dafuge's FM08 small club to big club challenge

[Ceus]

Hi all just a Quick update on my Hitchin town game

i just been through the 1st season and is was kinda dull as i stay in 12th place most of the season and i got kicked off the cup competitions as soon as they started.the only reason why i am 12th was because of 2 arsenal kids that i got on loan from my parent club arsenal.1 of them is goalkeeper from the U-18s and another was a defender called thomas Cruise.
Currently im 6 games into the 2nd season with hitchin and im currently top of the table thanks to 5 arsenal kiddos (Thomas Cruise(defender),Luke freeman(Striker),Frimpong(Midfielder),Van den berg(right wing),kyle bartley(defender).
Luke freeman already had a couple of hattricks.i have high hopes for the season hoping i could get promoted this season

[NepentheZ]

I'm getting so frustrated in League 2

I started the season immensely, keeping up in the play-off places, which was a bit of a dream, to be honest, but now its all gone down hill. I'm losing to bottom half teams, and getting beaten comfortably. I know I'm not expected to work miracles this season, but every last one of my starting 11 is rated "A Good Championship Player" or better. (2 even thought of as A good signing for most Premier League sides, and KIZZ is regarded as a "Leading Star for most Premiership sides"

Surely with a team like this I should be picking up a healthy amount of points. Unfortunately, I'm going to lose a fair few of my stars this season, as they wont sign new deals, and already Butterbean and KIZZ are leaving on a free at the end of the season, with KIZZ going to Inverness CT, and Butterbean to Kilmarnock. I tried to flog them off with + 50% 's on, but no clubs wanted them. I got so desperate to get the 50% sell on fee, I even offered them out for £0 + 50%, but the only takers were Div 1 sides, or other Scottish sides, but they still chose the free transfer routes.

Aside from the few that are leaving, I've still got a great core of players, but they just dont want to seem to play together.

[Benjaminoo]

Hey Guys,

Might have one more shot at this before 09 comes out. I'll be holidaying soon so I'll post the profile + update on the website when it's finished holidying.

[sirdez24]

I'd leave on free too if you nicknamed me 'Butterbean'.

[NepentheZ]

Theres two [First Name] Bean's in my squad. So they're named GreenBean and ButterBean.

[sirdez24]

I'd be even more determined to leave then if I got called 'Butter' while the other guy got 'Green'.

[roberto922]

Thanks nep, I think it'll take me two - three seasons to get Champions league football but I'm definitely pleased with our performances. Ched Evans has been fantasticso far and actually managed 3rd place in the European Striker of the year along with Fedrico Fazio finishing in the top 3 for defender of the year, despite that, the player that has impressed me most so far has to be Fischer (21, DRC) I brought him from the reserve side for a month when Craig Davis was injured and he's never looked back thank god, it means I don't have to look for a better right back so I can focus fully on left back.

Good luck with yours, I didn't like League Two much either tbh, it's a huge step up from Non - league football.

[sirdez24]

There is no way anyone will convince me the AI doesn't inadvertently use some sort of corner exploit. They are just about undefendable.

[roberto922]

I don't have that problem.

[sirdez24]

Would love your set up then. It's been an issue from the start for me to the point where even players with crap heading/jumping have a field day from corners.

[NepentheZ]

I'm quite often top corner scorers in the divsions. (Not this season, 3rd with 15, 1st has 18, 2nd has 16.)

[sirdez24]

I'm going to try and have everyone man-marking and leave no one covering the posts.

[sirdez24]

Results like this are absolutely killing me. Most games I'm dominating possession and creating chances, but at this level the AI is literally scoring from just about every shot on target. January can't come quick enough as I really need to bolster my defence, which isn't up to standard.

[Benjaminoo]

Started as Merthyr Tydfil - here's my Profile

Wish me luck

[NepentheZ]

Good luck Benjamin

[sirdez24]

Quick update. A couple of wins in a row has pulled me up into the top half, just, at the halfway mark of the season - league table. As you can see, I haven't had any trouble scoring goals, but only Southend have shipped more (and they beat me 4-0 at Fossett Farm!).

I still have a problem with Dean Price, whose value has now gone to seven figures but still has no interest in renewing. I don't really have a problem with offering him to clubs on January 1st, especially given I've lined up Matt Kerr, who Sunderland released, however Price has the club and me listed as his favourites and I'm worried I'll get the whole "feels he is being forced out" rubbish if I do this.

Any advice? I was thinking of offering for around £750K + 30% first up...

[roberto922]

Very quick update. In January I brought in a top 18 year old DM called Gascon from a Spanish side (I think it was Mallorca) for 5m (I'll show a proper screenie in the EoS update). In even bigger news we have been tussling with Everton for 4th place for the last month, switching places 5 times, it's looking like a very interesting season for us.

