The Youth Academy Challenge

[oneteaminglasgow]

Civil Service Strollers - Season 2021/22

First Team Squad | Facilities | Transfers | Finances | Training | Attendances

League Campaign

God, we were terrible, but somehow Stirling were worse, so we're staying up. The worst attack and the second worse defence was always liable to see us struggle, but we just managed to sneak enough points to see us over the line. Beating Stirling 1-0 in a game with only one half chance for either side was vital, and that saw us over the line. A 20 game run without a win was particularly bleak, but in the end it was all ok, and a 5-5 draw with Queens Park having been 5-3 down heading into injury time was brilliant, but was one of very few highlights of the season. Once again, threw in a lot of young players and relied on them a lot, and saw some improvements in a few of them which was good, and should be  a good sign going forward, but I'd expect next season to be another absolute slog. Stirling beat Albion Rovers to stay up, while Arbroath will be joining us after relegation from the League One. 

The Cups

Usual nonsense in the cups. I would quite like to not have to play in them, but c'est la vie.

Youth Intake

An alright enough intake, with a couple of very promising players.

Scott Crawford: The best of the lot. A very decent passer with good vision. and could be a hugely important player for us as he's the only one who's really ready to step into the first team. He could do with improving his work rate and decision making in particular, but certainly could be a good player at our level.

Andrew Sleight: Ok, he's garbage at the minute. BUT, he's physically alright and I don't have any other left backs coming through so might be necessary.

Ally Sinclair: A pretty good right back (at our admittedly terrible level) and I'll throw him in plenty so hopefully he'll improve pretty quickly. If he does, he'll be a useful player to have.

Dale McNeil: Another pretty ok centre back, which we seem to be getting most seasons, so presumably we'll be able to get a couple of them to turn out ok. McNeil is another one, with good starting points at most of the key skills so that's good.

Euan Fulton: Can cross, dribble and has alright technique, so that's a good start for a left midfielder. He's determined as well, which is nice.

Other News

Our pitch was crap, so it's been relaid. Nothing else going on. We'll be appalling next season, and the season after but hopefully we'll end up an alright side in a few years time.

[The Minertaur]

14 hours ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

Civil Service Strollers - Season 2021/22

First Team Squad | Facilities | Transfers | Finances | Training | Attendances

League Campaign

 

Finally Cowden didn't come bottom  

[the_bully_wee]

Trying to start this up and every single time it's EK who come up, which I've really not got any time for. The first time it was Gretna 2008, and I thought that was bad... on my tenth reboot from mid-March at present. 

[Poet of the Macabre]

Came up with my own take on this that worked out quite well. Basic rules are you go any team but have to get rid of anyone over the age of 25 and can't sign anyone.

Challenge ends when you win the CL or get sacked.

[oneteaminglasgow]

Civil Service Strollers - Season 2022/23

First Team Squad | Facilities | Transfers | Finances | Training | Attendances

League Campaign

We were terrible all season, and rightly finished bottom of the league - even if we were only behind Stirling on goal difference. Scoring under 30 league goals in the season will do that though. We were just clearly not good enough. If I had to pick 1 game that cost us, we drew 1 each with Cowdenbeath when we played 10 men for 70 odd minutes but just shat the bed. That said, there were plenty of games where we just weren't good enough. Hoping we can improve somewhat next season, as season upon season of being garbage is getting tiresome.  We faced a playoff against Cove Rangers...

This was the first time this season, and one of the very few times so far, when we've just completely outplayed anyone. A great performance, and a great result which gives us a very good platform to build on and should hopefully see us safe. If I was being critical, I would say we should have won by more, but Cove were never close to beating us here. Onto the second leg...

Well, thank Christ for that. We just - only just - did enough, but it was far more nervy than it should have been. We took an early lead and then, I think, got complacent and Cove took a 3-1 lead. Thankfully, they gifted us a second not long before half time, and from then on we saw the game out relatively comfortably, and stayed up!

Overall, job done but I don't want to have to have another playoff next season. It remains a distinct possibility, as not enough of my players are improving to the necessary standard in any rush, so I'll be one of the worst teams in the league, again, for the foreseeable.

The Cups

Fairly standard stuff in the league and challenge cups. The Scottish Cup, however, gave us this:

We got a good draw, beating Deveronvale who we're better than and Queens Park, who were absolutely terrible at that point before a glamour tie with Killie, where we weren't embarrassed. Best Cup run I've had by a long, long distance.

