A few questions about the lower league experience...

After attempting it on every game that they have been playable and always facing either a starting squad that was just too awful or financial ruin, it finally seems like 2012 will be my year on the new game! I might finally take my beloved Barrow back to the football league. As I've never done it, I have a few questions I would appreciate answers to regarding the transition from Blue Square Prem:

1. I am currently part-time. What happens there and will it be expensive to change all the contracts?

2. Will I see an increase in gates purely through my promotion? Currently I average around 2000 and that doesn't seem financially viable in League 2.

3. Will I now drop out of the FA Trophy and take up a place in the League Cup? (I should know this as it is a generic football question!)

4. Would League 2 put me in the St Johnston's Paint Trophy as well? I don't recall EVER managing a game in this tournament. The north/south divide fascinates me

After the latest patch came out, which didn’t made any difference about the crash dump stuff, I was feed up having to restart once more with my favorite team so I decided to start a new game as manager of Hayes & Yeading in the BSP. They’re semi-pro as Barrow.

After 5 months managing H&Y United here’s what I can tell you:

1. As said in other threads, offering a full-time contract is the best thing you can do with a BSP semi-pro team:

- Because most players (99%) will accept signing a full-time contract without a rise in the wage.

- Because players with semi-pro contracts have no value set, signing them full-time will give you the value of the player. And help you sell those you don’t need.

- Because players with full-time contract can be trained full-time thus you can set training schedules such as Tug’s Training.

2. Cash is always a must, BSP have not a penny, after signing full-time contracts sell those you don’t need. Organize friendlies against Premier League teams, on the first season you already have friendlies organized for you, don’t hesitate to create more only inviting Premier League clubs (65K on average per match). Don’t care about the fitness of your players, they’re crap anyway.

3. Change all your staff starting with your AssMan, but before firing him, search for another AssMan with Judging PA and CA as high as possible. Don’t fire your AssMan before looking for another one first otherwise you’ll lose his local knowledge and you may not find any staff you can afford (especially if you’re a foreigner). Once you’ve found one ready to sign for your team, fire your current AssMan. Pay attention that you may actually have more coaches at club that allowed, don’t fire them even if they’re crap (you probably won’t be able to have better ones in the near future and for coaches number counts). Change you physio and scouts (you’ll get way better ones and not as difficult to sign as good coaches). Why Judging PA and CA above anything else for the new AssMan? You really need to have a good knowledge of your players qualities, anyway you won’t be able to get a good enough AssMan in other management fields. So, first thing: AssMan able to give you a realistic evaluation of your players (crappy AssMan always gives you rotten info; all your players are 5 stars. With a better one, you’ll notice they’re all be evaluated as 0.5 stars. Which is correct compared to the other players in the world).

4. As soon as you have new scouts with high judging PA and CA, start scouting next opposition, then if allowed another scout; look for players on loan in the above leagues and that are ready to come on loan (you’ll have hard times finding good ones).

5. Once your staff is top quality compared to the freaks you start with you can start thinking at purchasing players. Don’t dream, teams will probably only allow you to use a small portion of the cash even if you sell a lot of players (I have only access to 5% of the cash I made selling players). If you find better players that yours and they agree to sign for your club, fine, but don’t buy freaks (they’ll be anyway) of the same quality as those you already have (waste of money). My advice; if you make money selling players, change your budget by giving all the cash to the wage budget (99.99% of the players in the above leagues (better than yours) will ask for wages you can’t afford with the initial wage budget).

6. For loans; instead of crying because Arsenal asks 400K for a long term loan (and you have 25K balance), YOU offer them to loan their players for free first (Chelsea accepted for 4 of their players, but they refused to go on loan so targeted players in the CC Championship instead).

Hope this will help you start.

For the competitions questions, I don’t know, but don’t even dream about doing something in the FA with BSP players, just use all of your strengths trying to make it in the above league and hope for a takeover.