Enter the Dragons

Now I've finally bought FM14, I am going to write about my career save on it.

I have loaded all playable divisions from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Italy & Spain. I've started out with ex-pro rep. I'm playing on Football Manager Classic.

I've started out in the Skrill South with Basingstoke Town, a club nicknamed the Dragons.

2013/14 – BASINGSTOKE TOWN – SKRILL SOUTH

Board expectations: Respectable league position

Media Prediction: 15th

Things start off with a frankly poor pre-season. Friendly performances are sub-par, and mostly end up with losses.

The league season however starts well enough, with 3 wins from the first 4 games. Things soon head south though, as the next 12 games yield only 1 win and 2 draws, meaning by this point we're well and truly in trouble.

Much of the season is spent in the relegation zone, without being able to put together a serious run of results, although wins and draws do come. We finally pull out of the bottom 3 with 7 games to go, and with a reasonable final few games manage to survive – just. It does go down to the final day and although we only manage a 1-1 draw with Eastbourne, Dorchester losing meant we were 2 points clear of the drop zone. Cups were basically rubbish – we reached the 3rd qualifying round of the FA Cup and were knocked out of the FA Trophy in the first round.

Despite failing to meet expectations in all competitions and the wages being over the budget, I am offered a new one-year contract at the end of the season, which I accepted.

LEAGUE TABLE

English competition winners:

Premier League: Chelsea

FA Cup: Chelsea

League Cup: Chelsea

Johnstone's Paint Trophy: Wolves

FA Trophy: Grimsby Town

European competition winners:

Champions League: Barcelona

Europa League: Atletico Madrid

Super Cup: Barcelona

World Cup 2014

Winners: Spain

It was tournament to forget for Brazil, Germany and England, as all of them failed to qualify for the knockout stages, England managing to finish bottom of their group.

That was close Kev.

Indeed. Nothing like a final day relegation showdown to keep things interesting! At least for once I ended up on the right side of it!

I think it takes that first season to work out tactics which actually work when you first start a new version of FM!

As a born and bred Basingstoker, I keep an eye on them in my games (despite not liking the club very much), and they seem to always be relegated in the first few years, disappearing into obscurity. So, as long as you're staying up, you're doing better than FM seems to predict for them!

As a born and bred Basingstoker, I keep an eye on them in my games (despite not liking the club very much), and they seem to always be relegated in the first few years, disappearing into obscurity. So, as long as you're staying up, you're doing better than FM seems to predict for them!

Funnily enough, I grew up in Eastleigh but cheer more for Basingstoke than Eastleigh. In my previous save back on FM12, I actually got Basingstoke promoted to the Conference, but wasn't able to do any better than that before moving on.

2014/15 – BASINGSTOKE TOWN – SKRILL SOUTH

Board expectation: Mid-table finish

Media Prediction: 15th

In the close season, I had a bit of a clearout, releasing 14 players – some of which I chose to release, some of which simply chose not to sign new contracts, despite being offered new deals.

A rebuild of the squad was started in earnest, and the pre-season friendlies were promising enough with some good performances. However, when the season kicked off, the squad was still a little threadbare due to difficulty in recruiting in some positions (not helped by the lower than ideal wage budget).

Still, the season kicked off reasonably well, with 6 wins from the first 10 games, and at this point we were playing well and looking good. These things never last though, and the next 14 games in the league were loss after agonising loss, with only 3 points to show from those 14 games.

Unsurprisingly, we were hovering dangerously close to the drop zone, when out of nowhere we went on a run of 10 games undefeated (5 wins, 5 draws) and at that point the form yet again nosedived. Still, we managed to stay safe with a game to spare thanks to a timely win. Just as well, as had we lost that second-to-last game, we would have had a relegation showdown against St Albans (and if this had been the case, we'd have been relegated thanks to a 3-2 loss). However, what I would say is that even during those poor runs, we didn't look that terrible. We seemed to just lack that touch in front of goal (and many of the goals conceded were either from set pieces or down to inexplicable individual errors).

