Harrogate Town AFC - The Long Road to European Glory

Welcome to my Harrogate Town AFC (Vanarama Conference North) Save.

Hi Everyone. This is the first time in all my years of playing FM that I've decided to "go public" with my career. The last time I played was FM12, so I missed the last couple of years and there has been quite a few changes since the game back in 2012 so I was really looking forward to getting my career under way. I've actualy atill got FM05 in my draw here next to me, among others. This save is being done with no editing, no cheating and no manipulation of any kind.

Being a Leeds United fan, I often run a save with them but I prefer the challenge of taking a small Yorkshire club from low league obscurity up to European Glory. I took Harrogate Town to the Champions League in FM12 and I'm aiming to go one step further this time around by winning it, more than once.

I know nothing about http://www.harrogatetownafc.com/ in real life so I went into this without any knowledge of the team.

These are the leagues I started my game with:

Harrogate Town Info:

I plan on remaining with Harrogate for the duration of the save but who knows, things can change. It's showing around 38,000 player available at the moment. As I progress my career, I may add some more leagues into my save.

My Managerial Approach:

In the real world, my managerial approach has always been "my door is always open". I like to give guidance in order to help people be the best at what they do as opposed to being very hands on. In light of this, I felt the tactical manager was more suited for me than the tracksuit manager. I wanted to keep it as realistic as possible so this is how I started out, as a Manager with little but Sunday League experience.

My Philosophy:

I was a huge fan of David O'Leary in his time at Leeds united and I admired how he gave Youth a chance during his time at the helm. I wanted to follow in his footsteps (except without the controversial book) by placing a lot of focus on youth development. One of the first things I did in my save was to add the 2 philosophies surrounding Youth generation and giving them a chance in the team. I will be trying to improve Harrogate's abysmal facilities ASAP as I progress through this save.

Harrogate's Trophy Cabinet:

I would like to present to you, Harrogate Town's Trophy Cabinet...

Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. It is empty. They have never won anything so it will hopefully be nice to see a Wall of Honours transformed by my hand (and the players feet).

Competitions:

The competitions Harrogate Town AFC are competing in during season 1 are as follows;

-Vanarama Conference North

-English FA Trophy

-FA Cup

The Squad:

The squad looked reasonable aside from the fact that my key striker was injured from Day 1 for 2 months. I could see looking at the squad that a traditional 4-4-2 system with Target Man and Poacher/Advanced Forward was going to be the best option. I also wanted to keep things simple given the lack of quality in the players at my disposal.

Star Player:

The Key Man of my squad is a Box to Box/Central Midfielder. Everything needed to be built around him and at the end of seasons 1 I think he somehow managed to play every single game for me.

I'll be adding further details including information about my completed Season 1 shortly.

Welcome to my Harrogate Town AFC (Vanarama Conference North) Save.

Hi Everyone. This is the first time in all my years of playing FM that I've decided to "go public" with my career. The last time I played was FM12, so I missed the last couple of years and there has been quite a few changes since the game back in 2012 so I was really looking forward to getting my career under way. I've actualy atill got FM05 in my draw here next to me, among others. This save is being done with no editing, no cheating and no manipulation of any kind.

Being a Leeds United fan, I often run a save with them but I prefer the challenge of taking a small Yorkshire club from low league obscurity up to European Glory. I took Harrogate Town to the Champions League in FM12 and I'm aiming to go one step further this time around by winning it, more than once.

I know nothing about http://www.harrogatetownafc.com/ in real life so I went into this without any knowledge of the team.

These are the leagues I started my game with:

Harrogate Town Info:

I plan on remaining with Harrogate for the duration of the save but who knows, things can change. It's showing around 38,000 player available at the moment. As I progress my career, I may add some more leagues into my save.

My Managerial Approach:

In the real world, my managerial approach has always been "my door is always open". I like to give guidance in order to help people be the best at what they do as opposed to being very hands on. In light of this, I felt the tactical manager was more suited for me than the tracksuit manager. I wanted to keep it as realistic as possible so this is how I started out, as a Manager with little but Sunday League experience.

My Philosophy:

I was a huge fan of David O'Leary in his time at Leeds united and I admired how he gave Youth a chance during his time at the helm. I wanted to follow in his footsteps (except without the controversial book) by placing a lot of focus on youth development. One of the first things I did in my save was to add the 2 philosophies surrounding Youth generation and giving them a chance in the team. I will be trying to improve Harrogate's abysmal facilities ASAP as I progress through this save.

