Siepe1990

6th season, 6th promotion, but also the first title in 3 years! For most of the season, Macclesfield was my biggest adversary, but in the end only Rochdale came close. We only lost twice however throughout the entire season (the 2nd and the 2nd to last match of the season), so that cemented our league win nicely. Cup-wise we managed to beat Rochdale and Burton Albion in the FA Cup before being knocked out in the 2nd round on penalties after a replay by Bolton Wanderers... FA Trophy was a lot worse, knocked out in the 4th round already by Bury. Our board made us professional straight after promotion, and also expanded the stadium for a whopping 1.7 million... Not that we had either the money or the attendance to do this, but we had league rules to comply to. Wage budget is now up to 16.2k / week, meaning I can hire some better players but especially sign my better talents on fixed contracts. It was too late already for my man-of-the-season Devlan Moses however, who choose to leave for free to Larne at the end of the season... Very curious to see if we manage to garner some money and not rack up too much debt and if we can compete at the professional Sky Bet League 2 Level!

5th season, 5th promotion! When will this end? I would have thought last season already, but even this season I was quite surprised by the performance we could achieve. Macclesfield was too good again, winning the league by a mile ; this meant I had to face the play-offs, where I first took care of Boston United (4-3 in extra time) before dispatching of Blyth Spartans on penalties. On top of this, I had my best cup run so far in the FA Cup. Just look at this incredible replay win over Peterborough: Diarmuid Carter - remember the name, you'll be reading more about him in my posts if I can keep hold of him. He extended until 2029 at least, so that would be great already. I managed to beat Doncaster Rovers next, before being bested by Derby County. All combined, this generated 227k TV-income and 154k prize money, as well as a fair increase in match day income (at least 100k). Now at least we have a positive balance of 500k, but the board is still refusing the professional status ; have any of you managed to get professional already? Very curious to see how we'll fare on the next level, on to the Vanarama National League!

Thanks! Bury surprised me really, expected them to challenge as well, but they came 8th (after a 6th place the year before). Just managed to beat Macclesfield in the 6th match of the season in the Vanarama North, curious to see if we keep up the good form (W W D W D W)...

A first for Brigg Town: next season we will be playing in the Vanarama National League North! 4th promotion in a row, but not the 4th title, even though we managed to score 100 points in the season... Macclesfield grabbed the title with a whopping 102 points, we lost to them 5 matches from the end (2-0), so a fair champion for me. The play-offs were harder than I would have thought ; we needed extra time against Warrington Town (after beating them 4-1 and 4-2 in the regular season), but the final was a lot easier (3-1 against Radcliffe). Cup runs were decent, however a bit disappointed with the early exit in the FA Cup against Blyth Spartans. Managed to get to the semi final of the FA Trophy, but failed to win the League Cup for the first time in 4 seasons. Attendance levels are still low ; new record of 484 on average however and a new record of 2.192 in the final against Radcliff which meant we almost sold out our 2.500. We do get an expansion of 500 standing capacity however due to regulations for the Vanarama (3.000 minimum). Financially we are doing okay, no negative balance since September 2024, but the projection is negative and the professional status too expensive. Let's hope the attendance picks up, we manage to gather some more sponsorships and get a few good cup runs! Best players: 'regen' Diarmuid Carter, former Newcastle United, who's and absolute beast as a Poacher, and left wing back Noah Adekoya, former Burnley, who has managed to achieve a 7.52 / 7.75 / 7.29 average over the last three seasons... which is insane, but it has to be said that anyone who I play in that role gets insanely high ratings somehow - must be my tactic I guess. Onwards to Level 6!

3rd season, 3rd title! Easier even than the previous seasons, which surprised me. Managed to hold on to most of my players for the biggest part of the season, which is a big help. Cup runs were good as well, generating some nice cash - and we managed to win the 'League Cup' for the third year in a row!