Youth Intake

Big fan of Scott Currie, and of being randomly given a boy from Kosovo (guess which one). There's not a lot of talent, but:

Scott Currie: The best individual to come into my youth set up, bar none. He's quick, can finish and has no really glaring weaknesses. Obviously, he has a long way to go to be the finished article, but with some work he may well be my striker for a while to come.

Kevin Allison: Another potentially decent centre half. Has some obvious deficiencies, but could be a good option. Only problem is I'm still developing a few guys in his position, and I think they'll all be better than him so not sure how I'll work this one.

Ryan Kelly: Might, with a lot of work on his technical abilities, end up a reasonable option in attacking midfield, but we shall see what happens.

Other News

Upgrades to both trainig and youth facilities. Pleasing, should help a lot in getting players capable of anything other than 9th or 10th. 

All of that needs paying somehow, so we've taken on board the Navy Blue Pound. I'll not be taking any players on loan from them, so it'll be 13k plus a home friendly for absolutely nothing at all, which seems par for the course for Falkirk's boardroom decision making these days.

[deej]

Started this yesterday (FM17).

Got Hawick RA, who beat Edinburgh City on penalties. 

This should be fun - I've got one striker, one CM, a couple of LMs, 4 CBs, and a couple of full backs. At least I've got 2 keepers. 

Drawn with Hibs, County, Queens Park and East Fife in Betfred Cup. 

Hibs at home - 5-0 down after 35 minutes and somehow keep it to 5-0.

County away - only 4-0. Things are looking up.

Beaten 2-1 by a late Queens Park winner at home, and 2-1 away to East Fife. Didn't want a cup run anyway. 

 

I have £0 transfer budget which obviously doesn't matter, but shows that this will be a struggle. 

Dundee u20s away in the challenge cup, will hopefully put up a bit of a fight.

 

Edit: East Fife not Edinburgh City

Edited June 26, 2019 by deej

[deej]

Did in fact put up a fight- 2-0 down to Dundee Colts at HT and took them to extra time, where my complete lack of players cost me - a 3-2aet defeat. 

On to the league. First match, home to Annan Athetic and struggling, 2-0 down (again) but out of nowhere the boys somehow pull off the biggest comeback since Jesus at Easter, and win the game 3-2. Absolute scenes. 

Proceed to be brought back down to earth by Clyde, in the way of a 6-0 horsing. They had 30 (THIRTY) shots. 

Would bite anyones hand off for a 9th place finish this season. It's going to be tough.

[deej]

Wage budget is £2872, and only spending £749 so hopefully come next season we'll have enough in the bank to improve the youth system. 

On the pitch things are actually looking not too bad. A 1-0 win v Montrose (H) followed by successive 0-0s away at Stirling and Elgin sees me 3rd after 5 games, 6 points ahead of Albion Rovers. Next match is home to Cowdenbeath who have 15/15 points so far. Lets keep that bus parked. 

__

Played through to christmas. It is not going well. Lost 8 in a row in the league (none by more than 2 though) and papped out the cup by Selkirk after a replay. 

6 points and 15 goals behind 9th placed Montrose. 

 

[patricelad]

Hi guys I’m looking for a team to do a save with I can do lowland legaue highland league and lower stuff any suggestions I was thinking more league 2 with albion rovers

[deej]

The streak is over! A sexy 3-0 win away to Albion Rovers, despite going down to 10 men at 1-0, followed by a fighting 2-2 at home to 2nd place Annan. Next up is Clyde away, hoping to avenge the 6-0 tanking earlier in the season...
Maybe not. 2 late goals seal a 4-0 win. Ouch.

Potentially season defining game coming up v 9th place Montrose. Lose and I’m 8 points and a lot of goals behind.

[oneteaminglasgow]

Wick Academy

Facilities | Club Vision

Another year, another try of the youth academy challenge and it's off to Caithness with Wick Academy this time. 

The team has the usual problem with a complete and utter lack of depth in any positions - although some of the players are pretty good. The defence in particular look not too bad, but there will be a struggle in midfield and out wide in particular. We'll see how it goes, but with the board expecting midtable for some reason, I'll need to have a better start than usually happens in these saves.

