FMC14 - Where Will This Journey End?

Usually I'm a lurker on these forums, but having enjoyed reading many careers over the past week (especially the

AK22, Moonshine, SRL88 and Rancer890 ones), I thought I should try one myself. It'll also help me keeping to one save, hopefully. Anyway, It'll be a classic game, because in 2 months time I'll be playing the next version, and I'd like to get a good couple of seasons in. Also, seeing that pretty much all careers here are in the full gamemode, I hope it'll offer something a bit different. It'll also be a journeyman game more or less, although I've not loaded a huge amount of leagues, seeing that my computer isn't the fastest (also a reason to play FMC).

I've loaded all the Belgian, German, Dutch, English, Scottish and Northern Irish leagues. My manager is Dutch (because I am) and sunday-league reputation. I clicked random team a couple of times and voila, there we are at Queens University in the Northern Irish Championship 2. I'm not sure yet how long I'll stay here, but we'll see. In my games I usually do fine, certainly enough not to be sacked, but no wonders either. Maybe thanks to the fact that I don't have to bother with tactical familiarity and all that jazz it'll all go much smoother. We will see I guess.

What can I say, I like a crazy name...

The media predicts we will finish in second place. We'll target promotion for sure. We have zero transfer budget and a wage budget of €126K p/a, currently spending €65,645. Let's see what kind of players we can attract to the mighty Queens University!

First Update!

It's certainly a new experience to manage in the Northern Irish Championship 2.

My transfers:

Moore is one of my starting strikers, Philson a starting central defender, Robinson a starting DM/MC who can also play as DR, Kennedy a backup leftback, Fitzgerald a backup striker, Henry a backup keeper, and Feeney and Lavery are both midfielders who can play at MC and AMC.

Although I usually like to play with wingers, this was not an option here, because there simply weren't any at the club. It was hard deciding what kind of tactic to use, because the defending was absolutely disgusting to watch whatever I tried in the first few games.

Matches

The friendlies went okay. The first match went very well, absolutely dominating Bangor City, but in the following matches I could already see we were struggling defensively. We committed a lot of fouls and were unable to get our strikers in scoring positions.

August

The first match showed our strengths and weaknesses amazingly well. As I said before, the defending was abysmal. On the other hand, the winning goal was a ridiculous strike from I'd say about thirty meters. The second match we lost thanks to two howlers by our keeper. In the cup we were not much better, but against a non-league opponent our mistakes were left unpunished, even though they got a penalty in the eighth minute. After their miss we started to play a bit of football and in the end we scored some decent goals. Our first clean sheet as well.

September

A much better month, although once again in the league we didn't show up. A great win in the League Cup. To be fair, Linfield is a much better side, but our only shot on target was enough for the win (they had 2). Against Annagh Utd we absolutely dominated the match and got a good win for the points and for the morale. Newington was much of the same. Because Lavery was injured for a couple of weeks, Fitzgerald had his chance to shine, and he did just that.

October

A really good month, although both draws could've and probably should've been wins. Especially against Wakehurst it was devastating to go from 3-0 up to 3-3 in 10 minutes. The win against Donegal Celtic in the league cup was much closer than the 3-0 scoreline would suggest, but we were able to finish our chances and they weren't. The last two games of the month were fantastic. We absolutely destroyed P.S.N.I. (Police Service of Northern Ireland, I'm glad we didn't get arrested afterwards ). When we played this match, they were higher than us in the league. We beat Newington again with a fantastic showing by Moore to score four goals. We managed to keep our run going by beating the #1 in the league with 4-0.

League Table

After a poor start we're getting closer and closer to the promotion places. If we can keep on winning, we should definitely aim to be champions, although we need Portstewart and Glebe to drop some more points.

Top Goalscorers so far: James Lavery 13, Michael Moore 13, Darren Fitzgerald 7.

Top assists: Michael Moore 7, James Lavery 6, Peter Thompson (MC) 4, Niall Lavery (MC/AMC) 4, Noel Robinson (DM/MC) 4.

Notes

Playing in the Northern Irish Championship 2 is pretty interesting. Not only do we play 30 matches in the league, we also compete in four cups! Because those are going pretty well, we could end up playing quite a lot of matches this season. When you look at the defending and goalkeeping sometimes I just shake my head. It's absolutely terrible at times. Although maybe that's not that crazy when you look at their attributes. Some nice goals are scored at times though. Money is tight (in fact we're only losing money, especially because I fired some of my staff), and all my players are on 1-year part-time contracts, and some reserves even on non-contract basis. They also have a different disciplinary system, which I had not seen before.