[roberto922]

AFC Wimbledon Update - Season 9 (2016/2017)

To begin....

Jones enters 500th game with AFC Wimbledon

There may be trouble ahead...
Uhoh
Phew!

Premiership Prediction - 14th
Premiership Position - 6th
F.A Cup - 4th Round
League Cup - 5th Round
UEFA Cup - 2nd Round

Premiership - Graph | Table

Premiership: We've had a very solid season, as the graph shows, after an initially bad start we went from strength to strength and the result of that was a well deserved UEFA Cup berth. My expectations for this season were 6th/7th place so It's good to see us on course. To be honest I don't really think we were ready for the Champions League yet so in a way it was better that we finished 6th than 4th, a position we'd been vying for since late January. In the end the two games proved to be vital, in game 37 our star defender Federico Fazio was sent off, leaving us with an out of form Savin and Emre Sahin, who was clearly above his suited level, to cope in the two vital games, as you can see we lost to Aston Villa. After the match I then complained about the sending off which didn't turn out too good. So there we were, if we won we'd hold on to 4th but a defeat would spell the end, two problems being that the defensive rock and the manager were both missing, we then proceeded to lose to Everton and all of a sudden it was over.

F.A Cup : In the third round we were drawn away against West Brom, we proceeded to the 4th round after a 3-1 win. After that we travelled to Sunderland where we fell at only the second hurdle, dissapointing really, hopefully next year I'll be able to do alot better.

League Cup: Lost 3-1 vs Tottenham in the Quarter Final

EURO Cup: And so our European adventure begins! First up was a return ticket to Illichivets, Ukraine. We took them out 7-4 on aggregate to go through to the EURO Cup. In the first qualifying round we drew Ruzomberok of Slovakia, we continued at their expense as we won 8-1 on aggregate. We then knocked 5 past Wisla with only one reply before we entered the group stages. We were drawn with Roma, Panathinaikos, Bezanijiya and Kayerispor. We won 3 and lost 1 as we continued to the next stage in 2nd place, that's where we more than met our match. We faced the mighty AC Milan, fresh from a 3rd placed Champions league finish but still ranked #1 in the world and were to be eventual EURO Cup winners. All I could do was watch as we were battered Home and Away, beaten 3-0 at home before Miguel Jones gave a heroic performance at the San Siro by keeping them down to 2 goals with Federico Fazio scoring a consolation goal in the 61st minute. All in all a good experience although we'll obviously be hoping to go further next year and not meet the European Cup and now EURO Cup champions again.

European Club Ranking: 79th

Other Info

Finances
Squad
Team Info
Transfers

Photobucket is playing up at the moment so I will post the finances and squad as well as the players of the season and youngster watch later as they all require screenshots.

Season Summary
A great season. Decent cup runs, a good stint in Europe and we've moved to a new stadium at last... or have we? Basically two days after we had moved to our brand spanking new 18k seater stadium the board has decided to get a 14m loan on top of the 15m we had already from building the stadium and expand the AFC Wimbledon Stadium by 11 thousand seats, whilst this will be excellent in the long term it is certainly going to affect our spending power and despite my budget of 17m I'm going to have to try to keep it below £10 million.

Manager history

Season 1 - Blue Square South - 1st place. Promoted
Season 2 - Blue Square Premier - 1st Place. Promoted
Season 3 - League Two - 17th Place.
Season 4 - League Two - 2nd Place. Promoted
Season 5 - League One - 9th Place.
Season 6 - League One - 1st Place. Promoted
Season 7 - Championship - 5th Place. Promoted
Season 8 - Premiership - 7th Place. Qualified for EURO Vase
Season 9 - Premiership - 6th Place. Qualified for UEFA Cup

[rancer890]

Another good season roberto

[roberto922]

Two new signings to strengthen our defense:

Fabio
Arboleda

The future looks bright defensively, next season I'll buy a replacement for Fazio and then we should be alright for a couple of years.

[sirdez24]

Season Review - Billericay Town - 2014/15 - Championship

A really solid season. Outclassed by the big boys, but battled well above our weight against the midtable sides and beat the teams down the bottom fairly easily. Taking 13 points from the final six games of the season gave me the final Manager of the Month award of the season, and left us a very comfortable 9th - final table.

Just for an idea of how out of our depth we were, have a look at the average attendance list. And we were nearly selling out each week!

Both Price and Murat are refusing to sign new deals and it's looking like I'll lose them for free, something I find quite funny as Price has "thinks the club should retain the services of Murat" in his personal section, and Murat has "thinks the club should retain the services of Price" in his. Hypocritical ********.

Trinidad and Tobago skipper Kern Belgrave was a deadline day signing from Reading but struggled somewhat with form and injuries, although with a pre-season I'm hopeful he'll be much better next campaign.

