Back To My Roots...

Back to my roots...

Newry City Football Club

I decided my first ever forum updated career should be in the place of my family origins, back over in Northern Ireland. I don't visit very often and have never seen their club play, but maybe one day soon I might make the trip! They're in the IFA Premiership, and were founded in 1923 as Newry Town FC, but Newry recently gained city status.

They have never won the IFA Premiership, League Cup or Irish Cup, and their only league honours was winning the First Division back in the 97-98 season. In 'real life', Newry City were recently relegated in the 10-11 season from the Premiership after finishing 12th, so I know I really have a tough task ahead in terms of avoiding the drop!

Pre-Season Summary 2010/2011

Board Expectations

League: Stay clear of relegation.

N.I. Cup: 5th Round

N.I. League Cup: 3rd Round

Mid Ulster Cup: Irrelevant

I was given a whopping £0 transfer budget to help me achieve this, along with a £1,900 p/w wage budget which I was already using all of, so time to sort out the squad. Looking at the other squads in the league, we're definitely struggling for good players - in fact, our squads are worse than half of the First Division teams too, which is really worrying!

I immediately tried to bring in some better players, but most were stolen away by other UK clubs offering better wages or better leagues, and sadly I was left with diamonds in the rough.

Transfers: I brought in a few, all free transfers. I also got rid of the dead weight that was eating up a slice of my wage budget. Most notable of the five new lads were these two:

James Dalton: He was bought right at the close of the pre-season as a replacement for our dire keeper, as you can see from his appearances in the league so far, he hasn't had a great first half of the season, but no one in the club has (sneaky teaser ). I had a great keeper lined up to join us who was 16 and looked brilliant, but unfortunately he chose Oxford over us, bah humbug as they say!

Max Evans: He had an injury which kept him out of a few games, and a lack of stamina to an extent, but he's a great player for the future and already pretty much the best striker at the club, depending on how long I stay at the club I really see him achieving great things here!

So, onto the season....

As I say, this is my first time trying this sort of thing so I really am clueless. I've gathered the layout of this from previous threads that I've read, but would really appreciate any ideas you have for me to improve them etc.! Really excited for this as it's my first time ever trying a forum game, hopefully I won't embarrass myself too much with my poor managerial skills!

2010-11 Mid-Season Update

As you can see, we're not exactly having a great run in the league so far in my first season. We started with a win and then progressively lost, lost and lost again to find ourselves right down at the foot of the table, as the media predicted. We picked up a shock win at Cliftonville, beating them 4-1, and even managed good results against Glenavon, Portadown and Crusaders to pick up our other 3 wins.

16 games in, as we hit 12th for the first time, I decided to scrap my previous attacking formation, and replace it with a more defensive 4-4-2, with an anchoring defensive midfielder sat just ahead of the defence to help them out a bit.

That change came on the back of four straight defeats, but after adopting the new tactics, we've been undefeated, with two draws and a great 4-1 victory in the league, plus a 5-0 hammering of Lower Maze in the Mid-Ulster Cup.

We're already out of the League Cup, embarrassingly destroyed 6-1 by Cliftonville in the 2nd round, but the board were sympathetic and understood the challenge that we faced playing them (despite beating them 4-1 a couple of weeks later...)

Our fixtures show our current improvement in form, and I'm feeling confident in the squad to finish outside the bottom two now that our new tactics are in place! I think 10th would be an achievement with the players I have to be honest, I'm hoping to survive and then work hard over the summer to bring in some better players and scrap the ones that currently don't quite make the cut!

2010/11 Season Summary

League: After the promising start the new tactics had, we soon went back to old habits and started conceding way more than we were scoring. I did still think we'd manage 10th, but after a tricky battle with Dungannon, we eventually succumbed to 11th on the final day of the season. It was a frustrating season for sure, there were matches where we were 2-0 with twenty minutes to play and we'd still end up losing 3-2, but we also had our fair share of lucky breaks so I can't really complain too much. We were set to play the Relegation Play-off against Loughgall, with the winner being the team in the Premiership again next season.

Relegation Play-off Leg 1

Newry City 0-1 Loughgall

Loughgall got off to a dream start with an early goal, and we were forever playing catch-up. They went down to 10 men, but minutes later we lost our top goalscorer to an injury, so it was pretty much stalemate. We tried and tried to get shots on target, but failed pretty miserably and never really looked like scoring, despite all the shots. It seems I have defenders who can't tackle, and strikers who can't score...

Relegation Play-off Leg 2

Loughgall 1-1 Newry City

Another disaster really. We pushed and pushed, hitting the crossbar and the post in the opening half, yet it was them who broke the deadlock with literally their first chance in the game. Again we failed to get many shots on target, most of them going horribly wide. We finally got an equaliser at the end of a much more even second half, but we had little time left to get back level on aggregate, and with a 2-1 aggregate defeat, we were heading down to the IFA Championship next season.