[oneteaminglasgow]

Wick Academy - Season 2020/21

Transfers | Facilities | Training | First Team Squad | Finances | Attendances | Player Stats 

League Campaign

A solid, if unspectacular, first season. We had an appalling start, then a very good middle, then an appalling end - but in the end Cowdenbeath and Stirling were both very poor so we were fine. Our defence wasn't as bad as it looks, we kept a clean sheet in a third of our games, but also took a couple of absolute doings. We don't score very often though - less than a goal a game and I've been criticised consistently for the style of play being exceptionally boring, which is fair enough really. That said, we weren't too far off the playoffs with a few games left before we absolutely collapsed, and going by previous games we had a very good season by the standards of the challenge. Berwick beat Stirling in the playoffs, and hopefully they'll prove to be absolutely dreadful.  I'm hoping for more of the same next season as I try to bed in some of our new young players.

The Cups

For some reason, we weren't entered into the League Cup while Stenhousemuir who we replaced in the leagues were so I assume we'll be in it next year. In any case, put out both at the first opportunity. We took a whole 1 away fan to Celtic Reserves, so at least we treated that game with the utter contempt it deserved.

Youth Intake

Now for the important bit. No one who's really ready to make an instant impact, but a lot of potentially good players in there. Some of my favourites are:

Sandy Hughes: The best player currently, but he's a goalkeeper and my current keeper is actually one of the strong points of my team. I'll try to give him some game time, and I've got no cover for injuries so it's pretty helpful to have him nonetheless.

Allan McDade: A left back, and my current one is fucking off to Mansfield Town, so he'll get plenty of game time. He can't defend at all, but he has decent decision making. To be honest, I don't have a huge deal of hope that he'll end up any good, but I'll be playing him a lot out of necessity for the next season at least so hopefully he can turn into a half decent player.

Kyle Baxter: Potentially a pretty dependable centre mid, I think I'll try to get him some game time - although with his aggression he has potential to be an absolute nutcase and get sent off left, right and centre. Still, I think a bit of work and he'll be useful.

Callum Preston: If he could header a ball and had any idea about positioning then he'd be the best centre back at the club, and probably in the whole division, by an absolute country mile.  But he can't, so he isn't. But he might turn out good.

Toby MacKenzie: He's fast, and he's an option out wide which is something I've sorely lacked, so he'll be a useful player - but he isn't great really.

 

[oneteaminglasgow]

Wick Academy: Season 2021/22

Transfers | Facilities | Training | First Team Squad | Finances | Attendances | Player Stats  

League Campaign

Gone slightly backwards from last season, but we've been bedding in a large number of young players (with 3 of my youth players getting 99 league appearances between them, and a number of others getting plenty).  We still stayed up, and we quite comfortably really, so job done in that respect. Scored a lot more than last season, which is good, and only conceded 5 more as well, so good signs there even if we didn't pick up as many points. We also didn't get thrashed much, and only lost one game by more than 2 goals - last game of the season when I threw in far too many young players and the result was as you'd expect. Queens Park beat Formartine in the playoff to stay up, and Peterhead and Stranraer will be joining us from League One.

The Cups

A good win against Fraserburgh to start the season off, and then pretty much the kind of results you'd expect for the other games.

 

A good run in the challenge cup, even if we penaltied our way there. Beating Dunfermline was great, and we were really unlucky against Glenavon. With it being the Challenge Cup, we didn't get a huge amount of money out of this run, but it was a nice distraction anyway.

Utter shite. Beating a Highland League mob, before losing to another one. We really should have beaten them, and the Scottish Cup is our big chance to get some cash by playing a Premiership side. I was absolutely seething at this to be honest.

Youth Intake

Some pretty decent prospects in there, and 1 (maybe 2) already good to make some sort of impact.

Callum Lindsay: A striker, looks pretty decent for our level - and plenty of room to improve. He's very slow as well, which isn't ideal but he's scored 3 goals in the 4 games I've played him in so far.

Ryan Ross:  Another solid centre half. Mental attributes are pretty shoddy but hopefully that'll improve in time, and the rest looks ok enough.

Ross Wilson: Could end up a solid target man, and he's a bit different from my other strikers. Only problem will be trying to get him some game time as Lindsay looks set to take that position.

Craig Hillcoat: Another option in central midfield - he's not very good but he'll be useful to have around. Works hard and plays well in a team - just not good at football.