Cups were again poor, being knocked out at the first hurdle in both the FA Cup and FA Trophy.

On another note, if anybody can tell me why the form goes like this, I'd be grateful! There were only very minor tweaks in tactics (mainly in terms of player roles). I was left bemused by the Jekyll & Hyde nature of it all.

Final position: 18th

LEAGUE TABLE

English competition winners:

Premier League: Chelsea

FA Cup: Manchester United

League Cup: Liverpool

Johnstone's Paint Trophy: Brentford

FA Trophy: Cambridge United

European competition winners:

Champions League: SL Benfica

Europa League: Manchester United

Super Cup: Barcelona

It's your tactics.

2015/16 – BASINGSTOKE TOWN – SKRILL SOUTH

Board expectation: Mid-table finish

Media Prediction: 15th

For the 3rd season in a row, the media were predicting a 15th place finish (they're not very imaginative). We had a thoroughly mediocre pre-season, as we'd had quite a clear-out at the end of last season as I had to let a number of players go as I couldn't afford to meet their wage demands, and so I had to try and get a number of new players to gel.

It started pretty badly as well, losing the first 3 league matches, before a slight tweak in tactics brought about an improvement that lasted up until the turn of the year. As 2016 arrived, we were sitting in a comfortable mid-table position and we had a 3rd round FA Cup tie to look forward to, a home tie against Championship side Peterborough. We gave Peterborough a bit of a scare, but in the end the greater fitness and quality proved decisive and Peterborough progressed after a 5-2 win (we had pulled it back to 3-2 and looked good for a draw after Peterborough had raced into a 3-0 lead). Despite the loss, the high attendance did wonders to boost the bank balance.

At this point in time, the league form took a bit of a nosedive, not helped by a number of injuries to key players, meaning I was often needing to play several players from the youth/reserve squad.

In the end, we were never in any danger of relegation. Although we yet again finished in 18th, we were 10 points clear of the 20th placed side.

LEAGUE TABLE

English competition winners:

Premier League – Liverpool

FA Cup – Chelsea

League Cup – Swansea City

Johnstone's Paint Trophy – Doncaster Rovers

FA Trophy – Dagenham & Redbridge

European Competition winners:

Champions League – Chelsea

Europa League – Valencia

Euro 2016

Italy ended up winning the European championship, beating England in the final. England had scraped through the group stage, finishing 3rd in their group!

You're consistent Kev.

Consistently carp (to steal an old LLM phrase).

Honestly, the whole tactics thing in FM14 has me bamboozled. FM12 I managed to get some good results with a bit of trial and error, but here I'm just struggling. None of the changes I've been making (and I've been careful not to change too much at once) have made the slightest bit of difference.

It got the point to where I did something I've never done - posted in the tactics forum with a 'what the hell am I doing wrong' type message, as my team haven't been playing badly, just the results haven't been what they should be. Not much, it turns out based on the feedback. That said, the couple of little pointers have done little to turn things around.

It's not even like the players I have are massively below the standard for the division. It does just feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall.

(As you will notice, things such as the above are reasons I no longer frequent the LLM board, along with dabbling in edited databases, to play lower levels in England and in one very interesting game playing in the Cook Islands. I can no longer consider myself LLM!).

God, I'm crap at tactics and just started on the new game.

God, I'm crap at tactics and just started on the new game.

I'm certainly no tactical genius but was able to do OK with some trial & error on FM10 & 12 (I skilled 11 & 13). But FM14 is something else. I'd always been happy to be the architect of my own successes and failures going back to when I could class myself as LLM, but FM14 had left me stumped.

I've made some further small changes, (these ones all of my own accord) and there is some improvement I've noticed. Time will tell how it goes! Good luck with your FM14 save. I look forward to reading about it, as I had done with your FM11 save.

