Conquering Britain & Ireland

[oneteaminglasgow]

Needing a break (perhaps permanently) from the never ending  slog of the Youth academy challenge, and inspired by a post by @craigiemack I've decided to have a go at starting unemployed, with no coaching badges and sunday league experience and going on to win the League and Cup in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. However, I've decided that I won't be allowing myself to manage any clubs who have won the title previously. That means that the following  (according to Wikipedia) are out of bounds:

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England - Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton, Aston Villa, Sunderland, Manchester City, Newcastle United, Sheffield Wednesday, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Leeds United, Huddersfield Town, Blackburn Rovers, Preston North End, Tottenham Hotspur, Derby County, Burnley, Portsmouth, Sheffield United, West Bromwich Albion, Ipswich Town, Nottingham Forest and Leicester City.

Scotland - Celtic, Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs, Motherwell, Kilmarnock, Dundee, Dundee United and Dumbarton

R.O.I. - Shamrock Rovers, Dundalk, Shelbourne, Bohemians, St Pats Athletic, Waterford, Cork City, Drumcondra, Sligo Rovers, Derry City, St James Gate, Athlone Town, Limerick FC and Drogheda United

Northern Ireland - Linfield, Glentoran, Crusaders, Distillery, Cliftonville, Portadown, Glenavon, Coleraine and Ards

Wales - TNS, Barry Town, Bangor City, Rhyl, Llanelli and Cwmbran Town

For obvious reasons, I've not included clubs who have won the title in their country, but who no longer exist.

Should any new club win the league during my save who haven't previously won it, then they too will be out of bounds. I suppose the idea is that it should be every clubs first title. I'm also wanting to ensure that I win the major cup competitions in each country, although not necessarily with the same club.

Anyway, I've loaded up all available leagues from the 5 nations, and included all players based in the UK & Ireland in the database.  As above, starting unemployed, so the job market currently looks like this:

Will punt in a few applications and see what happens. Will be back with an update once I have a job.

[craigiemack]

You'll really enjoy it. I managed Conwy in the Cymru North League before moving onto Newtown and hen onto Connahs Quay. I established them as Wales 2nd team then took the TNS job and won the treble, stayed another year and reached the Europa Conference Last 16 before resigning at the end of the season. Wales is a really good league to manage in, they do a split like Scotland and have a European play off for teams coming 4th-7th so you've got a good chance of reaching Europe.  TNS though are so overpowered, eventually I just got bored of getting hammered by them and took their job when it came up. I felt like a bit of cheat doing it but I'm sure you'll understand when you draw them for the 10th time in a cup semi final haha.

Moved onto the Hearts job and won the Betfred Cup and then the league the following season, beating Celtic on the last day to secure the title. It was one of my greatest FM moments. I didn't win the Scottish but I did make the final and deemed that enough to move.

Then took up the Everton job during the middle of the next season, had a good run but missed out on Europe then overhauled the squad, the new players didn't mix and I got sacked in the November and I sort of left it there but I may return if I'm inspired by this. I think I'm still the manager of Nigeria and I won the AFCON if I remember right. The full save is one of the best things I've done on FM, it was great fun.

One tip i'll give you, take the Larne job whenever its offered, I think they have a bit of money on the game so they might be an easy way to win the Northern Irish leg of the challenge 

[oneteaminglasgow]

First stop - east Belfast and Knockbreda FC. They're playing in the Bluefin Sports Championship, the second tier of Northern Irish football and their trophy history seems to consist of winning the 3rd tier in 2013 and the Intermediate Cup, which seems to be for teams below the 2nd tier, in 2009. 

So, high expectations then. Stay up, win one game in the main cup and try not to embarrass myself in the others. 

Meet the Team

3 stars is good player for the division below, 3 and a half is "operating at Bluefin Sport Championship Level"

I only play with one up front, so hopefully Pomeroy will do ok

Really poor at right midfield, and a lack of depth all round. Needs improvement.

We look ok at centre back and right back - left back is a concern and I could probably strengthen at centre back anyway.

Pretty poor, especially if Hazard gets injured at all.

My highest wage is £75 per week, so this should get me a few players. I'll need them.

[oneteaminglasgow]

Transfer Window

I needed a left back, and I got one. He's fast and defensively not terrible, so that's something. A step up from what I had, amazingly enough.

Didn't particularly need a left winger, but he looked pretty decent so I thought f**k it. Works hard, nothing overly bad about his game.

He can finish, take a touch and he's quick so I signed him - and he's cheap. Will vie with Pomeroy for my one striker spot.