League Cup: As stated in the mid-season report, we suffered badly at the hands of Cliftonville 6-1, Cliftonville went on to lose in the next round to Crusaders.

Irish Cup: After a solid 2-0 win over Tobermore United in the 4th round, I was hoping for a good easy draw in the 5th round too. Unfortunately for us, we were drawn against eventual League & League Cup champions, and bowed out a respectable 3-1 to eventual competition runners-up.

Mid-Ulster Cup: This regional cup is a much easier affair, with very few Premiership teams involved and a relatively easy pool of lower division or non-league clubs too. We had a few easy ties, beating non-league Lower Maze 5-0 in the first round, and following it up with a 4-0 hammering at home to Second Division Killymoon. However, that luck turned in the semi-finals, where we were drawn against IFA Premiership opposition, despite two more Second Division clubs being in the draw. This meant a trip to Lisburn where we saw our best attendance of the season, which spurred us on to a...4-2 defeat, ending our final cup run () of the season.

Board Expectations-

Stay clear of relegation (Ended up being relegated)

5th Round of N.I. Cup (Reached 5th Round)

3rd Round of N.I. League Cup (Reached 2nd Round)

All in all, my season certainly wasn't the brilliant start to my career that I was hoping for. In truth, we had a poor side, but I still wanted to finish without being relegated and I'm unsure of whether to stay another season. I think if FC United pop up into the BSN then I will apply and probably move over to England, if not I'll try and get Newry back into the top flight of Northern Irish football before I head back home with my tail between my legs.

Season     Team                League                       Position    Achievements
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[b]Club:[/b]


2010/11    Newry City       IFA Premiership                   11th      Lost in Relegation Playoff

Pre-Season Summary 2011/2012

After the poor start to my management career last season, I'd decided to stick with Newry City for the time being, and attempt to take them back up to the top flight of Northern Irish football before I depart. We'd managed to keep most of last season's squad, despite a couple of them requesting transfers after we were relegated. I'd had a word with them, and they'd changed their minds, convinced their futures involved taking Newry back up to the top.

Board Expectations

League: Win Promotion

N.I. Cup: 5th Round

N.I. League Cup: Irrelevant

​N.I. Intermediate Cup: Irrelevant

Mid Ulster Cup: Irrelevant

Again, a transfer budget of nothing, and a .2k drop in the wage budget, of which we were already unfortunately .2k over. I knew I had to drop some of the fringe players at the club, leeching a percentage of our wage budget yet not even playing a single competitive match all season. Other than that, I didn't mind ending up .2k up on the budget, hopefully if we get straight back in the top flight the budget will go back up, and I'll have a decent squad with the right budgeting too.

Transfers: Shields joined the club at the end of the season on a free transfer that was arranged in February, and other than that I felt the squad was good enough. In total 5 players left the club, including a small fee being received for the central midfielder that would be a rarely called upon reserve in my new team's plans.

Tony Shields The new guy! I've brought him in to fill the gap between the defence and the midfield, where I really feel we seem to lose possession too much, or in some cases where the opposition midfield overloads our defence. He can also play as a centre midfielder if necessary due to other injuries. I'm happy to have him at the club and I think he'll be in his prime this season for Newry.

Squad Pretty much the same as last season, bar missing a few players and gaining Shields.

Tactics I like this formation. We definitely need two forwards, else we really struggle to score consistently, and the DM helps to keep our net from bulging too.

Finances A long way in the red, I'm really avoiding looking at them too much, hopefully I can sort them out at some point, although the staff wages, mainly my own, are actually more expensive than the players', silly board!

I can't really have too many complaints about our pre-season form. We were playing some tougher English teams and we didn't play particularly bad at all throughout them. The final friendly was against last years IFA Championship winners, and it was a very close fought 0-0, with both teams having some good chances. If we can draw with the team that last season conquered our league, we should hopefully be able to reach the boards expectations. If not, I think I'll definitely be booking my ferry trip back to the mainland.

2011/12 Mid-Season Update

Despite the ferocious injuries list that plagued the start of my season, we swiftly recovered to sit atop the table at the half way point. We lost our opening two games, and struggled to get going in the following one as can be seen from our league results.

We have however had some great wins, including smashing 4th place H&W Welders 6-0 and also hammering 5th place Knockbreda 5-2.

Our cup runs have been fairly successful and we are still in all of them, bar the League Cup in which we lost our second round tie 2-1 against Premiership opposition. To be honest, I think we have a superb chance of winning the league as long as we can stay relatively injury free for the second half of the season, but I really wouldn't begrudge some cup exits soon - my priority is the league and I'd rather not waste the fitness of my top players playing in low pay-out cup matches that offer very little ticketing income anyway.