I also handed an early debut to Matt Deakin and he looks like he's going to be a real gem, already showing he has an eye for a pass from central midfield.

Boychev was my leading scorer but he is another who is refusing to discuss a new contract. I still have him for another season though so there is time to change his mind.

Finally, Andrew McGrath is on his way from Blackburn (who are bankrupt) for a snip at £1K. If I can repeat a top ten finish I'll be delighted given the players I will potentially be losing in the next couple of months.

[Benjaminoo]

Merthyr Tydfil - Season 08/09 - Blue Square South

PROMOTION

Great Season. I expected us to finish pretty high in the table and challenge for promotion as I brought in some pretty good players all around. We managed a 4th placed finishand promotion via the play-offs.

Here's our Squad. As you can see we scored ALOT of goals, most coming from Marc Willims (He went an amazing 18 hours without scoring), Jack Jeffrey and the amazing Oliver Hotchkiss.

A Special mention goes out to our 17 year old defensive midfielder Richard Gardner who was sensational throughout the season.

Now to our play-offs. We drew AFC Wimbledon in the semis. I expected it to be pretty tough, but it was a breeze.

Play Off Semi Finals Leg 1

Merthyr Tydfil 3-0 AFC Wimbledon

Ply Off Semi Finals Leg 2

AFC Wibledon 2-3 Merthyr Tydfil

Then we drew Worcester and what a thriller it was..

Play Off Finals

Worcester 3-4 Merthyr Tydfil

WHAT A RESULT

to the premier we goooo

[Kazpeer]

Profile

Im gonna start my last game in Hendon, and I think im gonna make a Youth project like NepentheZ

[sirdez24]

Another stadium expansion, this time just under 3000 seats to be added.

For six months I am now ground-sharing with Southend, who have just been relegated to L1.

[A True Fan]

Just started to continye my Hendon game. 2nd season in the BSS. Doing badly this season so far. The defence is all over the place. Can't mark can't tackle and can't head. Changes having to be made soon.

[roberto922]

This threads like Ghost town now roll on FM 09.

[ChelseaDaft]

Hi all

Remember a back on page 110 i said this:
"As the new game is out in about a month or so i am gonna have another crack at this but not change a single thing on training (leave it on general) and also the standard tactic that comes with the team ( so no changing team or individual instructions) and see how long it takes me to get promoted"

Well this is what i have been doing. So here is my progress so far.

Chelseadaft Ilkeston Blue Square North 2008/2009.

As usual when you start one of these challenges unless you start with AFC Wimbledon its very unusual for your squad to have non greyed out players! So i had to bring in free transfers at the start of the season. It also helped that Ilkeston had just signed a deal with Derby County to be our parent club too so i used the option of loans and brought in 2 long term and 4 on renewed 3 month loans for the season. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../transfers.jpg

As per above i am sticking to not touching the tactics or individual player instructions for this challenge. But i think i have found the key to success in the BSS / BSN. I utilised the scout reports and the only thing i used was opposition instructions. This worked a treat. The side performed above all expectations, neutralised more often than not the opposition dangermen and played well, dont get me wrong, the loans helped, but we only ran out of steam in the last three games and lost in the playoff final.. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...n1/pofinal.jpg

We finished 3rd and i was delighted! Here are some more screenies:

Table http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...son1/table.jpg
Squad http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...son1/squad.jpg
Finances http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...1/finances.jpg




Season 2 Chelseadaft Ilkeston Blue Square North 2009/2010 PROMOTED AS CHAMPIONS!

Well i used the same opposition instructions and nothing to the tactics, individual instructions or training. Managed to get hold of the same loan players on same deals from Derby and have won the league! Screenies below:

Table http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...202/table2.jpg
Squad http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...202/squad2.jpg
Transfers http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...transfers2.jpg
Finances http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../finances2.jpg
Manager of the year http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...n%202/MOTY.jpg
Board Message http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ardmessage.jpg

As you will see from the squad screen, my two loan signings have done great for me especially as one of them scored over 40 goals for me this season. But he still didnt finish top scorer. The top scorer also turned out to be player of the season.. have a look (amazing!) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../topscorer.jpg


Roll on next season in the Blue Square Premier!

[rlipscombe]

[quote]
As you will see from the squad screen, my two loan signings have done great for me especially as one of them scored over 40 goals for me this season. But he still didnt finish top scorer. The top scorer also turned out to be player of the season.. have a look (amazing!) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../topscorer.jpg
quote]

that's ridiculous!!