I didn't manage to get the right midfielder I needed, as all the available ones were crap. All signed on a non-contract basis, so not costing me much.

[jagfox]

[oneteaminglasgow]

August 2019

A very decent start to the campaign, 3 draws, a win and through in the League Cup. We've come from behind in every game (bar the Dergview match, obviously). Still, Cafolla has been excellent, and we're looking solid. The teams we've played are mostly hanging around near the bottom of the league, so I don't really know if we're any good or if we've just been playing against pish

Good start, we'll see how it goes. We're playing top flight Coleraine in the next round of the League Cup, and Cliftonville in the County Antrim Shield, so fully expect to go out of those.

[oneteaminglasgow]

September 2019

Started with a poor display against Ards, where we just didn't get going, and then got pumped by Cliftonville - although they're top flight so not that fussed. Two wins and loss to see out the month - beating top of the table Portadown was excellent with two goals from new boy Jody Lynch. I think we'll probably be good enough for mid table and nowhere near relegation, but also nowhere near going up.

Sitting comfortably midtable so far, also have the 3rd best defence in the league so far, even if our attack is comparatively poor. 

[RandomGuy.]

Good luck with this

Browne looks like he could develop pretty lovely. 

[craigiemack]

How long do you think you’ll stay at Knockbreda for? Would you try and build them up to win the Northern Irish league or would you jump ship when a bigger teams job becomes available?

[oneteaminglasgow]

@RandomGuy. - He looks like the classic FM lower league striker, who can't play football at all but is quick and scores.

@craigiemack - depends how it goes! I'll go the second I think I have a better option, but presently as good a place as any.

October 2019

A mixed month. Started out by conceding in the 92nd minute to throw away a win against Newry City, before we were beaten by top flight opposition in another cup. We're absolutely nowhere near those sides presently. The Ballinarmallard game was a horror show, don't think we did a single thing going forward. We then reversed it against Queens, dominating from start to finish. The one thing I did notice is that an actual university team brought more away fans than we had home fans, so that was swell. The final game of the month saw us playing with 10 men for 71 minutes, and losing to an 85th minute goal from not clearing a corner properly. Frustrating.

We're still mired in midtable, and the sides above us are starting to pull away. If we can hang around where we are, I'll consider it a successful first season.

[oneteaminglasgow]

November 2019

Dreadful start to the month, before a decent end. Loughall and Ballyclare are both absolutely shite, so losing to them was really shite - being outplayed by both was even worse. Dergview spent most of the game parked just outside our box after we scored, and we defended well but threw it away conceding a penalty not log before the end. We got back on track against (bottom of the league) PSNI, although we were playing 10 men for 80 minutes so not winning that would be a disgrace Ards was the best result of the month, although we completely rode our luck with them missing a number of chances.

As before, the top sides are pulling away, but we're already 11 points off bottom so it's all going well so far, despite a couple of terrible results.

[oneteaminglasgow]

December 2019

Started the month with a win over Banbridge in the cup, which is fine, but considering that they're currently stinking out the division below us, I really expected us to win more comfortably. We then faced the top few teams in the league, and, were comfortably outplayed in all 3 but we managed to score 4 times from about 30 yards out somehow. I took 3 more points than I expected, so a reasonable enough month.

About the same story as last month.

[oneteaminglasgow]

January 2020

Played very well against Dundela both times, and progressed through to the next round of the cup in the progress. We then absolutely fucked it against a, frankly shite, Queens University side doing nothing and ending with ten men when Anto Burns elbowed someone for no reason. We were sitting 6th prior to that, and slid down to 7th, which is frustrating because...

The league has now split, and we're in the bottom half. Another 10 games to go, and we're 10 points clear of the relegation spots, so it would take a catastrophic f**k up to go down from here. We're also playing top flight Institute in the next round of the cup, so when we lose that our season will be basically over.

[oneteaminglasgow]

February

I forgot to get a screenshot, but on the final day of the window, Glenavon recalled Jack Hazard to sell him to Glentoran, which means that we have this joker as our only keeper...

I've been getting in just about every free agent goalkeeper going for a trial, but in a shock to noone, they're all just a pish as he is.

We lost some other players, but none that were first choice/even remotely good so I wasn't that bothered about it. 

Poor start to the month, with some nonsense performances against H&W Welders and Queens, before going out the cup, and effectively ending our season. We picked up a bit to beat Loughall and Ballyclare comfortably, before we needed a very late goal for another fucking draw with Welders. 3 out of 4 games with them have been draws, and we lost the other one. 