Hopefully I can continue my form and win some trophies!

2013/2014 End of Season Update

It seems I was a bit too optimistic last time. We could not get our fantastic run going, and we kept being inconsistent pretty much the entire season.

Two decent enough wins to start november off, but after that our strikers simply did not finish off their chances. Soon we found out that success in the cups wasn't meant to be. We definitely deserved the losses against Donegal Celtic in the Steel Cup and against Loughgall in the Irish cup. When we won in the league we usually didn't win by much, certainly the huge wins in october were a thing of the past. Sometimes we performed admirably though, the highlight was the away win against Portstewart who were leaders of the league at the time. We did rise a bit in the league, thanks to some close games going our way.

As you can see, the fight for the top 2 promotion spots was a very tight one. This was much the same up to the last matchday.

After we lost in the Intermediate cup we could focus completely on the league. We didn't lose a match for four games after that, but our performances were certainly not outstanding. Three wins in a row, including a very important one on our close competitors Glebe, made sure we rose to the top of the table. But then came the slump at the end of the year. Our defense was absolutely horrific, and we only managed three points in our last five games. Somehow, though, this was the table at the end of the year:

Portstewart and Glebe managed to screw up their season even more than we did. With only 54 points from 30 games we became champions of the Northern Irish Championship 2. Chimney Corner, who were only eighth after January, managed to grab the other promotion spot. Next year awaits the Championship 1, and we definitely need to improve. We have seen in some cup-games we are certainly capable of beating sides in the Championship 1, but better midfielders and defenders are a must. Improving our strikeforce will be difficult, because at this level I'm not sure we're going to get much better goalscorers than James Lavery, who became our top goalscorer. I'm also going to try to see if I can sign some wingers so we can try a different tactic next year.

Feeney is an AMC who had 24 assists in the end. Our top goalscorers were James Lavery with 29 goals, Michael Moore 26, Darren Fitzgerald 7 and Lee Feeney 7. Because all players had one-year deals the squad for next season will look very different. Some of our top players will get a new deal, if they want one.

I also signed a deal to be the manager of Queens University for at least one more year. I'm still not decided how long I'll stay here, but if no nice opportunity comes along, it would sure be nice to get the team to the Premier. I don't think we'll manage back-to-back promotions, but you never know what might happen.

End of Season 2014/2015 Update

Going quicker than expected, here we are again. My second season at Queens University and the first in the Championship 1. The clubs are stronger, more players want to join us, and we have a higher budget than before.

Because players only seem to want part-time 1 year contracts or non-contract deals, every year offers the opportunity of building a new squad. This is fun but also a bit annoying. Also, my reserves have no official fixtures, only friendlies, so youth development at this level is very difficult.

Many transfers again. I've got myself a large squad, maybe a bit too large, but most players don't ask much in wages, and since they're only on 1-year deals it's not that big of a risk.

As you can see, we've got an improvement of around €65K in wage budget after our promotion. Our financial situation hasn't improved though. The only reason we keep on around the €0 balance, is because if a couple of injections by the board.

First let's look at our matches in the calendar year of 2014.

In the league we did pretty well, but our cup matches were pretty much a total failure all around. We only managed to stay in the Irish Cup. Our biggest problem still was the defense. There were barely any clean sheets. Because our strikers (mostly new ones, from last season only James Lavery still played some matches) managed to score relatively consistently we didn't lose a lot of games though.

I actually managed to win my first personal accolade as well.

The league table looked like this on January 1st 2015. We were on top, which was not something I thought very likely before the season began. Just like in the championship 2 though, it was still very close. Because the league consists of only 26 games, this did not seem likely to change. We did have a very good goal difference, so no problems on that front at least.

In the second half of the season, we fought on.

We had a terrible streak though nearing the end of the year. I was quite afraid that it would go on the end, just like last years winless streak, but luckily we managed to turn it around and improve the morale a bit. Beating H & W Welders and Larne, too close competitors for the top spots, meant we did some very good business for the league table.

Once again, we managed to win the league on the last matchday. Up to the Premier!

I was awarded a second manager of the month title as well.