2016/17 – BASINGSTOKE TOWN – SKRILL SOUTH

Board expectations: Consolidation

Media Prediction: 17th

So, the season began after a thoroughly mediocre pre-season. Board and media expectations were suitably low.

It was looking to be a high-scoring season as it all started. Our first 3 games in the league had a whopping 20 goals between them, as we started with a 3-2 win, followed by a 3-3 draw and then a 5-4 loss.

After that, the goals weren't quite so free-flowing. At least not from us. We conceded plenty though. After a few games, it was clear we were struggling, so I made a change to the system. This yielded reasonable results for the first 4 games before reverting to the struggle, and so I reverted back to something similar to the original system.

Ultimately, none of it worked, and after 32 games I tendered my resignation with the team in 20th place and looking unlikely to survive. As it turned out, they didn't, and I was unemployed as the season ended.

LEAGUE TABLE AT TIME OF RESIGNATION

English competition winners:

Premier League – Chelsea

FA Cup – Wigan Athletic

League Cup – Manchester United

Johnstone's Paint Trophy – MK Dons

FA Trophy – Salisbury City

European Competition winners

Champions League – Chelsea

Europa League - Leverkusen

Basingstoke ALWAYS get relegated. Are you on the lookout for somewhere new now?

Oh well Kev.

After a break, I'm back playing again.

So I had left Basingstoke and had been job-hunting. I didn't have too long to wait. In May, I was offered a new job.

2017/18 – CLIFTONVILLE – DANSKE BANK PREMIER

Media prediction: 1st

Board expectation: Title challenge

So, off I went to Northern Ireland. Expectations were high, with the media predicting us to be league winners, and the board expecting us to mount a serious challenge.

Pre-season was promising, with plenty of good wins against similar reputation clubs. However, this form didn't translate into the competitive fixtures. It took 4 competitive games to register a win, and in our second game we surrendered a 2 goal lead to lose 5-2 which pretty much set the tone. It got to early October, when from 9 league games we'd managed 3 wins and 6 losses. The 10th league game was a 3-1 loss to Dungannon, which saw us sitting in 11th place (out of 12) which was the final straw for the board and I was sacked.

Undeterred, I was on the hunt for a new job again, and it took all of three weeks before another chairman took a chance on me, which surprised me given my less-than-stellar record so far.

2017/18 (October 28th onwards) – BATH CITY – SKRILL SOUTH

Board expectation: Respectable position

League position (at time of joining): 21st

From one struggling team to another. Bath had some decent players for this level, but were short of confidence and were sitting second from bottom when I joined, with only 8 points from the first 12 games.

It started well, with 5 straight wins to shoot us out of the relegation zone. Form was inconsistent from there with some poor runs of form followed by going undefeated for a number of games at a time, but we did well enough to be clear of any trouble, finishing 16th.

Despite the board feeling I hadn't quite met their expectations, I was offered a new one-year contract which I accepted.

I think next season will be interesting, as a load of my players were out of contract and a large number of them were not interested in signing new deals, including all the ones I most wanted to keep. So a mass-rebuild is going to be needed.

Oh, and in case you're interested, Cliftonville did improve their form after they kicked me to the curb, and ended up in 3rd.

LEAGUE TABLE

English competition winners:

Premier League: Chelsea

FA Cup: Chelsea

League Cup: Chelsea

Johnstones Paint Trophy: Stevenage Borough

FA Trophy: Forest Green Rovers

Other competitions:

Champions League: Fiorentina

Europa League: Dortmund

World Cup 2018: Russia, who defeated Italy in the Final. England were losing semi-finalists and won the 3rd place playoff.

That's quite a break!

Indeed! I was just doing other things, and only found time for the odd session. But I'm back into it now, and seeing some signs of progress!

2018/19 – BATH CITY – SKRILL SOUTH

Media prediction: 13th

Board expectation: Mid-table

So the rebuild began and before long I had a squad again and a series of not-too challenging friendlies (bar a couple against league opposition). Pre-season could be described in one word – mediocre. Mostly draws, with a couple of losses thrown in for good measure.