Keenan has been in great form so far, scoring 8 goals and 3 assists in just 9 starts this season!

2011/12 Season Summary

Ouch... Despite having a relatively calmer injury list, a new problem popped up to spiral us into the mid-table: fatigue. Despite starting games with conditions in the 90s, most of the team would consistently end most matches in the 40s and 50s! It was terrible, as it meant conceding a lot of late goals, turning 3 points into 1 point, or 1 point into none. The worst thing, is that if we had've matched our first half of the season in the second half, we'd have topped the table by a point, but unfortunately we had to settle for just a top half finish.

League Cup: An unfortunate draw against Premiership opposition lead to a 2nd round exit after a closely fought tie. No complaints, we gave a good team a run for their money.

​Intermediate Cup: My first piece of silverware in my career came in the form of the N.I. Intermediate Cup. Although we had a pretty simple cup final match, it certainly wasn't as easy as first thought, having to overcome same-league opposition enroute to the final at Seaview. I was proud of my team for winning this, and it was a good way to leave Newry, knowing I hadn't been completely useless.

Mid Ulster Cup: After a straight-forward first round, we had another unlucky draw that matched us with Premiership side Portadown. We fought hard and at the end of 90 minutes the score was still 0-0, but Portadown grabbed a goal in the second half of extra time to avoid the penalty lottery and progress.

N.I. Cup: Again, after a nice and easy third round tie, another harsh draw saw us up against strong Premiership opposition Linfield in the 4th round. Despite giving it our all, we bowed out to a 1-0 defeat, but again I was pleased with the performance and was honestly expecting it to be 3 or 4 before the game.

Board Expectations-

Win Promotion to Premiership. (Finished 6th)

5th Round of N.I. Cup (Reached 4th Round)

I was planning on leaving Newry at the end of this season regardless, but I was hoping to win them promotion to the Premiership before my departure. Nevertheless, I'm glad to be leaving as I didn't expect much next season, and I'm hoping to move on to bigger and better things in the English leagues.

Unfortunately FC United once again failed to manage promotion to the Blue Square North, so I applied to a club much closer to home...

Season     Team                League                       Position    Achievements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[b]Club:[/b]


2010/11    Newry City       IFA Premiership                   11th      Lost in Relegation Playoff
2011/12    Newry City       IFA Championship                  5th       Intermediate Cup winners

2012/13 Pre-Season Summary

So I ended up at Oxford City Football Club, recently promoted to the Blue Square South. I couldn't resist taking charge of team a team that are local(ish) to where I live, even though the media predict them to be heading straight back down in bottom place. The only staff at the club when I joined were myself and the chairman, so my first task was to quickly set up a solid backroom team. After that was achieved, it was onto scouting out some talent. I found a fair few good players, but unfortunately other clubs found them too, and they had better things to offer. (my wage budget was 2.1k, I'd been signed on a full-time one year deal of £250 per week.)

Board Expectations

League: Battle bravely against relegation.

FA Cup: 3rd Qualifying Round

FA Trophy: Irrelevant

Not only did the media predict us to come bottom, but our board were pretty much expecting it too - positive atmosphere here eh?! I quickly realised that my current squad were shocking, and tried to do something about it, bringing in some new guys, unfortunately not as many as I would've liked.

Transfers No one left, purely because I really think we will need a good squad depth to survive during the latter stages of the season, and seven new faces joined the ranks at Court Place Farm. I was hoping to bring in other slightly better players too, but they picked other club's contracts over ours and I was sadly forced to make do. The key new signing really has to be Ben Lacey, our new right winger who we managed to steal away from the hands of Forest Green (who, incidentally got revenge, signing up a fantastic striker we had offered a contract to.).

Ben Lacey He joined myself and the rest of the squad, hoping in a few years to perhaps take Oxford City into the football league for the first time in their 130 year history. He's not an amazing player, but he's the creme de la creme here at Oxford and I'm hoping he'll be knocking some great crosses onto our forward's heads in the upcoming season!

Squad A much bulkier team than I had at Newry, mainly as I'm hoping to avoid the potential fitness destruction that occurred in my last season in charge over there. I also went to the trouble of hiring a good fitness coach to help manage the player's fitness a bit better!

Pre-season form was pretty standard, a couple of wins and a couple of losses, nothing really of note or worthy of a screenshot!

My personal ambitions for this season are just to avoid the drop, and maybe add a bit more strength to the defence. Admittedly this will be a tough challenge and I'm really staring down the eyes of the impossibility of the task, but I'm hoping to finally get a bit of positive into my career and this would be a great way to do so! I wouldn't mind matching the current records the club has either, by reaching the 2nd Round of the FA Cup, or the 4th Round of the FA Trophy.