[NepentheZ]

Real London Update - Season 6 (2013/2014)


Coca-Cola League 2 Prediction - 24th
Coca-Cola League 2 Position - 20th
F.A Cup - 3rd Round
Setanta Shield - South Quarter-Final
League Cup - 3rd Round

Coca-Cola League 2 - Graph | Table


Coca-Cola League 2: Ultimately, I was disappointed with the final position in League 2. I was expecting a relegation dog fight, but at the start of the season, and for the first 12-15 games, I was hangin' out with the big boys. I was playing spectacular footy, destroying everything put before me. Then, it collapsed. I couldn't put my finger on why, or when, but I started losing games left, right and center. I went from being a safe 18 points ahead of the relegation zone, to a mere 6 points ahead, and all of a sudden worrying about weather or not I could stay up. I had a good hard look at my team. There were so many players I were playing that were in the completely wrong position. I had Bullseye on the wing, where I should have had him playing through the middle, dictating the game. I had KIZZ tied up in defense, when in reality, he was the perfect defensive midfielder to counter balance Bullseye's attacking flair. I had The Hunter on the wing, when yet again, he was much more potent in the center of the field, rotating with KIZZ and Bullseye. George Kemp, my DC supreme wasn't being plyed to his strenghts, and had completely the wrong individual settings. I fixed all my tactical errors, and the team woke up towards the end of the season. We still only wound up 20th, and a mere 7 points away from safety, but that was a great finish, considering what could've happened. Only 3 or 4 wins away from a strong mid-table position.

F.A Cup : Another 3rd Round. Unfortunately, there were no Premiership clubs for me this season, so I couldn't really capitalize on the financial side of things, but for a club like ours to hit the 3rd Round of the F.A Cup 2 seasons running is immense.

Setanta Shield : Made it to the S Quarter-Final this season, after some great performances. Eventually lost out to Plymouth.

League Cup : My first entry into the League cup was a joyful one. I beat Premiership Birmingham away from home 3-2, after being 2-0 down, with Carl Simmons scoring a superb second half hat-trick. I was then drawn up against Man City in the 3rd Round, but unfortunately is was a home tie, so I could yet again not capitalize on the finances. 1-0 up at HT, but eventually went down 3-1 to a far superior side.

Best Elevens - Season | Overall

Other Info

Finances
Team Selection
Team Info

Manager Info
Manager Overview
Manager Profile

Player Records
Team Records

Transfers
Affiliated Clubs
Real London Staff


Awards

Coca-Cola League 2 Top Goal Scorer - Carl Simmons (Runner-Up)
Real London, Fans Player of the Year - Carl Simmons
Coca-Cola League 2 Team of the Year - Carl Simmons, Bullseye

New Real London Records*

Record Attendace - 3,023
Record Average Attendance - 2,747
Record Gate's - £30,000
Record High - 20th, Coca-Cola League 2
Record League Apps - 175, Bulseye
*Records are only displayed when broken, and may not represent the final tally of the broken record

Players of the Season

Carl Simmons - Another who I'd been playing in the wrong position over the last few years. I'd had him in the center of the park, but clearly Striker was his calling. A brilliant tally, and scored over 50% of the clubs goals this season.

Bullseye - Season after season this guy performs for me. Assist after assist, goals too, great perfomances, high average ratings and a great asset to the club. Became Real London's record league capped player.


Season Summary
All in all, a good season. Great cup runs, and a tidy league campaign. The low points of the season have to be losing KIZZ, Butterbean, Greenbean and Tomb Raider. The first 3 on free transfers, as they wouldn't sign new deals, but I managed to pawn Raider off for £4,000 before his contract was signed up for free. It will be a big rebuilding season for me next season, with a defense to fill out, and some wingers to bring in, and I need a decent Striker to partner Simmons.

Manager history

Season 1 - Blue Square South - 8th place
Season 2 - Blue Square South - 12th place
Season 3 - Blue Square South - 2nd place
Season 4 - Blue Square South - 1st place | Promoted to Blue Square Premier
Season 5 - Blue Square Premier - 2nd place | Promoted to Division 2, via play-offs.
Season 6 - Coca-Cola League 2 - 20th place

*Real London were formerly Hendon

[roberto922]

It's not that bad really Nep, I finished 17th with Arsenal loanees so 20th withouts a good season IMO

[NepentheZ]

Yea cheers. I was just disappointed because I had such a good start. Injuries didn't help, but the main problem was, the fact that I had good cup runs, I was always 2 or 3 games behind in the league, and that made my position lower by attrition. Had I not had the cup runs, I firmly believe I could have finished a comfortable mid table.

As for loanee's, I honestly don't need them. I have so many players in my squad rated as "Leading Stars in Champ" / "Good Champ Player" / "Leading Star in Div. 1" - that a loaned in player wouldn't exactly pick up the first team spot. I don't have 1 person in my first team squad (with exception to my Youth Player Projects) that's rated a "Div 2 player". They're all rated Div 1, Champ, and Holmes, Bullseye, Simons and Kemp are rated Good to Leading star for the Prem.