The league campaign kicked off in poor fashion, with a 3-0 loss against Canvey Island. However, despite this we had a reasonable start overall with 5 wins from the first 10 league games, amongst them a 7-1 thrashing of Concord Rangers. However, after this it all went seriously south and we found ourselves on a run of 18 games without a win (including two cup defeats) meaning we were in serious trouble.

To add to it all, in the middle of the run we were subject to a board takeover which went through. Despite our poor form and suggestions I'd be sacked by the new board, they opted to keep me on.

Tactic tinkering finally paid off when I hit upon something which seemed to work, and a 7-game undefeated streak followed, which was ended thanks to a home 4-2 defeat at the hand of league leaders Maidenhead. Patchy form followed, but at least there were wins amongst the games.

With two games to go, we were out of the drop zone but only on goal difference. Our final two games were against Weston-Super-Mare and Boreham Wood, who were sitting in 3rd and 2nd respectively, so needless to say I was worried. We went 1-0 down to Weston-Super-Mare, made all the more frustrating by the fact we dominated the game and they scored with their only shot on goal. So it went down to the final day, and despite a tense 0-0 draw, we managed to stay up on goal difference.

Cups were similarly disappointing. We were knocked out of the FA Cup at the 3rd qualifying round thanks to a tame 2-0 loss to Walton Casuals (I'd never heard of them either), and we lost against Eastleigh in the 3rd qualifying round of the FA Trophy.

Much to my surprise, I have been offered a new one-year deal, which I have accepted.

LEAGUE TABLE

English competition winners:

Premier League: Manchester City

FA Cup: Manchester City

League Cup: Liverpool

Johnstone's Paint Trophy: Birmingham City

FA Trophy: Dagenham & Redbridge

European competitions:

Champions League: Barcelona

Europa League: Tottenham

Chelsea's dominance seems to be over, as they only managed a 9th placed finish.

I bet you were ******** yourself.

I was a tad nervous! Still, kept things interesting I suppose.

2019/20 – BATH CITY - SKRILL SOUTH

Media prediction: 13th

Board expectation: Respectable league position

Another rebuild job took part during the close season, this time of my choosing. Many of the players I'd brought in last season had been desperation signings. I'd been scouting and shortlisting players over the previous season. I got rid of the deadwood, and signed as many players on my shortlist as I could get away with. I had a smaller squad than last season, but the quality was better.

Pre-season was mediocre again, and the season got off to a slow start. We picked up wins and draws here and there, but there was still something missing. It was in November, when we were sat in 19th again and too close in terms of points to 20th, that I made adjustments. First of all in the way I was playing the game. I changed the game up to Comprehensive coverage so I got to see more of the game (as I wasn't seeing enough to really see where my tactics were falling short) and I also changed back to 2D so I could get a better view of what was going on, and this was where things started to turn around.

I then made subtle, but this time more educated, tweaks to my tactics (and also was more flexible with my approach mid-match as well), and then we started picking up points at a faster rate. From November onwards, the improvements in performance and results were tangible. There were still some poor results along the way, but it was definitely improved. Particular highlights were a 4-1 win against Basingstoke, who were back in the Skrill South and flying high in 3rd at the time as well as a 2-1 win against Farnborough, who at the time were 1st and looking good for automatic promotion (and it was actually that loss that started their decline). The season finished on a high note with an impressive 5-2 victory over Tonbridge.

When all was said and done, we finished in 15th. Whilst this doesn't sound impressive, we were actually closer in terms of points to the playoff places than the relegation places and the performances and results in the second half of the season were enough to give me hope for next season.

The board have offered me a new one year contract, which I have signed. One big worry I do have is the club's finances. We are bleeding money and down to £300k in the red. Which means, unless we have a fantastic cup run and top FA cup draw, we could be in serious trouble financially.

