Forget Müller, here come the Magpies

The Challenge

After my last career with Fabian Müller came to an end, I have decided to move on to something totally different. It's a youth challenge, largely inspired by hrbfc and Makoto Nakamura, although I'm doing it in England. Firstly because I like the idea of a long struggle up the leagues, and secondly because I always sucked in my feeble attempts at dafuge's challenge and I want to finally rectify the situation.

This career will be played as Maurizio Orlandini, an Italian with a blistering strike rate in my old Roma team. Most of the time though he was 'doing a Hargreaves', so I figured the touchline would probably suit him down to the ground.

Why Dorchester? Three reasons really. They're an old club, established in 1880, they own their own youth setup, and they're pretty rubbish.

Club Info

General Info

Thankfully the BSS has 22 teams, meaning that the media prediction of 18th places us outside the relegation spots. Top stuff.

Facilities

Sadly we don't own the ground, but 5,000 capacity is reasonable for this level, and £1 rent per year shouldn't be too arduous.

The board offered a wide range of choices to me.

Given such a wide variety, I went with the least ambitious option.

Team Info

As for the calibre of the team, here are my three stars... a taster, if you will.

Ashley Nicholls - The central midfielder is a fine passer of the ball, and I suppose his mentals aren't bad.

Kyle Critchell - A great header of the ball, and also decent at marking and tackling. Naturally, with such horrific pace and crossing he'd be a useless full-ba... no, wait, he is a full-back.

Sebastian Broomfield - With fine natural fitness, this guy will keep on... oh, sod it. I'm fed up of coming up with nice things to say. If this guy is my 3rd best player, a striker with finishing of 6 and acceleration and pace of 8 and 9 respectively, things aren't looking good.

I hope next year's youth prospects are impressive.

Prediction

Slow and agonising failure.

Good luck SnootyJim, may you have the patience and strength to one day battle it out with the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, and perhaps, West Ham United in the big boys league!!!!!

I support Yeovil in real life and we have links with Dorchester so will watch this with interest

Good luck with this great journey.

Good luck with this.

Looks as though it's going to be a long season with your top stiker having finishing of 6!

Fingers crossed for some decent youth players next season.

Good luck SnootyJim, may you have the patience and strength to one day battle it out with the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, and perhaps, West Ham United in the big boys league!!!!!

I hope so! It could be a very long time

I support Yeovil in real life and we have links with Dorchester so will watch this with interest

Thanks! Yeovil just missed out on the playoffs by 3 points, they had a terrific run at the end of the season but undone by a very average start.

Good luck with this great journey.

Cheers!

Good luck with this.

Looks as though it's going to be a long season with your top stiker having finishing of 6!

Fingers crossed for some decent youth players next season.

It's funny you should mention him...

Sounds like fun. Good luck.

Best of luck with Dorchester

Competitions

League Table - League Positions

Started in terrific form, and I really thought we might be challenging for the playoff places by the end of the season. Regrettably our form totally collapsed around game 30, and we suffered loss after loss.

FA Cup - We were very unlucky to draw Eastleigh in the first round, who very nearly won the BSS. They totally overpowered us in the end.

FA Trophy - Should've done a lot better against Eastbourne Town, and Dartford proved the point, taking a 3-0 lead inside half an hour. We pulled three goals back, but in doing so conceded another 2. A sad loss, but against a BSS team it didn't hurt too much.

Players

Squad

Even Bloomfield, my best striker (with finishing of 6), was rubbish, and then I found out that we'd owe £30k when he played his 20th game. I couldn't afford that, so he left on a free transfer. Also, we've been losing a lot of money, so all of the salaried players will be leaving at the end of the year, hopefully to be replaced with youth stars - all of the money saved will be ploughed into youth projects.

I've signed almost every single youth player available this season, to replace the main squad players who quit, so I'm going to hold off on uploading their information for now, until I know who's breaking into the first team. Suffice to say, there should be a lot of opportunities opening up next time around.