Edit : Just checked my squad again, and Dave McKenzie is also a prem rated player.
Edit mkII : Eddie O'Neil is also prem rated.

So if my squad is fully fit, 6 of the 10 outfields are good enough to play in the prem. Which is why I'm not happy about my finishing position in League 2 last season.

[bermybhoy]

You've surely answered this before, but how come you started again Nep? Did you complete it last time?

[NepentheZ]

Nah didn't complete it. I had a problem with my laptop, and had to have it sent to Apple. So I put everything on my External HD. (Real London Game was in 2032 IIRC). In the time my laptop was in the shop, I'd played 2 or 3 more seasons on my spare laptop. When I got my laptop back, and was transferring all the data back over, I somehow managed to delete the 2035 game, and was left with the 2032 game. In the 3 seasons that I'd played, I made soooo many massive gains, and especially the progress of YP19, I just couldn't face going through the 3 seasons again, and perhaps not getting the same gains, and rather started again, using fake players along with Jimbo and a few others. Its a shame, as it was one of my fave ever saves for many reasons, underlyingly the beggning on the Youth Projects.

[bermybhoy]

Ah, that would be annoying to say the least. I made it to League 1 in my Hitchin save (using fake players) but have stalled on doing updates for ages. And playing it for that matter.

[rancer890]

Good 1st season in League Football Nep. I'm sure you will get promoted in a couple seasons. Part of the reason I stopped my Wombles game in favor of my challenge was the inability to get out of League 2. Finished 7th a couple times too.

[seanefc]

Just out of interest, how many players have actualy completed this challenge? or atleast one part of it? Is this thread now so dead, simply because everyone have finished???

I just do not have the patience to read through 112 pages to find out

Its an excellent challenge by the way, i am just gutted that i have never managed to finish it. In the previous two FM's i took Billericay and Staines quite far, Billericay i think was championship, and Staines was premiership, but i never stuck with it. This is my first 'real' attempt at the challenge with FM08 (infact, with the exception of my everton save, ive hardly stuck at any of the games ive started in this version come to think of it ). Its odd that i didnt stick at the Staines game in FM07, we have Bojan upfront, he was on loan from our parent club chelsea for about 3 or 4 years, from something like League 2, all the way to the prem, before i actually managed to buy him! Massively unrealistic of course, but great fun!

Currently at the end of Jan09 on my Mangotsfield save, will do an undate at the end of the season. Building an entire team from scratch has been an interesting experience!

[canvey!!]

Just out of interest, how many players have actualy completed this challenge? or atleast one part of it? Is this thread now so dead, simply because everyone have finished???

I've found it for you (Link!).
gillianchung, Scab, Leth4187, Beng, 3Sixty, dafuge, Rickaldo, kaNovi, ejthegreat, Annihilator666 and michaeltmurrayuk have completed the challenge. That's 11 people.

...and also...

Blue Square South - Graph | Table

Coca-Cola League 2:

Ton of bricks, NepentheZ

[dafuge]

How do people feel about calling this just 'the small club to big club challenge' for FM09?

[roberto922]

Boo!! lol I think it should just be called Dafuges challenge tbh but don't take your name out as it would lose readers straight away as theres probably a few people that just look out for your name to get started.

[canvey!!]

I have to say your name adds huge gravitas to the sign-up. Even «dafuge's challenge» would be better than «The small club to big club challenge». However, I would say that the name at the moment does seem to long. Putting names in challenges is a bit of a weird thing really. I don't know whether my intended challenge for FM09 sounds better with or without my name in. WW thinks with. I think the main purpose of the name is to add gravitas and seperate it out as it's from a recognised name. Whether you want to do that is your call, as our local mod.

[roberto922]

I think if you have a name with two syllables or less it's alright but more than that doesn't sound AS good although some sound alright.

[NepentheZ]

...and also...



Ton of bricks, NepentheZ

I've absolutely NO Idea what you're talking about.

[NepentheZ]

Oh, and "Dafuge's Challenge" is a perfect title. People who already know, don't need the rest, and people who don't know, actually know. - Perhaps "Dafuge's Blue Square Challenge" or something along those lines?

[canvey!!]

I've absolutely NO Idea what you're talking about.

Read the linked bit about the ton of bricks, and then re-read the bit of your latest update that I quoted. Then, perhaps, you shall see the light.

[roberto922]

You put BSS and then League Two below it, basically you forgot to change your header

[NepentheZ]

Read the linked bit about the ton of bricks, and then re-read the bit of your latest update that I quoted. Then, perhaps, you shall see the light.

Read the post you quoted of mine

[canvey!!]