In the end new striker Dean Smith was our top goalscorer, and Patrick Donnelly had the most assists. I'm afraid both players won't be good enough for the premier, but we'll probably keep them around just because of their performances this year.

The club though, did not seem to be in awe of the results the club achieved under my guidance. They offered me contracts where I would earn 13K and 13.5K respectively, which would mean a wage drop of almost 50%, after back-to-back promotions as well. I can appreciate that the club was in financial problems, and I realize that the money you earn doesn't actually have any use, but still I'd like to see something of an improvement over the years, and these offers were just insulting. Because of this I went looking for a possible different job, but no great opportunities arose. In the end, they offered me a new contract when I had only nine days left on my deal. They began with a 16K offer, and I managed to negotiate it up to a yearly salary of €18.25K. Granted, my wages still dropped, but I was certainly interested to see how I would do in the highest Northern Irish league.

Beating sides from the premier has happened once or twice in some cupmatches, but most of the times we were pretty much outclassed. I want to stay up, and it would be great to manager a tophalf finish in the premier. Especially because the Premier works with a championship group, which the top 6 teams (of the 12) qualify for, and a relegation group, which the bottom six qualify for. If I relegate I will resign, if I don't get fired before that. Nobody knows what the new year will bring, because I'll have to build a whole new squad again. Only about 10-15 players will stick around I think.

Let's hope for a decent year in the Premier. Our reputation has not improved a whole lot over the last 2 years (still 0.5 stars) and the other clubs in the premier are doing much better financially and their grounds look a whole lot better. It won't be easy.

End of Season update 2015/2016

My third season at Queens University was quite a ride. The first season playing at the highest level in a nation, and even though it is only Northern Irish football, that's still a landmark. We had to renovate our squad completely to have a chance of staying up in the premier. We had a bit more of a wage budget, about 275K/a, but still we couldn't sign too many top (for this level) players. The goal was anything but relegation.

I let a lot of players go, and some whom I might've liked to stay around retired as well. Some non-contract players leaving and youth players on loan are the remaining transfers you can't see on this screenshot. I actually paid money for a player for the first time as well. Martyn, Lavery, Holland, McMaster and Carson were probably the most important new players.

As you can see, the team's performance in 2015 was abysmal. We hardly won any matches. I wasn't sure what to do. I did not have space in my wage budget to get a new player in, and slight chances to my tactics didn't really help either. After we beat Ards (the weakest team in the league, besides us anyway) for the second time in december though, we got a bit of morale back. Thanks to this, and my strikers doing their best, we managed to end the year with three back-to-back wins. I had almost lost all hope before this happened, but now I really wanted to see if we could stay up.

One positive thing though was my first milestone.

Thanks to the three wins in December, we weren't even in last place anymore. It was very tight though, and if we were to go back to our september-november form, we were never going to make it. That didn't quite happen though.

Without making any changes to the tactics or getting any first-team players in, we still had a completely different string of results in 2016. I think the biggest difference was our morale, and our attacking minded players performing really well. We still conceded a lot of goals, but we hardly lost anymore. We managed to go to the final of the Irish Cup, but sadly lost in the final. After 33 games there was a league split, and it was still quite close.

By the way, in the game against Warrenpoint, in the quarter final of the Irish Cup, Dean Smith managed a hattrick by scoring in the 3rd, 4th and 5th minute. I have never seen anything like it...

It seemed pretty save to say we weren't going to be last, but it was tight for 11th place.

After the last five games though, we did not have to play the relegation playoff, because we had a better goal difference than Carrick. They won their playoff very comfortably though, so it probably wouldn't have been that big a struggle anyway.

Because Glenavon beat us in the final of the Irish Cup, they get to play at least one qualifying round in the Europa League. It was really disappointing to miss that. I do not really see myself managing in Northern Ireland for longer. The wage budget doesn't go up by that much a year, and the club's reputation is not improving a lot either, still it's a half star. On the one hand it's fun to work with 1-year contracts, because you can completely and very easily overhaul your squad every year. On the other hand, it's really difficult to work long-term this way. I decided I had seen enough of Northern Irish football, and left the club. The club again didn't really seem to be wanting to keep me anyway, the only contract they offered me had lower wages than I'm currently on.

I'm going to see what jobs are available, and who will take me. I would like to manage in either Belgium or Scotland now, but we'll see what happens.