Best of luck with Dorchester

Sounds like fun. Good luck.

Thanks a lot

Decent first season, despite the collapse late on.

At least you beat what the bookies had for you But now you get to build the squad you want. Best of luck in the next season.

Not a bad start at all. Shame it tailed off, but still a lot better than you originally thought!

Decent first season, despite the collapse late on.

At least you beat what the bookies had for you But now you get to build the squad you want. Best of luck in the next season.

Not a bad start at all. Shame it tailed off, but still a lot better than you originally thought!

Many thanks for your optimism! Sadly though, it may have been a little misplaced...

February brought this news:

The worst thing is, it was totally and utterly deserved. We were terrible and I couldn't really see any hope from a very early stage. We didn't move from 21st place from the 7th game until the 29th, when I was sacked.

Letting all of the salaried players go was a huge gamble, and it totally failed. We did invest all of the money in youth, and I honestly thought that we'd be able to hold things together until they developed and proved their worth, but I was far too quick to dismiss the value of experience.

For now, I'm going to go on holiday for a while and see if any new opportunities come up.

Thats a pity.

Damned Dorchester. They have always had ideas way above their station.

Well, no luck getting any jobs in 2 years' holiday, rejected from everything. Fair enough really.

I decided to create a new manager, and look for a newly promoted club to join.

Deja-vu anybody?

Fancy that.

And just as the new seasons kicks off, I've got a crash dump that I can't get sorted

Looks like this is over for the second time.

Okay, take that back - I've managed to fix it by going back to an earlier save and doing things slightly different.

Hope that it stays healthy. Funny on being back as Dorchester!

Hope that it stays healthy. Funny on being back as Dorchester!

It seemed a bit of a crazy thing to do, but I feel a bit of responsibility to correct my old mistakes! Thankfully the save seems fine now.

Hard to see who might stand out from this crop, so early in the game. 3.5 stars would mean a guaranteed first team place in my current squad, so all of these guys could theoretically make it. I'll be signing all of them - I considered not bothering with Cox or Kelly, but for the sake of £10 per week for the pair, I think it's worth it. If too many players refuse to sign new contracts, they'll be useful as backup players.

As I mentioned in the previous update, I won't be tagging any of them until they've broken into the first team, as there are just so many youths that looks like potential first teamers.

Nonetheless, the "standout", if you can call him that, is Philani Ngcobo.

He's got some good attributes in the right places, so with a bit of training he might be a decent player, but it all feels like a total lottery at this stage. There's very little to pick between them.

Very good intake.

Great intake! At least on paper

Very good intake.

Great intake! At least on paper

Thanks. Hopefully they'll progress quickly - I really need some depth in the squad and the sooner I can start promoting the youngsters, the better.

Since I'm starting from scratch, I'll call this Season 1. Will make things easier to track... and I'd like to forget about my first stint

Competitions

League Table - League Positions

We started off in indifferent form, only just keeping away from the relegation spots. We had a terrific run towards the end of the season, during which I won Manager of the Month two months in a row - that got us up to 11th, and ensured our safety really. I was hoping we could push on and perhaps sneak a playoff place, but we fell away again. We were never at risk of going down, but it was very disappointing.

FA Cup - I put out the reserves, given that Fareham are playing in the Wessex Premier. Youth product Denny Loxton played a blinder in the centre of defence, scoring 2 of his 4 career goals in one game, but everybody else was woeful and we were outplayed. A draw would've been harsh on Fareham.

FA Trophy - This reserve team had no virtuoso performance, meaning that whilst we again conceded 3 goals, we had nothing in reply. I probably should have put a better squad out, but I'm very concerned about the prospect of relegation. A cup run can wait.

Players

Squad

We've got some good academy players already in the team (although not under my present reign), particularly Denny Loxton and Wally Court, so that bodes well for the future. We really need them to start improving though - there's a lot of potential, but unless I start to see some of it we'll struggle again next season. All I want to do really is survive - once the youth players start to come through and flesh out the ranks I will happily settle for another season like this one. At least for now.