Read the post you quoted of mine

I've absolutely NO Idea what you're talking about.

I realised after I posted that you had sneakily edited it - and that was sarcasm in the no idea quote. Determining it from writing isn't my strong point .

[minisav]

How do people feel about calling this just 'the small club to big club challenge' for FM09?

Nope, because there are so many of them now

[Razer82]

How do people feel about calling this just 'the small club to big club challenge' for FM09?

I don't think any change to the name of the challenge is needed at all.

Everybody who knows about the challenge knows it as Dafuge's Challenge.

If you were to change anything then drop the small club to big club part, just keep it simply as Dafuge's Challenge.

[roberto922]

AFC Wimbledon January Update - Season 10 (2017/2018)

To begin....

After the board decided that it would be a good idea to move us out of our brand new stadium for 6 months I thought it was terrible, now however I simply think 'Ka-ching-ah'. We're raking it in from having Stamford Bridge as our temporary home, especially in the last 2-3 months where our attendance figures have rocketed to an average of 48,000 . We've also had our training facilities expanded and they are now rated as excellent .

Premiership Prediction - 7th
Premiership Position - 1st :O
F.A Cup - 3rd Round (vs Arsenal)
League Cup - Semi Final (vs Liverpool)
UEFA Cup - 1st Knockout Round (vs Kayerispor) sp?

Premiership - Graph | Table

Premiership: I'm absolutely stunned by our season so far, utterly speechless. After managing to achieve a top defense through signing Fabio and Arboleda I was certain we could challenge for a top 4 spot but 1st place Rui Fonte and Ched Evans in particular have been key to our success as well as Fazio and Arboleda being amazing in defense. Robert Smith continues to amaze me as he remains our star player no matter who I bring in, at 26 he's now coming in to the prime of his career.

League Cup: Through to the semi final after a decent run and I'm hoping that we could get a treble this season.

EURO Cup: Started off against Amkar who we destroyed in the 1st leg before being lightly beaten in the 2nd leg. After that came the group stages where we faced Trabzonspor, PSV, B. Jerusalem and Inter Milan. We are set to face Kayserispor in the next round.

European Club Ranking: 79th


Season Summary

Fantastic so far and I've got a feeling we could win it.

Manager history

Season 1 - Blue Square South - 1st place. Promoted
Season 2 - Blue Square Premier - 1st Place. Promoted
Season 3 - League Two - 17th Place.
Season 4 - League Two - 2nd Place. Promoted
Season 5 - League One - 9th Place.
Season 6 - League One - 1st Place. Promoted
Season 7 - Championship - 5th Place. Promoted
Season 8 - Premiership - 7th Place. Qualified for EURO Vase
Season 9 - Premiership - 6th Place. Qualified for UEFA Cup
Season 10 - Premiership - 1st Place. Champions???



Note: From now on I'm just gonna do short updates once a season because with so few people reading now that we're getting so close to FM 2009 and becaus many have lost interest after completing it/failing, it's pointless doing long winded updates (also I wanna finish it before FM 09 comes out)

[rancer890]

Good work so far Robert

Nice to see Man Utd near the bottom.

[NepentheZ]

4 days since your post Robert

I've not lost interest, per say, I've just been so busy. I'd love to have a good ol' session on FM08 before FM09, but I just can't see it happening.

[roberto922]

It was an hour ago...

[NepentheZ]

No I meant, before your post, there was 4 days since the last post.

[roberto922]

Ah right, I'm looking forward to FM 09 now, kinda sad that I'm so close to finishing this now when 09s just around the corner. Are you oing this one first again?

[NepentheZ]

Gundo's or this, yea.

[Jimbokav1971]

How do people feel about calling this just 'the small club to big club challenge' for FM09?

I think it's irrelevant what you call it.

It will always be known as the dafuge challenge even if the name changes.

[tbsn1fan]

ok so basically ive never done well at these sort of things and tbh im not that great at the game in general.
so i didnt post all my stats up and stuff and take screenshots as it seemed pointless.
however ive now played 7 and won 7 so was wondering if it was possible still to sign up kinda thing if not it doesnt matter

[dafuge]

ok so basically ive never done well at these sort of things and tbh im not that great at the game in general.
so i didnt post all my stats up and stuff and take screenshots as it seemed pointless.
however ive now played 6 and won 6 so was wondering if it was possible still to sign up kinda thing if not it doesnt matter

It should be fine, your manager profile should still be the same as when you started if you are only 6 games in.

[tbsn1fan]

ah brilliant will do it all now

[roberto922]

Heh, I posted mine after 3 years

[tbsn1fan]

hopefully this works
9 wins in a row then lost my two strikers in one game and lost the next game

http://img91.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1kw7.png

[roberto922]

Last game of the season, 1 point ahead of 2nd placed Liverpool

[roberto922]

4th Minute - 1-0 AFC Wimbledon!
30th minute - 2-0!!!!!