Merry Christmas to all! Perfect 2nd season, couldn't have wished for more. Almost managed an unbeaten season, but the boys slacked off once the league was won. We managed to retain the Northern Counties East League Cup and to win the FA Vase after a thriller against Tooting & Mitcham United. The most stunning achievement however was reaching the FA Cup proper - we sadly got kicked out immediately by Gateshead, but managed to get some nice scalps along the way (AFC Telford United, Curzon Ashton and South Shields), which gives me good hopes for next season!

Season 1 is done, can't complain as to how it went... Due to stellar performances from my strikers Bacon & Waud (already at the Zebra's when I joined) and outstanding performances by newcomers Whitham (ex Sheffield Wednesday), Turrell (ex Boston United) and Howe (ex Middlesbrough) we managed to win the Northern Counties East League Divison One and the Northern Counties East League Cup and reach the Quarter Final of the FA Vase. Hoping to hold on to the players (a lot of them are getting offers) and to strengthen where needed to keep the good times rolling!

Looks like a nice challenge to do, I always like to have some background behind the club I manage. After a little searching online, I found the 5th oldest team in England: Brigg Town F.C.

Quick question, hoping someone can shed a little light on the matter... When setting up a Recruitment Focus, you can select the Contract Status under 'Further Details'. I've used this to set up a Recruitment Focus on South America, only focusing on Contract Status 'Expiring (6 Months)'. So far, so good. Now I would like to combine this with a Recruitment Focus on South America looking at Contract Status 'Expired'. Here comes the question: can I just add the additional status to the same Recruitment Focus? I would like to think this is possible as it reflects what you could do in real life (tell your scout to look for out of contract players and players with less than 6 months on their contract), but my Recruitment Focus gets no results. I think this is because the game doesn't allow this, as you can't select 'Or' when picking the Contract Status, you can only select 'Is' or 'Is Not'. Therefore, combining the two would have the scout searching for a combination that doesn't exist (a player without a contract but also with a contract expiring in 6 months or less), thus automatically giving no results. This would mean I would have to set up an additional Recruitment Focus for the same Scout with all the same criteria (I have more than just the Contract Status)? This would mean a huge amount of extra work (to be repeated every time you switch clubs as you can't save Recruitment Focuses), whilst it sounds like something that should be easily possible, but isn't... Can someone give some more background / confirmation / experience?

Anyone got experience yet with the new Lenovo LOQ-laptops? It's their new secondary range besides Legion ; only reviews I've found are generally very positive. Going to buy a new laptop and basically this one has a ridicolous setup for the money: https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/lenovo-loq-15aph8-82xt009bmh-gaming-laptop-15-6-inch-144-hz/9300000151986331/?s2a=&bltgh=rRY0JoB-x3iROtkSGoJAhg.2_64_65.66.FeatureOptionButton#productTitle Lenovo LOQ 15APH8 82XT009BMH Ryzen 7 7840HS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 16 GB RAM 8 GB VRAM 512 GB SSD Using my laptop for games (mainly FM, MTG Arena, F1 Manager, Pro Cycling Manager) and some light Photoshop from time to time ; I think the CPU is very good for the money and the GPU is more than I need, but that's OK. Looking at Legion or RoG-laptops - as they are the premium gaming brand - they are more expensive but have CPUs and GPUs which are not as good as this one. Any thoughts? Am I missing something, or is this really a good deal?

