The lustre of the FA Cup, its history and traditions, have been a constant thread running through Andy Woodman’s life. From his childhood growing up in West Norwood, South London, through a career as a goalkeeper at a dozen clubs. From 15 years as a coach in the Premier League, including a Wembley final with his boyhood club Crystal Palace, to the annual pilgrimage to the national stadium with his son, Freddie, the highly rated Newcastle United goalkeeper. And now, as manager of Bromley, the National League club, travelling to Rotherham United on Saturday with an upset against the Sky Bet League One club in his sights.
“The FA Cup’s always been massive to me,” Woodman says. “As a kid, I had a friend, Lloyd Berks, and every cup final day we’d all go round his house. He had a snooker table, so we’d have a competition, have the horse racing on the telly — he’d recorded races throughout the year do some stake betting. His mum and dad would put on food. And then it would all stop for the Cup final.
“Then, since Freddie was about ten, we’ve been to just about every final. That was like our day out, me and Fred. We must have been to about a dozen. I always wanted him to know the importance of the FA Cup. He still ridicules me because I cry every time Abide With Me comes on. I don’t know what it is about that song, it gets me emotional. Even now, when it comes on, wherever he is he’ll text me saying, ‘Don’t tell me you’re crying at that song…’
“And from watching the Arsenal 3-2 final against Man United (1979) — that was one of my earliest memories — to being lucky enough to be a coach in a final with Crystal Palace against Man United (in 2016), it’s always been important to me, the FA Cup. And I’m clinging on to the romance, that there’s always one team that creates a shock, and I’m hoping that this year it’s going to be Bromley Football Club.”
After a decade and a half working in the Premier League for West Ham United, Charlton Athletic, Newcastle United and, most recently, as head of goalkeeping at Arsenal, Woodman, 50, decided to take the leap into management, and the fifth tier, with Bromley in March.
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“The job at Arsenal was brilliant, I loved it, and I’m really proud of what I left there,” Woodman says. “I just missed that Saturday afternoon, where it really means something. The do or die. I got approached by the chairman [Robin Stanton-Gleaves] here, I know the club — I played testimonial matches here as a kid with Crystal Palace, and I’ve seen how it’s evolved — and I just felt if I don’t take this chance, I might miss the boat.”
Woodman, who had a brief spell in charge of the National League South club Whitehawk in 2017, has lost just four of 27 games with Bromley, including a playoff against eventual promotion winners Hartlepool United in June. His team lie 4th this season — three points adrift of leaders Borehamwood with a game in hand — and he has reportedly drawn admiring glances from Charlton and Hartlepool.
Woodman certainly has a broad spectrum of experience to draw from. Alan Pardew, Sam Allardyce, Steve McClaren, Arsene Wenger, Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta are some of the managers he has worked alongside. And then there is his closest friend, the England manager Gareth Southgate, with whom he co-authored the brilliant Woody and Nord: A Football Friendship, in 2003.
“Some of the tactical things he did in that tournament were fantastic — and brave,” Woodman says of Southgate, with whom their Palace youth team days and diverging fortunes in football are movingly chronicled. “He came up against an Italy team that was up there with any there’s been.
“We always laugh: Gareth always says everyone in the country thinks they should be England manager, everyone has an opinion. He says, ‘My postman’s telling me what team I should pick, you’re telling me! I do it in my own little way, but he must listen and think you’re just like the rest of them!
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“But he united the country, got people backing their national team with a bit of pride, and I think that’s a brilliant thing. I was immensely proud of my friend who did that.
“So I speak to Gareth. But I must say, Alan Pardew has been a real supporter of mine throughout my career. As a young player, when I was his boot boy at Palace, when he offered me a coaches job in West Ham’s academy many years later, then at Charlton, Newcastle and Palace — and now, in my managerial career as well.
“He’s been down to watch five or six of my games, he’s made notes, we’ve had a debrief on a Sunday. Just to help me, not to make himself look good. He’s done it quietly. Everyone’s got a perceptions of Alan, some of them earned! But he’s been a big supporter. I’m seeing tonight actually. He’s famous for that jig (in the FA Cup final). Maybe that’ll be his advice: don’t do a jig!”
Woodman is fine company when we meet at Hayes Lane this week: likeable, funny, generous with his time. On his left wrist he’s sporting an expensive looking gold watch — although it is not, I’m informed, the timepiece he received from Southgate more than two decades ago, thereby fulfilling a pact they made that if one made it big in football they would buy the other a watch.
That has since been gifted to his daughter, Isobelle. The Rolex on his wrist was a gift to himself after a money-spinning event at the Epsom Derby put on by the hospitality company Woodman founded with his wife, Anna, which also caters for, among others, the Monaco Grand Prix.
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Hayes Lane remains a glorious patchwork of corrugated iron and cracked concrete — and is still home to a red tabby called, believe it or not, Gareth. However the club is bristling with ambition: an artificial pitch was laid in 2017, while another 4G surface behind a shiny new 1,500-seat south stand that also houses 20,000 square feet of commercial units is home to a burgeoning academy.
Woodman admits that his playing career, most notably for Northampton Town, Brentford and Oxford United, left him with more than a few regrets. Football “has taken more from me than it has ever given me,” he writes in Woody and Nord .
“I think that’s the good thing about writing a book,” he says. “You can tell everyone in a room that you did okay as a player, but when you’re tapping away at the keyboard by yourself late at night, you know you’re only lying to yourself.
“I could have done so much more with my career. I was too quick in the afternoons to go play snooker or golf. Did I reach my potential? Nowhere near. But there’s only one person to blame for that, and that’s me. I’ve made sure that my son learns from my mistakes.”
In the book Woodman describes his father, Colin, as the “driving force” behind his career, but someone who rarely praised and always found fault in every performance. “My dad was a boxer, he was always looking for perfection,” he says. “No matter what I did there would be something I didn’t do right. I’ve learnt from that. It was quite damning. My wife always felt it was like a weight on my back.
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“Freddie’s always been very self critical. So I try to be the opposite. Be honest with him, but maintain a positivity as well. We’re polar opposites. He’s like his mother. Everything has to be spot on, measured, calculated, whereas my career’s always been a bit off the cuff, roll of the dice.
“We still speak every day at 3 o’clock. I ring and ask about his day, how training was, what he did. Once we get past that I think he just likes to talk to me about real things away from football. It’s nice to have that relationship. If I don’t ring him, I find he’ll ring me asking me about my day.”
And for Woodman, a new chapter is underway. “I feel like I’m doing an early apprenticeship in the next stage of my career,” he says. “The biggest thing I love about this level, and the teams I had success with at this level, is the camaraderie, the team spirit. I’m not saying at the highest level they don’t have that, but it’s a little bit different. I still think that human element is important.”
