretary). |
You may wonder what the attraction of supporting a club like
Romford is. Without detracting from the fanaticism that people feel for clubs
in the Premier League, supporting a team like the Boro seems to me to be more
real, more involving. Romford supporters may be few in number these days but
what we lack in that regard we make up for in our loyalty. We regularly take
30-40 to away games (to put that in perspective imagine Manchester United
taking 25,000 fans to an away match), and twenty loyal Boro fans made the 250
mile round trip to Wroxham on a freezing cold and snowy Tuesday in February and
made up nearly a third of the gate.
A snowy night in Wroxham. Romford (in yellow) take on the home side in February 2013 |
To me supporting Romford is not just about going to watch
the game. It means a lot more to me than that. I see the same loyal friends
week in week out, I get to contribute in some small way to the club by
arranging the match officials and writing for the programme. It’s also pretty
unlikely that supporters of Premier League clubs ever learn the team line up
directly from the manager in the bar before a game!
It might have been so much easier if I had stuck with
Manchester United when I was ten, or with Leyton Orient after 1992, but on the
whole I think that my life would have been much the poorer for not supporting
Romford, after all you never forget your first love, do you?
Up The Boro!
[1] Ok,
so women can be interested in sport too, but it is rarely a primary topic of
conversation among them.
Great blog Mike. 'Up the Boro!'
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