Harrogate's Trophy Cabinet:

I would like to present to you, Harrogate Town's Trophy Cabinet...

Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. It is empty. They have never won anything so it will hopefully be nice to see a Wall of Honours transformed by my hand (and the players feet).

Competitions:

The competitions Harrogate Town AFC are competing in during season 1 are as follows;

-Vanarama Conference North

-English FA Trophy

-FA Cup

The Squad:

The squad looked reasonable aside from the fact that my key striker was injured from Day 1 for 2 months. I could see looking at the squad that a traditional 4-4-2 system with Target Man and Poacher/Advanced Forward was going to be the best option. I also wanted to keep things simple given the lack of quality in the players at my disposal.

Star Player:

The Key Man of my squad is a Box to Box/Central Midfielder. Everything needed to be built around him and at the end of seasons 1 I think he somehow managed to play every single game for me.

Season 1

Overview:

Status: Semi-Professional

Transfer Budget: £6k

Wage Budget: £6k/Week

Contracts: Mostly Non-Contracts with some Part-Time

Bank Balance: +£34k

Sponsorship Deal: 2 year main kit sponsor worth £5k per season. Expires 2015.

Expectations:

League - Be Promoted As Champions (Really?!? I was surprised at this with the comparably massive Stockport County in the same league)

FA CUP - Reach the First Round

FA Trophy - Reach the Second Round

Transfer Activity:

All Free Transfers as you can see. There were some fantastic signings and some that just didn't come to fruition. The wonderful thing at this level is you can sign players on non-contracts.

Transfers of notable success were Ben Glasgow (DR), Matty Edwards (GK), Matteo Capitani (ST), Paul Barratt (RM), Andre Da Costa (LM) and Matt Chadwick (LM/RM).

I was delighted to have signed Lee Naylor on a Free towards the end of the season. He's a Championship and former Celtic Veteran with bags of experience and his ratings were pretty hot for this level. I can't wait to continue using him next season.

Formations:

As already mentioned, I felt my team was going to be best set up in a traditional 4-4-2 with Target Man and Poacher/Advanced Forward. I switch them around throughout the season depending on opposition into various combinations. Some of these are:

-Target Man(Sup)/Advanced Forward or Poacher(Atk)

-Target Man(Atk)/Deep Lying Forward(Sup)

-Target Man(Atk)/Advanced Forward or Poacher (Atk)

Tactic 1:

I use this when I really want to take the game to my opponent and also when I feel I am the favourite to win the match (Mostly Home Fixtures)

Tactic 2:

I use this when I feel I will be up against it or when playing an opponent more likely to score against me (Mostly Away Fixtures)

They're both very simple and they work. They're not plug and play tactics by any means and you often have to tweak things to ensure they work. I play as "Structured" and "Control" for both tactics.

Season 1 Results Next Post

Having gone to school fifteen miles from Harrogate, I shall watch with interest.

Having gone to school fifteen miles from Harrogate, I shall watch with interest.

Thanks for the support Daz! :-) Just in the process of adding everything from my first season. I'm currently in the middle of May following Season 1.

Thanks for the support Daz! :-) Just in the process of adding everything from my first season. I'm currently in the middle of May following Season 1.

I played a career game starting as Harrogate manager in FM14 - they have a decent youth academy for the lower leagues and my academy produced quite a few League One/Two level players. As you develop it they will produce world class players of course but you definitely have the grounding.

Season 1 Results:

Expectations:

League - Be Promoted As Champions Achieved

FA CUP - Reach the First Round Achieved - Reached Round 2

FA Trophy - Reach the Second Round Failed - Knocked Out 3rd Qualifying Round in a Reply Vs Brackley

Final Table:

An amazing result and it went down to the final day. Hyde drew their last game of the seasons however and I managed to secure a 2-1 win away at Stockport.

Season Highlights:

-Winning the league (Of course)

-My Poacher/Advanced Forward who missed the first month of the season actually finished the league's top scorer (Jack Speight)

-Jack Speight scored what is possibly football's fastest ever hatrick?? (You can imagine being 4-0 up after 14 minutes I was laughing my socks off. It turned out to be a horrible game to watch, finishing 4-3).

-My Target Man, James Walshaw, scored a fantastic 21 goals in 39 games. Adding to that a fantastic bunch of assists.