As before, we're pretty comfortably staying up, and we have PSNI to play twice so I'm hopeful that we can make sure we finish 7th. Will probably have a look at other jobs in the summer, because my team isn't going anywhere any time soon.

[oneteaminglasgow]

March & April 2020

We started the month by picking up former Northern Ireland international striker Rory Patterson, who, at his peak, scored 4 goals as Plymouth got relegated from the League One. Still, he's a step up from what we have and should be more than good enough for this division. I was planning on just getting him in at the end of the season, but he was available immediately, so f**k it.

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Just dull as f**k to be honest. We secured safety with the draw against PSNI and the other games were just going through the motions. Pleased to see Patterson get his first goal against Loughall, and should have got one against Ballyclare before we lost to PSNI in a frankly shambolic display to close out the season. I've signed on here for another year, but, should anything more promising come along, I'll be off.

Finish in 7th place, as predicted. Start of the season media prediction was 9th, so very slightly better than that. If I'm still around next season, I'll be looking for the top half at least.

On the other front, the only new champions anywhere were Bala Town in the Welsh Premier League, so they are now ruled out.

[oneteaminglasgow]

Aw for fucks sake

[oneteaminglasgow]

Spent the summer sending in applications to any better options, but to no avail. Think I'll probably need to actually achieve something with Knockbreda before moving on. Also saw the San Marino job come up, which apparently I wasn't the right person for... pretty demoralising stuff. 

[oneteaminglasgow]

Transfer Window

Firstly, the outgoings. Malcolmson wasn't very good, but was our only goalkeeper other than a dreadful youth team player, so that necessitated a new keeper coming in. Mulholland only made 2 appearances last season, so wasn't overly fussed about him either. However. Smith and Cafolla were among my best players, contributing 8 goals and 11 assists between them last season, so very annoying to lose those two - although they're both clearly taking steps up by leaving. 

We also had the following players released/retire. Simpson, Spence and McKinley were garbage, none of whom have managed to find a club yet. Patterson was signed to be my main striker, so him retiring after just 5 games was really, really annoying. I mean, he hadn't done that well in those 5 games, but still. And now the transfers in...

So, 8 players gone from last season, and 5 in. I took just about every unattached player in Northern Ireland on trial, and these were the only 5 that looked any good. There's also noone willing to come on loan that isn't a complete no-hoper.

First up, Daniele Di Giorgio. Canadian goalkeeper - slightly better than Malcolmson, not as good as Hazard was. Still, the best I could get.

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Marcio Soares is my replacement for Smith, and again, he's probably a step down. But again, he was the best I could get. He's really a striker as well, but I'll be using him as an attacking midfielder.

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Connall Young can play either right back or right midfield, I'll be using him at right midfield. I think he's the only player I've managed to bring in that is a clear improvement on what I had last season. 

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Josh Tipping looks an ok striker. I signed him mostly because I got annoyed when Patterson retired, if he hadn't I wouldn't have bothered.

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Last signing so far was Sean McGivern, an attacking midfielder. He's pretty shite, but thought I needed some depth.

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Overall, I think we're a worse team now than when the season ended, which is a bit shit - but hopefully it'll turn out ok. Cafolla, in particular, will be a huge miss, and it'll take some time for the team to gel, so I'm not hopeful for the season ahead.

[oneteaminglasgow]

August 2020

Oh, look at that - we're shite. Our only point of the month came against Newry, and we spent most of the game with 10 men (Conall Young getting a red 20 minutes into his debut), they missed a penalty and had a goal disallowed so that was a massive let off. Comprehensively outplayed in the next 3 games, and it's been a shambles of a start to the season. Will need to pick up soon, or I'll be getting punted.

 

[oneteaminglasgow]

September 2020

We started the month as we finished the last - terribly. Out of two cups, although we took top flight Dundela to extra time.  Between those two, we were humiliated by Ballinamallard. That was an extremely weird game - we hit the post 3 times, had more chances and yet we conceded 7 goals.  We finally got a victory over Dergview and things seemed to have clicked, following it up with 2 very comfortable wins - the H&W game was the first time I've seen us be completely dominant.

We're starting to pick up some points and things are clicking a bit, so although we're still not looking great, I'm hopeful that we can push up the table.

I also saw fit to bring in Steven Gordon, who can play as a right back or centre midfielder - I'll be using him as the latter. He's spent his whole career up to this point in the top flight of Northern Irish football, so hopefully he can provide some experience. There's nothing particularly special about him, but then again, there's nothing special about any of my players.

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