Final position: 15th

LEAGUE TABLE

English competition winners:

Premier League: Chelsea

FA Cup: Manchester United

League Cup: Leicester City

Johnstone's Paint Trophy: Oxford United

FA Trophy: Swindon Town

European competition winners:

Champions League: Liverpool

Europa League: Tottenham

2020 European Championship:

Holland (thrashing France 4-0 in the final). England, Scotland and Wales all qualified for the finals. Scotland finished bottom of their group. England and Wales were in the same group, and both qualified for the second round, finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively, but progressed no further than that.

No brown trousers this time.

No brown trousers this time.

Indeed! It was definitely a bit easier on the nerves.

2020/21 – BATH CITY - SKRILL SOUTH

Media Prediction - 11th

Board Expectation – Respectable league position

A squad rebuild was again underway, which seems to be the norm as a new season gets underway. Sadly, I was unable to keep my star striker from last season, Romario Reid. His 26 goals last season had come in rather handy, sadly his wage demands, which were in excess of £1000 per week now, were far more than I could offer (and stellar goal record or not, with a wage budget a smidge over £7k per week, was far too much to spend on one player). All in all, 7 players left and 7 came in.

Pre-season was decent enough, although I had deliberately lined up friendlies against weaker opposition with the hope it would help the morale going into real competition. Not that it helped much, as the team struggled to gel to begin with and points were few and far between. We didn't really get into the swing of it until the season was a quarter gone, at which point for the next twenty or so games we did brilliantly, to the point where it would have been promotion form had the start not been so utterly dreadful. However, as we hit game 30 where we were looking good in 8th and only a few points of the playoff places we had what I can only describe as a barren spell where we lost 8 games in a row, which was enough to see us drop to 16th. Then we picked up again and won 4 out of the final 5 games (only losing 3-2 to Chelmsford, who have been a bit of a bogey team for us) to see us end up in 13th, which was our highest finish yet.

Part way through this season, I was actually offered another job. Cork City decided they wanted me, but I rejected on the basis it didn't seem like a step-up and they were offering me less money than Bath were paying me.

The FA Cup was terrible from our point of view, crashing out at the first hurdle to Hampton & Richmond. The FA Trophy was far better, where we reached the third round, having beaten Skrill Premier side Maidenhead in the second round. We met Skrill Premier table toppers (and eventual champions) Lincoln City in the 3rd round, who were just too good, but we gave a good accounting of ourselves in the 2-1 loss.

One other interesting note is that towards the end of the season, due to the club's financial state the board slashed the wage budget by £1.5k a week. I had been using every penny of it (and a few more, if I'm honest), and there was nothing I could do to bring the wages down as all of my players were under contract.

Still, I've been offered a new contract, and even with the promise of a much smaller wage budget next season, I've accepted it. It's looking like I'm going to struggle to keep almost any of my current squad, so that should be interesting.

Final league table:

Competition winners:

Premier League: Manchester United

FA Cup: Southampton 3-1 Wigan Athletic (as a Saints fan, this pleased me!)

League Cup: Liverpool 1-0 Manchester United

Football League Trophy: Yeovil Town 3-1 Rotherham

FA Trophy: Lincoln City 2-0 Harrogate

Champions League: Juventus 1-0 Real Madrid

Europa League: Atalanta 3-1 Real Betis

Confederations Cup: Brazil 3-0 Russia

Making slow but steady progress.

2021/22 – BATH CITY - SKRILL SOUTH

Media prediction - 9th

Board expectation – Respectable league position

With the club's finances getting worse, the board's position on offering contracts prior to the previous ones ended had basically hammered me. I was unable to offer contracts in excess of £120 per week in most cases. Consquently, I was only able to convince two of last season's first team squad to stay. Amusingly, when the July board confidence review came in, they said it would be nice if I could assist the bank balance by selling some players. I couldn't even field a team in a 5-a-side tournament at this point.