-A fantastic result against the mighty Vanarama Conference side of Southport. Following a 1-1 draw at home in the 4th Qual Round of the FA Cup, we earned a replay. After a crazy extra time period finishing the game at 4-4, we eventually won 5-3 on penalties.

-Recorded our biggest win of 6-1 at Home to Barrow in the league.

-The strike partnership of James Walshaw and Jack Speight got them 46 goals between them in the league this season. Proof that 442 with a big and small striker does work!

-An even better shock result (which the fans are still going crazy about) against BURY TOWN of Sky Bet League 2. We had to survive a barrage of Bury offensives to pull of this shock FA CUP 1st Round win against the Shakers. We ultimately went on to be knocked out in the second round by Burton Albion. We only lost 1-0 but it was an even more one sided affair than the Bury match. My players put in a very brave fight.

If you have any questions for me about how I go about things, feel free to ask. Your support in following this means a lot to me.

I'm now into the the middle of May following Season 1 and some of the things that have come up so far:

-Board offered me a new improved contract

-No success in finding a feeder club (Tried this on 2 different occasions now). Board agreed each time but came back with no options.

-Balance is sitting at +£63k (Increase of about £30k)

-Wage bill is now back within limits after spending most of the season £1-2k over budget.

-New Transfer Budget is £17.5k which I am quite happy with. I will probably shift most of this to increase my weekly wage budget instead and continue signing free players. Planning on catching some good free transfers when contracts expire in June.

-Stadium Capacity has been increased by 500 to stay in line with regulations. It was required in order to be promoted.

-Hired a new Head of Youth Development, which for a Vanarama Conference side I feel has excellent attributes. The previous guy had nothing in double figures so I'm really pleased with this signing.

When I get to July I will update everything for Season 2.

I played a career game starting as Harrogate manager in FM14 - they have a decent youth academy for the lower leagues and my academy produced quite a few League One/Two level players. As you develop it they will produce world class players of course but you definitely have the grounding.

I certainly hope so mate! :-) Thus far they have refused to improve the facilities but they have upgraded the youth training by 1 level.

Harrogate's Trophy Cabinet:

I would like to present to you, Harrogate Town's Trophy Cabinet...

Well they are ambitious anyway, gonna take a few trophies to fill that.

Good Luck.

Season 2:

Extremely busy period for new signings on the run up to my first season in the Vanarama conference following promotion last year. I managed to get some quality players who have been released by their former clubs.

This is what the build up and the start of Season 2 look like as far as fixtures go.

Now that is a busy pre season schedule.

As Daz said.

And something for the trophy cabinet already.

Great start, will look forward to seeing how this progresses

As Daz said.

And something for the trophy cabinet already.

Indeed, well chuffed to get off that such a good start.

Now that is a busy pre season schedule.

I know right. I wanted to make sure all my players were as close to match fit as possible. It turns out that loads of them still weren't match fit in time for the beginning of the season.

Great start, will look forward to seeing how this progresses

Thank you! And thank you for taking an interest.

If there are any specific details of screenshots anyone would like, please just post your request

Season 2 Update:

So this is how the start of the season has panned out. Unbeaten start to the league campaign with a really tough looking tie away at Barnet to come next. Already played the league leaders and title favourites at Home, FC Halifax. It finished a 1-1 draw following a straight Red Card for one of my Central Defenders in the 20th minute (they were the last man). We were lucky to get a point.

I'm quite concerned about the number of goals we're conceding at the moment. I have no effective CDM in my squad this year and signing more players isn't an option right now. I'm working on ways we can reduce this number without the use of a CDM but its proving tricky.

This is how the top half is looking.

I also quite liked this little snippet in the press.

It's the first time I played this formation this season although it is one of my 3 saved tactics. I have it set to Overload and I planned on using it when I was desperate for a goal or 2, however it worked quite well aside from it being a very offensive formation.

I'm loving this guy at the moment. Released from Grimsby Town and signed on a free when his contract expired. He's one of my highest earners on £725/week. He just got player of the month award so I'm hoping his form continues!

Twice in 2 games! Ha! Never saw this before until the last match. 4-4-2 being my most used formation at the moment.

Excellent start to the season.

15 rating for finishing on Ross Hannah is insane - he should bag you shedload of goals with that rating alone.

Hannah looks a superb signing for that level. I wish I'd had a striker of his quality in my early Chorley days!

Looks like he's really worth the money.