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The City Football Group Challenge This is what a completed challenge could look like Challenge Background Founded in 2013, City Football Group is the realization of a business vision by former Barcelona Economy Vice President Ferran Soriano. The first core philosophy of City Football Group since its inception has been the mutual supporting of clubs through combined scouting and player sharing. Possessing such a network then allows the local clubs to sign players early in their development, safe in the knowledge that the range of clubs CFG owns means that they can be placed at any of a number of sides as their development continues and the need for other challenges arises. The second of CFG's core philosophies regarding club collaboration is on- and off-pitch technical information sharing. Based around the tactics of Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola all of City Football Group's clubs are given access to extensive databases of Manchester City's tactics and coaching methods, enabling them all to follow the group directive to use the same style of football, a style occasionally referred to as the City Way. Challenge Introduction Your challenge is to lead all current CFG-clubs (12 in total as of EC Bahia's introduction in May 2023) to the league title and the domestic cup win. Along the way, you need to at least obtain the 4 Continental Champions League trophies. Challenge Rules You have to start with on of the clubs currently playing on the 2nd tier of their country. This means you can start as: Sichuan Jiuniu (2nd tier China) Lommel SK (2nd tier Belgium) Palermo (2nd tier Italy) EC Bahia (2nd tier Brazil, but only if you start in 2022 as they have been already promoted in 2023) Your manager can have any licenses and experience you choose (if you want make it a little harder, opt for no licenses or experience) During the entire game, you are only allowed these transfers / loans (all aiming to emulate the first core philosophy of the Group explained in the introduction): All transfers and loans from any of the CFG-clubs are allowed From outside the Group, only free transfers are allowed, and only players of 23 or younger This also means the no loans from outside the Group are allowed (you don't have to terminate any existing loans upon starting the game) Aiming to emulate the second philosophy, you have to decide upon one tactic whilst at your first club, which you have to use throughout the entire game This means not only playing style, but also formation The only thing you can tweak are the player roles Challenge Requirements As you will be playing in Japan and India, you will need to add those leagues to the game (both can be found on this forum or any other FM-dedicated fan base website online. If you need help, just send me a message. Challenge Threads I've created a Excel-file (downloadable at the bottom of this post) with three sheets. On the first, you see all clubs and some information about where they play (FM23). The second sheet (Career Summary) allows you to track you career ; almost all cells use drop-down boxes so you can't go wrong when creating the third and most awesome sheet: the Trophy Cabinet. Right now, this look empty, but once you start ticking of competitions and cups on the Career Summary, this cabinet will fill with all the trophies you have won, creating a nice Trophy Cabinet for you to post here. A short example of how the Career Summary can be filled out (which results in the image shown at the top of this challenge): Hall of Fame I will track all progress made on this challenge and keep a regularly updated Hall of Fame in the second post of this sheet. City Football Group Challenge.xlsx

Final Challenge Update (Season 5 - Season 12) So, not really how I wanted to do this post, but I lost a lot of images due to a computer crash... luckily, my save game was nicely backed-up in the cloud, so I could take some snapshots by going back in time, but the narrative I wrote in Word is sadly gone... So here goes the slimmed down version! The Sky Bet League One Years (Seasons 5 & 6) My last post showed our promotion to the League One and I have to say: it was a struggle in the first season. If you look at the top goalscorer for the competition you'll see Edozie having scored 9 goals... That's 9, over a 46 matches... I just couldn't get them scoring, not matter what I tried. Due to a lot of draws and 1-0 wins, we did manage to finish a decent 9th, so that was of course non so bad, but something had to change for us to progress further. I changed my formation to a 4-2-3-1 and decided to throw my Tiki-Taka overboard and switch to a style based on Gegenpress, but with some Tiki-Taka elements included (short passing, high tempo). This worked wonders, because the next season we scored 89 goals, which was almost double the amount of the previous season. We ended up at 105 points, which was more than enough for the league title, my first actual trophy since the Vanarama League North in our first season! The Championship Year (Season 7) Apparently, my tactic was working so well we managed to get back-to-back promotions... Never expected this to happen, we were fighting for the title throughout the year and ended up missing it by just 3 points. As you can see, the goal scoring let up a little, which was not surprising due to the step-up in quality, but worrying me nonetheless. I was really curious to see how this would work out in the Premier League, because that's where the real challenge lies... The Premier League Years (Seasons 8 - 12) The first season (S8) was a real struggle as expected. Almost no players wanted to join, so improving my squad was futile - I had to give it a go with the players at my disposal. The meager 45 goals in 38 games was a reflection of how much we struggled. We managed 10 draws however which, combined with 12 wins, was enough to finish us in a decent 13th place - not bad for the first season up. The second season (S9) was more of the same, with one big difference: I managed to attract some decent defensive improvements, which brought our goals conceded down from 56 to 41, propelling us up the league to a very decent 6th place... We managed to win 20 games versus the 12 last year, so progress was really being made. We also suffered heartbreak in the FA Cup, where we reached the final only to be defeated in a slammer of a game ending in 3-4... Season number 3 (S10) on the top flight showed another improvement. This was of course mainly driven by the fact that we qualified for Europe the season before, which meant I could finally get some improvements for my squad. This really showed in the goal scoring department, where we managed to bang in 64 goals (vs the 49 in the previous season). This landed us on a very nice 4th place, qualifying for the Champions League next season. The Europa League campaign... Well, let's say this was one of the biggest surprises I've seen... Incredible run up to the final, where we managed to beat Valencia 1:2 to take home our third trophy! The fourth trip on the top flight (S11) brought on our first chance of completion... Insane season really, with Liverpool completely dominating the table and us finishing best of the rest. Biggest shocker was the fact that we managed to reach the Champions League Final... Only to lose against Chelsea in the 92nd minute... We didn't deserve to win, as we were dominated all match, but it still hurt like hell... And finally, the one we've all been waiting for, the season it all came together: the insane treble winning Season 12. Everything I built up culminated into this season... Insane players, insane goals, insane results... It was all there... We managed to win the league with only 3 points, managed to win the FA Cup quite easily and to top it all off... I couldn't have made this up myself, but beating Man Utd in the Champions League Final on penalties... It is the only fitting way to end this journey... FC United of Manchester are now truly the biggest club of Manchester!