You're safe this time That's a step up!

Good potential of you can avoid another late drop-off.

My first star! I managed to upgrade our Junior Coaching to "Good" just before the intake, and what a difference it has made. In terms of the youth pecking order, the best talent from 2015 is now 4th, behind Haley, Pryce and Carey. Haley will be going straight into the first team, and hopefully the others can keep developing. They should break into the first team fairly rapidly, since some of my first team squad have only 1.5 stars.

I'll freely admit that he doesn't appear to be too great a talent in terms of attributes - poor passing for a centre mid, and jumping and strength aren't great for a centre back, but he's the first kid to make the team so I don't care

He's got a long time to improve, and hopefully high natural fitness + stamina means he'll be able to play fairly regularly in the first team. Also, I'll have to train him as a DC and MC as I don't use a DM, but he's already very capable in those positions.

Now the question is this: can I hold onto my job until the end of the season...

You're safe this time That's a step up!

Good potential of you can avoid another late drop-off.

If I can replicate my success of last season I'll be delighted

I'm 4 points from safety, with 9 games to go. Fingers very much crossed!

Competitions

League Table - League Positions

Just to be surprising, we did everything backwards this season. Started off in terrific form, winning the first two games, one of which was against Eastleigh, the league's biggest side and ultimate 4th place finishers. Then we were useless, and towards the end of the season I thought we were going down for certain. We had a rallying team meeting though, and it seemed to do the trick. 3 wins, 4 draws, and 3 losses in the final 10 games isn't exactly blistering form, but we limped into 19th place, and that's what matters. On the plus side, Dartford have been promoted... every game against them seemed to be an auto-defeat.

FA Cup - We actually had a bit of a cup run this year, although scraping past Newport and Havant wasn't exactly the stuff of legends. Eastleigh were far too powerful though, and we proved unable to repeat our league form. We netted some vital cash though, far more than I was expecting - the game against Havant brought £16k in gate receipts as compared to the previous record of £7k.

FA Trophy - Decidedly less impressive, yet another cup match against a team from Eastbourne. As usual, we gifted a goal away despite matching our opponents. Thankfully the board were forgiving about that one.

Club

Finances - A complete and total mess. I'm ignoring them for now and praying that we can hold things together until things improve. I certainly can't afford to cut costs.

Facilities - Sadly the training facilities were downgraded, and we can't afford to improve them, but Junior Coaching is my primary concern for now. Getting that up to Good has been terrific for the club.

Players

Squad

Very much an improving squad. Between them, Hornby, Wearne, Court and Loxton have secured the centre of midfield, leaving club captain Jamie Symes to make just 10 league starts. Given that he was a mainstay in previous seasons, it shows just how far we've come. You can also see how good a player Haley (YP1) is compared to everybody else. All I really need now is a good striker. Tyrone Marsh is the only player with any kind of consistency, and even he was going 10 hours between goals at times. Mind you, at £130 per goal that's probably a good thing!

Nathan Haley (YP1) - By no means a blistering start, but 6.61 average rating is certainly okay compared to the rest of the team. Only 2 league starts, the other 6 coming from the bench - I've started him off slowly but next season I'll probably use him a lot more from the start.

We've just had a small takeover, nothing to get excited about though.

I was particularly pleased to see that the owner had invested about £35k in the club though, bringing us back in to the black. Well, I say that...

I'm sure we'll get along just great.

Wow....is that what they call a shrewd businessman?

I've changed my mind, actually I do like him...

Not such a bad guy after all.

And our next inductee joins the official YP ranks:

He'll be making his debut in the next game. He's presently the 6th best CB in the squad, but since Loxton and Court tend to play in midfield he's really the 4th best - his debut has been coming for a while. Hopefully him and Haley (YP1) can form a good partnership in the future.