Hannah has awesome Team Work/Work Rate as well which helps loads in his role as Advanced Forward because he will bring others in to play and chase everything down (set to extra high pressing). High determination is great for this too.

I've learned that keeping an eye on these players and signing them after their contract expires makes them more affordable. A bit of a gamble but as an example, Hannah wanted double that amount of wages while he was contracted to Grimsby. I also signed a decent target man within the last week (game time) who wanted 1500/week when he was under contract to his former club. I waited and now snapped him up for £250/week.

These scores are getting ridiculous. I know what I have to do to tighten things up. I desperately need a good quality CDM but I can't get hold of one at the moment.

There's generally a lot of goals scored at that level anyway but, yes, a solid defensive minded midfield player should plug the defence a fair bit.

At least you've found a way to combat that particular weakness though - outscore the opposition

Not sure how long that will go on for though lol. Finally found a decent looking CDM. Hoping he could be the cure to this leaky goal syndrome.

Being a Leeds fan, I'm also absolutely delighted with this signing as well!

Interview Offer. I respectfully had to decline ;-)

Season 2 (Mid-Season Update):

The Conference Premier has turned out to be a sterner challenge so far. Many goals being given away due to poor defending. I'm hoping now I have tweaked things and recruited a decent couple of CDMs that we can tighten up at the back for the second half of the season.

We are still in contention for the title and following a great result against relegation League 1 candidates Tranmere in the FA cup, we secured a beautiful tie at home to Tottenham Hotspur in the 3rd round. I can't wait for that! Hoping it will put some money in the bank! :-)

The League Table:

We have only lost 1 but we have drawn far too many games for my liking.

FA Trophy:

-1st Round v Southport (VC) Home, 1-0 Win

FA CUP:

-4th Qual Round v Barrow (VCN) Home, 3-1 Win

-1st Round v Tranmere (L1) Away, 2-2 Draw

-1st Round Replay v Tranmere (L1) Home, 2-0 (AET) Win

-2nd Round v Aldershot (VC) Home, 2-0 Win

*Edited and added*

OH MY GOD! WOW!!!! That's more than we have in the bank right now!

Mid-way through the season and only 6 months after signing my previous extension, I have been offered a further extension to my contract. Delighted!

End of Season 2:

Well it's all over and it was an incredibly tense finale. Our form drastically deteriorated towards the end and if it were not for a tactical brainwave, we may have missed out on promotion. We were in second and keeping up the pace with first place. All of a sudden we just couldn't win to save our lives. Dominating games and losing. Players being sent off. Penalties being given away. It felt like everything was against us. In the end we ended up scraping the play offs. My 4-4-2 formations had suddenly stopped working and I'll be honest, there was a bit of panic on my part as I chopped and changed things around. In hindsight, this probably made things worse.

Final Fixtures:

Final Table:

More details to follow...

Congratulations on becoming a league club.

Any good players in the youth intake?

Congratulations on becoming a league club.

Any good players in the youth intake?

Thank you! No young players worth shouting about. My youth facilities are pretty poor to be honest and we're only at Youth Level 4 at the moment.

Massively disappointed my prolific scorer didn't get player of the season. Some random RW/RM player got it who had a lower overall rating and scored less goals. Makes no sense whatsoever. This is how Ross Hannah finished up, my star striker...

In other news:

-Scouting Area increased from England only to "England & Ireland". I already loaded up the Irish league at the start of this season so hopefully will be able to head over there for a couple of decent signings.

-1500 Seats being put in my stadium to replace the some of the terraces

I like this guy...

There has also been no mention of this in my emails but I have just noticed it. New stadium on the way??

Interesting story too. I cant wait when Harrogate touch Premier League!

Season 3:

I'm really looking forward to Harrogate Town's first year as a fully professional football club. I've put together a new formation, released some dead wood and brought in a couple of exciting players as well. We have started pre-season off with some excellent results against 2 very talented youth side in Ajax and Twente. They were comfortable wins as well which makes me more excited about this formation, creating lots of chance but also looking defensively secure.

This is what the opening fixtures look like. An exciting tie with Sheffield Wednesday in our debut in the Capital One Cup...

Transfer Activity:

The main focus was to strengthen with players capable of performing well at League 2 level. In addition it was important we signed decent Wingbacks for the first team with good crossing ability as they are to be the source of many assists.

Here's what a couple of my new signings look like...

An exciting Youth Prospect...

I've tried to sign players with high work rates wherever possible. A hardworking, determined squad is what I always strive for.