The Sky Bet League Two Year (Season 4) Well, the header kind of gives it away already... This was an insane season, with promotion on the last day... but now I'm getting ahead of myself a little. At the beginning of the season, I once again faced the challenge of bringing the squad up to speed for this higher level. Main focus was finding a good right back, a top goal keeper and some playmakers (seeing as my main problem was getting enough balls through to my striker). The right back was the first to arrive in the form of Kwaku Oduroh (23), Man City graduate before playing for Derby the last couple of years before being released. Next in line were two playmakers: (A)MC Neil Owen (18), the first transfer fee for FCUM at 37k, coming from Airbus UK where he assisted 36 and scored 17 in the last 3 seasons, averaging at 7.21 overall, and C/DM/M/AM (C) Cian Coleman (21), Leeds Utd graduate who played a decent season on loan at Leonesa before being released on a free. Last but not least, I decided to tap into my spending power (generated after selling Italy U-21 starlet Ojinnaka to Pescara - sad to see him go, but his heart was set on it and the profit of 100k was very nice) and brought in GK Killian Cahill (22), IRL playing at Brighton U21, in game coming from Rochdale, for a whopping 245k. And just when I thought all was done, I signed released Man Utd (A)MC Ali Saeed Al-Mansoori (18) on deadline day after he finally dropped his demand of being a star player and earning top bucks. Who of these stood out you ask? Well, almost all of them. Oduroh did a decent 6.88 average, proving a decent defensive option on right back whilst also being nicely involved in build-up. Neil Owen didn't reach the figures he did at Airbus UK, but with 7 assists, 2 goals and a 6.93 average he was still a very decent signing. Biggest surprise for me were the performances of Cian Coleman, who I ended up playing as a Libero, resulting in a 7.13 average for the year. Even better though were the amazing goal keeping performances of Killian Cahill, which earned him the title of 'Signing-of-the-Season' with an amazing 7.20 average. We conceded only 31 goals in the entire season ; flip side of that is that we only scored 47... Of these 47 more than half (28) were made by Edozie, which earned him the title of Topscorer for the 2nd year in a row. But as I said earlier: promotion was a surprise which came only on the last day. Just look at the points in the image below: only 6 points separate us in 3rd place with Wrexham in 11th... It was insanely close for the entire season, as you can see in the small league positions graph as well. On the last day, we won 3-1 at home against Barrow (3 goals by Edozie), but more importantly Leyton (0-0 vs Morecambe), Exeter (0-3 vs Port Vale) and Cambridge (1-1 vs Crewe) didn't win their games, propelling us up to the 3rd place and a direct promotion - let the Sky Bet League One Years commence!