Aaron Reid: He's quick, and can vaguely dribble so if we can add some end product then we'll have a decent winger on our hands. Will need to retrain his position, but hopefully won't be any bother.

[Big Fifer]

Decided my life wasn't quite miserable enough and decided to kick off another attempt at this with FM2020 (despite the ME being a bit shit!)

East Stirlingshire - Season 1

It was a threadbare squad to kick us off, with 4.5 star rated players being good Highland League players, so not the best quality! BSLM was signed as assistant, with Dene Sheilds in charge of youth development. I went with a 5-4-1 for the entire season simply because of who I had available, before changing to 4-4-2 after...

The youth intake, pretty decent but they all look great at the start. Bob Brush, whit a name!

A solid league placing for a first season. Fell away at the end but with the new kids on the block hopefully we can kick on. 

[Big Fifer]

I ended up signing all the players just to bulk the squad out a bit, so we went into the season like this.

Obviously need to rotate a bit, but Grady, Faulds, Brush, Rennie and Ross all look like they'll play a big part. Brush already attracting offers from clubs so he's been offered another contract. Some of the kids are in the reserves, and the first casualty of the career is Willie Dyer who unfortunately was just absolutely terrible.

[Big Fifer]

Stuck with the 4-4-2 for the season, and we really struggled, going into the last game of the season we looked like this

Keeper is getting loads of clean sheets but it doesn't seem to be doing enough. The youth intake a couple of games before this was:

Pretty good but again, just because my squad is terrible. Signed them all apart from McGonigal.

[Big Fifer]

Phew, we survived, just. Couple of hairy moments in the last 10 minutes, but after two years we find ourselves in 8th position:

[Big Fifer]

 

Going into season 3 we have a pretty big squad, and it's difficult to predict who's going to play a big part. I'm sticking 4-4-2 for the time being, because the strikers are my strongest area in terms of depth. Jack Ross has improved so much over the year, he's onto a 3 year deal and will definitely be out best player by next year. We've said goodbye to Halkett and Millar who were with us at the start, as both were pretty brutal but just a shave better than some of the kids so sometimes I'd accidentally play them by rushing through and clicking for the Assistant to pick the team. I've got big hopes for the kids this year, hopefully a few of them can push on. Along with Halkett and Millar I fired about 6 youth signings from the previous year into the sun, they were never gonna make it.

[Big Fifer]

Lost my opening 15 games, board sold Brush and Ross before the window closed. Sacked. What a time to be alive. 

[oneteaminglasgow]

Wick Academy: Season 2022/23

Transfers | Facilities | Training | First Team Squad | Finances | Attendances | Player Stats

League Campaign

Well, after a couple of months of pissing about on other saves I got bored and decided to head back for a terrible time of it here to see me through the lockdown. 

Staying up with 27 points is some laugh, what a completely horseshit division. None of us, Annan or Elgin would have finished above bottom in any other season so far, and Albion would have been bottom in all but one - so we got lucky that our worst season came when there were a load of equally horrific teams. Callum Lindsay was by an absolute mile our most important player - 6 goals and 5 assists for a team that score well under a goal a game is a good effort. We were also a bunch of horrible, hacking b*****ds - more than double the amount of yellow cards of any other team and by far the most fouls and red cards too. Delightful. Elgin were relegated by Stirling, and Montrose will be coming down from League One.

The Cups

The usual. Given the nick of the teams in our group, pretty poor showing to be honest but whatever.

Shite.

Pleasing to get through to the fourth round, was hoping for a bigger tie than that and a bit more money for the absolute humiliation. Oh well.

Youth Intake

The best player I've had come through so far in Ian Adeyemi, and a couple of other reasonable looking prospects.

Ian Adeyemi: The best player I've had come through so far, and looks like he'll have a bit of creativity about him which is ideal given the trouble we have with scoring goals. 

Jason Golabek: Looks a reasonable centre back, and should be able to get straight into the team - which is probably a bit of an indictment on my other players rather than anything else.

Kyle Peterson: Should be good as a backup option to the main man Lindsay, got a wee bit of pace, can take a first touch and finish so we'll see how he gets on.

Other News

Apparently 8th, then 9th and at that point on course for 10th in the fourth tier of Scottish football is what the Dunfermline board are looking for. My "complete lack of experience in leading teams to promotion" would seem to be an understatement.