Bromley play the first of two away games over the Christmas period as they travel to Bristol Rovers on Boxing Day for a League Two encounter at The Memorial Stadium.

The Ravens go into the game sitting in third place with 39 points from 21 games. Last Saturday Andy Woodman’s team won 2-0 at home to Grimsby Town thanks to a double from Will Hondermarck, Bromley’s third consecutive win, which moved them into the automatic promotion spots.

Rovers go into the match sitting in twenty second place with 18 points from 21 league matches. Steve Evans took over as manager last week and oversaw a 1-1 draw away at Crewe Alexandra in his debut game as The Pirates boss, Callum Morton with the equaliser for Rovers, ending a run of three straight defeats.  

The sides met in the FA Cup first round back in November, with Bristol Rovers winning 2-1 at Hayes Lane, Fabrizio Cavegn and Joel Cotterill putting The Pirates two up, with Jemiah Umolu puling one back late on for Bromley, who had an injury time equaliser from Omar Sowunmi disallowed in controversial circumstances.

On their only previous visit to the Memorial Stadium, Bromley then of the National League drew 1-1 with League One Bristol Rovers in the FA Cup back in 2019, Chris Bush equalising for The Ravens after Luke Leahy had put The Pirates in front.      

With Rovers looking for a new manager bounce to take them away from the bottom two and Bromley looking to build on their promotion challenge, this looks set to be another close, hard fought encounter in front of a large bank holiday crowd.

The game kicks off at 3pm and is also being shown live on Sky Sports Plus.