I tried to re-sign some of the players I'd wanted to keep, only 2 were interested in negotating and only one was affordable. Sadly amongst the chaos, one of the people I'd lost happened to be my chief scout, and with him went all of my scouting knowledge.

I hired a new scout, and sent him out to find me players. As reports came in, bearing in mind my new lower wage budget, I signed the best players I could afford and still be able to build a squad. Still, signings were slow to come in and as the season started I only just had enough players in to field a full first 11 and bench. I was hopeful that as more reports came in I would find more players to sign to give me a chance of being competitive.

Unsurprisingly, results were not great. However, we were not utterly terrible and the first 6 games we managed 5 draws and a loss. However, with 9 games gone, with us also being knocked out of the FA Cup and managing no more points, the board dropped the bombshell that another £1200 was being knocked off the weekly wage budget. Realising that I would have now have no chance of adding to the squad and improving things, I resigned, basically in protest, with Bath rooted at the foot of the table.

LEAGUE TABLE AT TIME OF RESIGNATION

So, the job hunt was underway. Vacancies were not particularly quick to open, but I applied for roles which looked interesting. Coventry City, languishing near the foot of the League Two table perhaps unsurprisingly laughed off my application, and I was also unsuccessful when applying to a lower league Italian team I admittedly not heard of before and have since forgotten the name of.

However, after around a month of unemployment, I found myself with a job offer which I accepted.

2021/22 – WORCESTER CITY - SKRILL NORTH

Media prediciton: 11th

Board expectation: Respectable league position

One thing which confused me to begin with was the club's finances being listed as insecure when the balance was £150k in the black. Then it made sense when I noticed the club owed just over £1m in loans.

At the time of my joining, Worcester hadn't been doing very well. With a record of 3 wins, 5 draws and 7 defeats they were sitting in 16th place. My first game was against one of the division's new teams, Marine, who had been on a good run as of late, and although we were at home the bookies were backing us to lose. Much to my delight then, we started off my reign with a 5-1 victory.

This pretty much set the tone for things to come, as form continued to be good. We were not necessarily brilliant in defence, but we more than made up for it with the amount of goals we scored.

With 5 games to go, we were up to the lofty heights of 6th and with form continuing to be good I thought we were looking good for a play-off spot. Sadly, two unfortunate home defeats to Hednesford and Stalybridge followed. We didn't deserve to lose either, but both games were almost identical in that we took the lead before losing two goals very much against the run of play. After this was a frankly limp performance against Bradford PA where we were lucky to only lose 3-2 (and both goals we scored were very late). We then picked up a win against St Neots, but at this point we were out of the running. We finished up with a narrow 1-0 loss against champions Chester, which was not really a surprise as they had been brilliant all season and were on a run of 6 wins from the last 8 games (with the other two being draws).

At the end of it all, we finished up in 9th, and with how our form had been for up until the last 5 games I was a little bit disappointed with this. But still, there were a lot of encouraging signs there and hopefully we can make a good go of it next season.

However, I'm not sure how my budgets will look, as the club have announced after several years of of ground-sharing with Kidderminster that we are going to be building a new stadium which has just saddled the club with another £2m worth of debt.

LEAGUE TABLE

Competition winners:

Premier League: Chelsea

FA Cup: Chelsea 3-0 Tottenham

League Cup: Liverpool 2-1 Everton

Football League Trophy: Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 Southend United

FA Trophy: Cambridge United 2-1 Braintree Town

Champions League: Juventus 1-0 Manchester City

Europa League: Olympique Lyonnais 3-2 Liverpool

World Cup 2022: Brazil 2-1 Portugal

The Bath went cold.

The Bath went cold.

Indeed! They ended up safe by a reasonable distance though.

Coventry, after laughing me off ended up relegated out of the football league and starting life in the Conference on -10 points after entering administration.

But would you have done any better?

But would you have done any better?

Probably not. I suck at this game.

You and me both.