Bromley manager, Andy Woodman has urged his squad to “swallow” the pain of their controversial 2-2 draw against Gillingham.
A controversial injury-time dive from Garath McCleary won League Two leaders – Gillingham an injury-time penalty, from which Max Clark scored to salvage a point for the Gills after Josh Andrews had halved their deficit.
First-half goals from Nice Kabamba and Michael Cheek had put hosts, Bromley in control at CopperJax Community Stadium.
Woodman in a pre-match interview ahead of Bromley’s trip to Oldham on Saturday (13 September) reflected on the controversial penalty decision, as he described it as “a hard pill to swallow,” for his players despite an apology letter having been sent to the club over the penalty incident.
“I think everyone’s seen what cost us the win. So disappointing that we get a decision like that so badly against us at such a vital point of the game, almost the end of the game and is a hard pill to swallow, but we have to swallow it and we have to move on.
“We’ve got the usual apology email which doesn’t make us feel any better. But look that’s gone now. We have to move forward quickly.”
This past midweek marked the first time that Bromley Men’s first-team since the gap between their opening two games of the season, which Woodman welcomed as a chance to focus on various areas of development in training and had Sunday off to reflect and recharge.
“Yeah I mean it’s been nice. We can get some work in on the pitch and that’s been nice because you know when you’re going game Tuesday game Saturday, it’s really hard to get good quality work into the group of players. It’s been nice.
“I think the boys will agree they’ve had a Sunday off for the first time for a little while because I get them in on a Sunday when we play Tuesday and now we can hopefully have a little period where we get a little bit of consistency of our training days leading to the matches.”
Woodman however iterated that Oldham will be “a really tough place to go” despite the Latics having won just one game so far this season, which coincidentally came last time out away at Cambridge United.
The 54 year-old also acknowledged the fact that Oldham are a “big club”, having previously been part of the Premier League’s first two seasons, but has vowed to ensure that his players focus on producing their best performance.
“Yeah I mean Oldham is a big club let’s put it out there. They’re a big club in their own right with a good fan base, good stadium and a very good manager.
“So it’s going to be a tough game. I don’t think anyone will go to them and have an easy game but you know we got to go there.
“We got to worry about what we do, concentrate on what we do and do what we do well and hopefully we will come away with the points.”
Bromley’s B-Team beat Sunderland 2-1 in their Premier League Cup opener through goals from Alex Stepien-Iwumene and Sam German, in front of Woodman who was impressed with the quality within the youth setup.
“Yeah fantastic, fantastic performances, fantastic win more importantly and it goes to show the depth of our younger players that what we’ve got coming through at this football club and credit to everyone in the academy and credit to those young players.
“You know they work hard to make sure that they’re at a level and I thought that there was more than a level the other night.
“I actually would of been hard pressed to know which one was the premiership group of players and which one wasn’t and credit to them and I am looking forward to the next game that they play in their competition.”