If I'm being honest, the debut could've gone better.

His career can only get better from here.

The one thing I definitely didn't need was CBs, so of course I got two of them. Basically I've got a whole new back four, of which I desperately needed a DR so that's great. Then Daniel Hopper comes straight in as first choice striker alongside Billy Ions, and Harold Radcliffe will be retrained as an ML (already competent). Really is an excellent crop of youngsters - exactly what I needed. I would've appreciated a good ML and another striker, but hopefully Radcliffe will take to the ML position quickly. Can't complain to be honest! Upgrading to excellent has really boosted the quality of youth players, but at a massive financial cost. Hopefully they'll step up quickly enough to recoup the outlay.

Mike Greenwood (YP3)

Ethan Blunt (YP4)

Kenneth Adu (YP5)

Junior Cochrane (YP6)

Daniel Hopper (YP7)

Now that is how to make your debut! I've been able to shave £600 off the weekly wage budget by letting four players go - Jamie Symes was my RB, Liam McGovern was a DL and DR, Salvatore D'Arrigo was a CB, and so was Alan Inns. The sheer quality of the new defenders made them all fairly redundant, and I could definitely do with saving the money. Sean Canham will also be leaving at the end of the season, as the striker has been deteriorating for a while (32 now) and with his request for a rise from £300 to £400 p/w I'll be letting Hopper and Western prove themselves instead.

Competitions

League Table - League Positions

This is almost becoming predictable. We had a great start, but couldn't keep it up. Morale was pretty poor for the whole season, and it was a real struggle to get things going again. Our form picked up after the new youth intake joined the first team, so hopefully that's a taster of what's to come.

FA Cup - Another reasonable cup run. We easily beat rivals Weymouth from the Souther Premier, although Lewes, relegated from the BSS last season, should have been despatched without a replay. Havant eventually placed 8th in the BSS, and were just far too strong for us on the day.

FA Trophy - A good win against Sutton Utd took us through to the first round, but Truro as a reasonable BSP team were much stronger than us and we just never got going at all.

Club

Finances - We're now heavily in debt, thanks to the rising costs of the youth setup. This season it cost us even more than the player wages, £233k compared to £70k in the previous eason.

Facilities - And the reason for those losses - the excellent junior coaching. Having said that, it brought us players of sufficient calibre to give us a chance of moving up the table. I guess this is the problem with youth challenges where the Champions League isn't a factor.

Players

Squad

There's really no comparison with previous squads. YPs now take up 7 spots in the top 11 players. Given the huge quality available to me in the centre of midfield, especially since Haley (YP1), Loxton and Court shouldn't be needed in defence any more, and the lack of quality up front, I'll be shifting to a 4-5-1 next season to see how that fares. We could certainly do with leaking fewer goals so hopefully that will help. We're still lacking depth on the wings, and a top quality striker, but hopefully Hopper (YP7) can really push on next year.

Nathan Haley (YP1) - Easily of my best players, Haley filled in both MC and DC positions as required and made a total of 40 appearances.

Tadhg McCormack (YP2) - He didn't join the first XI for a while, but he has improved phenomenally in the last few months, going from a backup to a first choice. He'll have to work hard to keep his place ahead of the new graduates though.

Mike Greenwood (YP3) - What a start! 7 games played, with 3 goals scored. He may spend a bit of time out on the right next season given the talent in central defence, but he's a terrific talent.

Ethan Blunt (YP4) - Still only 15, he's my best DC along with Greenwood. Didn't start in great form, but hopefully he'll settle in quickly next year.

Kenneth Adu (YP5) - Solid start from the LB. He'll have to work hard to get a place ahead of first choice David Papworth, but his form so far has been pretty good, excluding his debut red card!

Junior Cochrane (YP6) - We've been crying out for a top quality RB, so he should get a lot of games next season. Decent start from him this year.