[rancer890]

Good luck roberto. I just had a heartattack. Look at my thread for more details.

[roberto922]

34th minute - 2-1 Giles Barnes Penalty
42nd minute - 3-1! Rui Fonte slammed it in

[roberto922]

Full Time 3-1! AFC Wimbledon are Premier League Champions FA Cup final up next

[rancer890]

Congratulations roberto!!!

[roberto922]

Thank you

[roberto922]

FA Cup final - 1-0 up at half time

[roberto922]

2-1 Fulltime

[rancer890]

Congratz on winning the double!

[roberto922]

What a season

[dafuge]

Thinking about FM09, are there any rule changes that people would like to see?

One I'm considering is the banning of parent clubs. It seems that decent players are far too easy to get on loan this way, which can make the first couple of seasons too easy if you get lucky with a club that sends you a few players.

[daemonic]

I'd be in favour of no parent clubs however one problem with banning parent clubs is the board sometimes set one up whether you ask for it or not. It's a good idea but could get messy.

[canvey!!]

It depends: if you feel enough people can get parent clubs for it to be considered fair, keep it as it is. If you feel there is too much of an imbalance caused by the parent club feature, disallow it.

[dafuge]

I'd be in favour of no parent clubs however one problem with banning parent clubs is the board sometimes set one up whether you ask for it or not. It's a good idea but could get messy.

I'd forgotten that happens and you're right, it would be hard to police and that's the last thing I want to be doing.

Hopefully with FM09 it won't be a problem, but I don't really want a repeat of what happened in the Wallace vs Roberts thread where some teams are able to get hold of a 40 goal a season superstar who single-handedly gets the club promoted.

Perhaps it's just best to leave it down to individuals to decided how they want to play it.

[daemonic]

Fingers crossed FM09 will be better in terms of realistic loans. IRL, the only time I recall a top team loaning out a youngster who then proceeds to rip a league apart was West Ham loaning Defoe to a League 2 team way back when. Other than that loanees rarely make the headlines by being a class apart from everyone else in the division.

You could always add some guidelines that people can choose to follow. No need to police them but anyone who does play within the guidelines (realistic loans etc.) will have the satisfaction of knowing they made the game tougher for themselves and still succeeded.

[roberto922]

How about if you can't have a parent club until League Two/ League One? I say that because having Arsenal loanees did help me alot in BSS and BSP but the effect of loanees was alot smaller once I hit League football.

[NepentheZ]

Thinking about FM09, are there any rule changes that people would like to see?

One I'm considering is the banning of parent clubs. It seems that decent players are far too easy to get on loan this way, which can make the first couple of seasons too easy if you get lucky with a club that sends you a few players.

I don't think banning them is the way forward. I think a rule should be put in place regarding them, but it would be highly unfair for a club of BSS / BSP stature to firstly miss out on the finances from the link, but also a couple of fringe players. I do think that perhaps a 2 division max should be put in place. So BSN/BSS clubs must have a parent club from Div. 2 or BSP. BSP clubs from Div. 1 or Div. 2 and so on and so forth.

[daemonic]

But what if the board go and set up a Prem team as a parent and don't give you any option to reject it? While in it's a good idea it just may not be practical.

[roberto922]

So just don't let people choose one themselves but don't punish them if their board gets one?

[dafuge]

I don't think banning them is the way forward. I think a rule should be put in place regarding them, but it would be highly unfair for a club of BSS / BSP stature to firstly miss out on the finances from the link, but also a couple of fringe players. I do think that perhaps a 2 division max should be put in place. So BSN/BSS clubs must have a parent club from Div. 2 or BSP. BSP clubs from Div. 1 or Div. 2 and so on and so forth.

It's not the parent club itself I want to get rid of, I'm all in favour of that. It's the players they lend out who do not belong in the BSN/S which I'm not happy with.

[daemonic]

So just don't let people choose one themselves but don't punish them if their board gets one?

I think the news item for both methods of getting a Parent club is much the same so no way of knowing if the board imposed the new parent club or the manager choose them.

It could all be academic, SI may have fixed this (unrealistic loanee's playing for BSN/BSS teams) as part of the totally rewritten transfer system. The demo should give a fair indication if this is the case and gives plenty of time for new rules to be decided upon before the full release and people start the challenge proper.

[roberto922]

TBH I don't see what's bad about players making the most of what's given to them, if you're offered a choice of Arsenal, Leeds or Charlton as a feeder club you're gonna go for Arsenal, why would you go for the lesser version? It's like being offered a choice between a Sega Megadrive or a PS3.