Season 3:

The season has started superbly so I couldn't have asked for a better start really. Records being broken...

We narrowly lost at Sheffield Wednesday (Championship) and hammered Scunthorpe who are in the league above us.

2nd in the league and unbeaten...

And my star striker of last season, ROSS HANNAH, is still banging them in for fun...

And to give you an idea what he is like in game, he does this out of no where...

[video=youtube_share;T9xZOrK7JdE]http://youtu.be/T9xZOrK7JdE

Well done Mageling.

Well done Mageling.

Thank you

Season 3 Results:

Expectations:

League - Fight Off Relegation Achieved - Finished 2nd, being promoted to League 1

FA Cup - Not Expected to Progress Beyond Round 1 Knocked Out in First Round

League Cup - No Expectations Knocked Out in First Round

Johnstone's Paint Trophy - To be competitive in the Cup Achieved - Reached the Semi-Final

End of Season Results:

Final League Table:

Cup Results:

FA Cup:

-1st Round v Plymouth Argyle (L1) Home, 2-1 Defeat

League Cup:

-1st Round v Sheffield Wednesday (LC) Away, 2-1 Defeat

Johnstone's Paint Trophy:

-1st Round North v Scunthorpe (L1) Away, 2-0 Win

-2nd Round North v Doncaster (L1) Away, 3-2 Win

-1/4 Final North v Bury (L1) Away, 1-1 Draw (Won on penalties)

-1/2 Final North v Walsall (L1) Away, 3-1 Defeat

Season Review:

I am absolutely delighted with how things went really considering we had a much weaker squad than many of the other teams, especially Shrewsbury who finished top. We set loads of new records including longest time without conceding a goal. As you can see above, we went 8 games without conceding which is pretty impressive in the lower leagues. We also had a couple of spells where goals were really hard to come by but I think with better players to create opportunities, that will be less of a problem. Can't wait for Season 4!!

3 Promotions in 3 seasons and onwards to League 1!

Four nil nil draws in a row... *snooze*

On a serious note, great stuff mate.

Part of eight clean sheets in a row.

Haha I know, so boooring ;-) Im delighted with so many clean sheets tho :-P

Interesting that you seemed to have another spring blip but still pulled through.

Yeah I know. I'm not really happy that this pattern seems to be forming. I'm wondering if it's the way I am managing the morale? Perhaps they get complacent on the back of a good run and when I lose a game, it just spirals? Maybe I am overly critical following a defeat?

Any ideas?

Fortunately this season, we were so strong before the blip that it didn't really affect us in the long term.

Season 4:

So the exciting prospect of playing in the 3rd Tier of English football awaits. As a result of signing staff with foreign nationalities, I've been able to access some great talent in places like Spain and Scandinavia. I'm sticking with the same 5-3-2 formation that's been good to me in the past couple of seasons. It is 2 Supporting Wing Backs, 3 at the back, an Anchor Man just ahead of them, 2 players in the middle of the park in front of him and 2 Strikers up front. Its been amazing for keeping clean sheets so I am hoping that with the additions I've made to the team, we can continue with that this year too.

In the build up to this season, the Canadian National Team offered me the Manager post, without even needing an interview, however I decided to decline. I've got my heart set on this project with Harrogate and would like to see it through unless something really silly comes along.

Because of the increase in stature over the past 3 seasons, I've been able to sign some really decent players and I think I may have gone a bit overboard, although many of them are younger and I've taken them on for the future. So it was a very busy transfer window...

Some Signings In Detail:

Throughout pre-season, I always set training to "Team Cohesion" and "Very High" in order for the new signings to get used to each other. I then reduce this down to "Average" and "Balanced" when the season starts.

This is what the opening fixtures look like after playing a handful of games. After only narrowly losing to Leeds in a friendly, I really fancied our chances against them in the Cup. I was ecstatic with the result and we are therefore into the 2nd round for the first time ever as Harrogate AFC. I'm delighted with the clean sheets and I'm optimistic things will continue to be good as the squad plays more games together. We have an exciting tie at Home to Premier League Fulham in the next round - can we pull off another scalp?

Apart from the Tottenham Friendly, we were really unfortunate to lose the games we did during pre-season. I don't worry too much about results during pre-season though to be honest because it's all about getting the team playing together and becoming used to each other.

The League Table:

I'll update more as the season goes on. Thanks for taking an interest so far, it's much appreciated.