Daniel Hopper (YP7) - Some pretty poor performances, and only 1 goal in 7 games. He's still my best striker alongside Ions though - fingers crossed he gets his shooting boots on, we could do with a goalscorer.

It's dull when there's that much of a pattern repeating, the youth might give you a bit more of a kick.

It's dull when there's that much of a pattern repeating, the youth might give you a bit more of a kick.

We've started off in very promising style this year. Hopper (YP7) has come on leaps and bounds and is playing out of his skin at the moment - I think the 4-5-1 has really helped by focussing our play in the areas where we've got talent.

Obviously I can't say whether we'll drop off in the next few games, but we've not been so high up the leagues for so long in any season thus far.

And another one joins the ranks - Harold Radcliffe, as I expected he might.

He'll be filling in the left of midfield since Wayne Wearne always seems to struggle with fatigue. His first couple of games have been very promising, one assist to his name already.

I really don't believe what's been happening so far this season... absolutely insane stuff.

Not so impressive this year, but glad to get a left-mid. If Burke or Baverstock do well there should be some openings up front in the reasonably near future as well.

Competitions

League Table - League Positions

A good start as usual, but this time round we managed to keep it up. Admittedly we didn't achieve anything particularly special, but I feel as though it was a big improvement over previous seasons. There were many more sharp performances, and with Hopper up front we finally had a man with an eye for goal. In the end, we really struggled with fatigue and played a lot of matches with reserve team contribution - virtually all of my YPs needed long periods of rest. As they get older I'm hoping that will get better and they'll be able to put in much longer shifts.

FA Cup - We were lucky this time to get some very generous draws. Horsham and Bashley from in the Isthmian and Southern Premier leagues respectively in the first two qualifying games was very generous. In the next round though, BSP side Eastleigh - an old bogey team of ours - away from home. I didn't expect much, but Tyrone Marsh got us off to a stunning start after just 11 minutes. We played deep, hoping we could hold on, but Eastleigh inevitably broke through on 63 minutes. We held firm though, forcing a replay at the Avenue Stadium.

Sadly Eastleigh scored in just the 2nd minute, and proceeded to batter us all game. We could manage just one shot on target... and Denny Loxton scored it, in the 81st minute. We played through to penalties, and whilst Wally Court missed his, Eastleigh missed two of their own, putting us through to the 1st Round. There were some big teams in the draw, so we were delighted to find ourselves playing Basingstoke - who had only just been promoted from the BSS in the previous season. In a carbon copy of the Eastleigh matches, we drew 1-1 away, and then in the home match Denny Loxton equalised for us late on to bring us back on level terms at 1-1. This time though, Kyle Critchell got himself sent off in the 94th minute, leaving us 26 minutes in which to hang on as we again were totally outplayed. We hung on until penalties though, and Basingstoke obligingly missed all of their first three, putting us through to the 2nd Round.

We were drawn away at League 2 Stevenage, but I was delighted to see that they were in a terrible run of form, languishing near the bottom of the table. As always, we played defensively, and scored 2 goals early on to put some real pressure on Stevenage. Keeper Cameron Gregg scored an own goal to give Stevenage a chance, but they lost their heads and received five bookings, one of which was a second yellow. It was a close game overall, and we probably deserved the win. This is where the real cup began - in the 3rd Round. I was praying for United or Arsenal away, and I was delighted to see that we got the mighty Tamworth. Another generous draw meant instead of Premier League giants or Championship outfits, we played a team playing very averagely in the BSP. They gave us a real lesson away from home, taking 67% of the possession. Our defensive tactics however restricted them to just 2 shots on target. We didn't get a single one, but we didn't need to score - all I wanted was a replay at home. Tyrone Marsh nearly screwed it up for us with a second yellow in the 71st minute, but we held firm. The home match was incredibly hairy - we went with the same tactic again, and both teams were restricted to just 2 shots on target. Very little happened, and we passed into extra time without anything of note developing. With 7 minutes to go though, Haley (YP1) grabbed the ball on the right wing and pulled it back to Hopper (YP7), who slotted home to grab a very late victory.