[dafuge]

TBH I don't see what's bad about players making the most of what's given to them, if you're offered a choice of Arsenal, Leeds or Charlton as a feeder club you're gonna go for Arsenal, why would you go for the lesser version? It's like being offered a choice between a Sega Megadrive or a PS3.

I think that the parent clubs and they players they loan out are a bit flawed in FM08 and generally we don't like making the most out of flaws in the game while playing this challenge. I'm hoping that this won't be the case with FM09 but just in case I'm thinking about ways around it.

[daemonic]

Simplest solution would just be to ban loaning players completely and ask everyone to include a screen shot of the seasons transfer history in their season updates.

[roberto922]

Loaning is and always has been a big part of LLM since before feeder clubs/parent clubs were even thought of. Plus it still doesn't solve the problem of your board getting you a parent club :/

[daemonic]

Loaning is and always has been a big part of LLM since before feeder clubs/parent clubs were even thought of. Plus it still doesn't solve the problem of your board getting you a parent club :/

As Dafuge has said, the parent club isn't the unrealistic bit, it's the players they send and while you may have no choice about a parent club you can reject the loan transfers.
And I agree, loans can be necessary when wage budgets are tight and you have a transfer of budget £0 but if they are unrealistic then maybe no loans is the simplest option that can be proved with screenshots.

[dafuge]

I'm quite happy with loaning players in general, it's when you get loaned a £1m rated striker who scores you 40 goals and gets you promoted that I don't like.

[daemonic]

I'm quite happy with loaning players in general, it's when you get loaned a £1m rated striker who scores you 40 goals and gets you promoted that I don't like.

Possibly set limitations on the value of a player that can be loaned (although time remaining on a contract may skew this). If it is workable though you could have a list of leagues and the max value of a loanee player for each (BSS/BSN Max value 100k, BSP Max Value 250k etc) with screenshots on the day of the transfer as proof. All very laborious...here's hoping SI have made this a non-problem

[roberto922]

TBH that's complicating things, IMO one of the most attractive parts of this challenge is that it's simple to do but hard to complete, if you start adding rules and regulatons all over the shop it would damage the enjoyment which HAS to be the most important factor.

[dafuge]

TBH that's complicating things, IMO one of the most attractive parts of this challenge is that it's simple to do but hard to complete, if you start adding rules and regulatons all over the shop it would damage the enjoyment which HAS to be the most important factor.

Exactly. To make things simple it might be best to not have any rules on it, but have a guideline which people can choose to follow if they wish.

I'm hoping that with the demo we can all test it out and decide if it is needed at all.

[daemonic]

TBH that's complicating things, IMO one of the most attractive parts of this challenge is that it's simple to do but hard to complete, if you start adding rules and regulatons all over the shop it would damage the enjoyment which HAS to be the most important factor.

I agree. I'm just throwing ideas around but ideally none of them will be needed. We're only discussing it because of a flaw in the FM08 loan signing implementation so with a bit of luck it won't even be an issue in FM09.
I could also see the lack of loans actually damaging the success of the challenge. We all know that in any of these challenges the first season or 2 can be extremely frustrating as you just try to get 11 bodies on the pitch so the ease of loaning good players in FM08 probably got a lot of people past those early seasons. Once you're a few seasons in its much tougher to abandon a save.
BUT, if there are no easy loans in FM09 a lot more could give up early on.

[roberto922]

Yeah that's best IMO, if people want to follow the guidelines (I won't be getting a prem side as a parent club this time) it'll just make it more of an achievement and gives them more braggin rights, whereas the people that decide to get a top parent club and exploit other things won't have achieved as much but it'll still have been fun for them.

[daemonic]

So we're all agreed then, nothing changes

[roberto922]

Well I am, I think we'd need the opinions of the other regulars like NepentheZ etc.

[minisav]

TBH I don't see what's bad about players making the most of what's given to them, if you're offered a choice of Arsenal, Leeds or Charlton as a feeder club you're gonna go for Arsenal, why would you go for the lesser version? It's like being offered a choice between a Sega Megadrive or a PS3.

Megadrive everytime obviously

I did actually choose a megadrive over a 360 a couple of Christmases ago. I was waiting for the PS3 to come out

[NepentheZ]

I'm quite happy with loaning players in general, it's when you get loaned a £1m rated striker who scores you 40 goals and gets you promoted that I don't like.

Just to be finicky, does this mean that if we sign a player not on loan that scores 40+ goals, you've also don't like that? Value imo means nothing, and is too largely linked to reputation of the club. But I could find a 40+ BSP striker who's valued at no more than £50,000 in a heart beat.

[minisav]

If he is likely to come to a club of that stature then it's alright isn't?

He's more moaning about the fact that a Prem player wouldn't go on loan to a BSN/BSS club.