In the 4th Round we again escaped the really big targets, and went up against League 1 Oxford United - thankfully though, we were playing at home... we'd need every advantage we could get. Again we were probably outplayed, but again we restricted an opposing side's attacking prowess, permitting them just 3 opportunities on goal. Just after half time, Hopper (YP7) was played through and the Oxford defence, playing a very high line, couldn't get near him. He took it wide, rounded the keeper, and slotted home to give us a famous victory. Yet again, we prayed for a big match, and we sort of got it.

We also got what had been coming.

I was absolutely ecstatic though. We brought in perhaps £600k from gate receipts, TV and prize money, and had some terrific games along the way. I was hoping to force Wolves to a replay, but that was probably a little optimistic. They totally took us to pieces, and when I think about the calibre of players - people like Fletcher, Cisse, Shelvey, Gosling, Barkley, Vertonghen... not to mention Danny Graham and Elmohamady on the bench... it's hardly surprising. Hopefully one day we'll be on a par with sides like Wolves, but not quite yet!

FA Trophy - Not much to see here. The early rounds came in the midst of the FA Cup, so I put out the reserves. One good result, but that was it.

Club

Finances - The TV, prize money and gate receipts combined helped us massively here. Based on last season's figures, it should give us 4 years of solvency - hopefully by then we'll have achieved promotion... or another cup run!

Facilities - No changes here.

Players

Squad

The increase in quality across the squad is really showing. One of the beauties of this challenge is that a player can be average at the beginning of the season, and a first team star by the end of it. Lewis Hornby was easily my best player according to the assistant manager a while back - now he's merely on a par with virtually all of the YPs.

Nathan Haley (YP1) - One of the mainstays of the team, Haley was incredibly important - if nothing else because he could actually manage to play week in, week out. He even played in one more match than my 1st choice keeper!

Tadhg McCormack (YP2) - Typically played second fiddle to the new boys, but given the fitness issues he still made 47 appearances. Still improving and having signed a bumper new contract, he will likely have another good season next time round.

Mike Greenwood (YP3) - Didn't quite meet the lofty heights of his debut, but an okay performance. He missed a huge number of games and never really got a good run of form going, so I'm hoping he'll get over his teething issues next year.

Ethan Blunt (YP4) - Developed very quickly, and became a bit of a utility man spending time out on the right and in central midfield. Very reliable, if nothing else.

Kenneth Adu (YP5) - One of the better players this year. He's got good speed, dribbling and passing for this level so an increase on 2 assists would be nice.

Junior Cochrane (YP6) - Should have been playing every game with our lack of ability at RB, but Greenwood and Blunt spent a lot of time there instead. Never quite got going this season.

Daniel Hopper (YP7) - This guy went from being Mr Average, no better than Billy Ions, to one of the best players in the team. 14 goals in his first full season from 29 starts isn't at all bad, and it's also the highest tally of any Dorchester player in FM12. He bailed us out many a time this season... if he doesn't win player of the year it will be a travesty.

Harold Radcliffe (YP8) - Mixed year for Radcliffe. He's improving on the left-wing, and is now equal in the assistant manager's eyes to first choice Wearne, but Wearne's a young and improving lad himself and Harry Bryan will be pushing him hard next time round. I tried him out in his less-favoured CM position a couple of times, but he was pretty woeful, so he'll have to stick to ML for now.

Harry Bryan (YP9) - Hasn't made the breakthrough yet, but almost certainly will next season.

Oh, and this was a very pleasant piece of news on which to end the season:

Still 'same old' I see.

Promoted some new youngsters this year when I let go of some more of the relics:

Ricky Benson (YP10) - Mainly a backup DR/MR

Thomas Pryce (YP11) - Another backup MR

John Carey (YP12) - New 1st choice GK

Geoff Western (YP13) - Backup striker