The Skye's The Limit

This is my first time here - I hope my story is deemed acceptable as it is a bit unconventional.

THE SKYE’S THE LIMIT

Back Story:

Since its modest establishment in the 1970s, Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the world’s first Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye has gone from strength to strength. James McLeod, whose lineage on Skye goes back into the Scotch mists of history, recently extended the project by founding a Gaelic-medium secondary school, and in 2007 created a new football team, Skye Thistle, which has just been entered into the lowest tier of the Scottish ladder, Scottish Welfare Division 3. The players don’t have to have been born on Skye, but they do need to have attended the school, to which they tend to be fiercely loyal. These lads know they are representing their heritage and culture in a unique footballing project.

1. I have loaded up alexdeanlives’ Alternative Scottish league file. He has an SPL of 20 teams, then from Levels 2 to 14 the divisions are all of 24 teams with linear progression rather than a pyramid system. http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/451328-FM16-Alternative-Scottish-Leagues-15-levels!
   
2. I amended most of the club reputations and added a few clubs with the editor – personal preferences such as Rothesay Brandanes and a couple of fantasy teams such as Isle of Islay, The University of the Highlands & Islands, and my own at the bottom levels.
   
3. I created my club, Skye Thistle, and gave it the lowest reputation and minimal facilities.
   
4. I created a squad of 22 14- and 15-year old boys with the minimal CA.
   
5. In order to ‘fix’ their loyalty to the cause, I had to make the club professional and give all the players 20-year contracts on 10 quid a week and added the clause ‘Will leave club at end of contract’. If we get into semi-pro and later professional leagues I will increase the salaries in line with divisional averages.
   
6. The recruitment policy is to bring through the academy kids and never ever bring in players through loans or transfers.
   
7. There is no restriction on staffing except that at the start I’m only allowed one coach and I can’t attract anyone anyway! In time, if I ever generate any cash, as it won’t be used on transfers the priority will be upgrading staff and facilities.
   
8. I ran a holiday trial for a year and we finished in 8^th place. When I manage I have a habit of picking up a lot of injuries but with this tiny squad I will need to avoid that to better 8^th position.
   
9. I appreciate that some will find my use of the editor distasteful, but I hope others will see that it is to create an interesting challenge and certainly not to make the game easier.
   

[h=2]The first day

As I walked through the doors of this exciting new club I was met and greeted by Mr. McLeod, the Chairman. It immediately became evident that we don’t quite see eye-to-eye. I hadn’t yet met the squad but I had no problem with his stated playing philosophy of defensive direct football, given our status; however, I was dismayed to learn he objects to my intention of bring the academy lads into the squad when they graduate. Fair enough, it’s his school and his club and he feels he knows the capacity of his pupils, but I’m stubborn and obsessive and am determined in time to prove him wrong. For now I’ll have to keep my head down, but I hope come next February I’ll have some substance to work with and convince him otherwise.

After an afternoon with the squad I ascertained that the weakest two were my pair of goalkeepers and that defensively we’re hopeless. We do appear to have a pair of useful wingers though, so I mulled it over and committed myself to employing a structured counter-attacking 5-2-3 formation with 2 ball-winners in midfield to protect the defence, and rely on the wingers to get the ball to a nippy striker to convert our occasional chances.

Over the next few days I optimised the training with my assman and fitness coach (fitness att: 2 – what can you do?), got my one physio to prepare and one scout to report on our next opposition. We lost our friendlies but at least the boys were fit and ready to face Rothesay in our opening competitive fixture. This was to be on a Wednesday, with the second match three days later. Already, I could foresee problems. At least the draw for the first round of the Scottish FA Cup had us away to professional Championship outfit East Fife, so fixture congestion would not be a chronic problem.

[/h]

Rothesay rather played into our hands, having 2 lumbering centre backs up against our nippy lad. Sure enough, five minutes in a huge punt from our right back found the boy and he fired in our first ever goal. The game was mostly dull but an unfit Rothesay fell to pieces in the last ten minutes and gifted us two more goals. One match played – top of the league!

That second game in a week in which I played my second-string resulted in a creditable 1-1 draw away from home. I’ve now seen the whole squad bar the reserve keeper in action and I’m impressed. I feel my tactics fit the players well although I’m aware that kids tend to be very inconsistent and I’m yet to see how they cope when morale drops. But, so far so good.

The stadium

The finances (or lack thereof)

Our (damage-limitation) tactics

Meet the Young Boys of Port Righ (they'll be with us from cradle to grave)

Lest anyone asks, the skin is the quite magnificent Andromeda Blue

* I'm afraid i can't take screenshots of my game - when i try I just get the desktop! I hope these screenies are acceptable.

edit: thanks to Maw74 - I've gone back and put in proper screenshots.

Thank you for playing my database! I encourage others to do so if they want a more "standard" flavour of Scottish League. I look forward to yours and anyone else's playthrough of my database.

You're more than welcome. Here's my matchday squad by the way

* I'm afraid i can't take screenshots of my game - when i try I just get the desktop! I hope these screenies are acceptable.

I take it you are using the Print Screen key, that will work if you play in Windowed, the best way to take a screenshot from your game is to use the shortcut that you can find in the game preferences, I have mine set as Shift + X but I think the default setting is Alt + F9. The screenshot will then go in a screenshots folder in your Football Manager folder.

Anyway looking forward to seeing more from your game, good luck.

I've not put it in windowed mode - I'll try it; every other option hasn't succeeded.

Matchday 3 – I felt like returning the queen’s pound sterling to each of the forty hapless souls who turned up in the driving rain to watch this turgid goalless mudfest of talentless cloggers. Not quite the silky football I lie in bed dreaming about; God help us when winter rolls in. We’re undefeated, and eighth. We lead the table in tackles and fouls though – at least my tigerish midfield duo are stepping up to the plate.

We’re getting zilch responses to our job adverts. I’m allowed another physio but cannae find one, and I’m allowed a reserves team manager. Whisper it quietly – I dinnae have any reserves but I thought it a sneaky way to get some extra coaching. It is a cunning plan, but seems more and more flawed every time the Chairman brings me further news of no news. Okay, Matchday 4 – where the fire?

One thing I find curious is that our young lads seem to be far fitter than the opposition so far. I wonder if that’s down to my fitness-focused training regime or the fact that my only coach is a fitness coach. Whatever the reason, I doubt it will count in our favour against the strapping firemen from Dundee, whose fire engine is dinging its way to their stadium as I write.

I thought we were gonna be well and truly hosed by the Taysiders, but we stole a late equalizer to make it three draws in a row. Which way do I spin this – undefeated or winless since the opening day of the season? All our chances had fallen to our left-winger Rich Le-Gallez but with his Finishing att. of 1 he spurned them all until our super-striker Esslemont teed him up for a late tap-in and he finally obliged.

Now we’re 11^th and next up is a pasting from a proper footballing side in the Big Cup.

Four games in, bog-standard mid-tablers. Just noticed we have the joint-best record in goals conceded. Our keeper's been surprisingly tidy so far; the back line hasn't distinguished itself - it's more the combined efforts of the defence and defensive midfield. Well, that, the weather and the terrible finishing at this level, of course!

Sorry, misread the schedule: two league games – Saturday/Wednesday - before the Cup tie, and the classic wee squad dilemma. Do I play the weakened side in the midweek match or take a defeated attitude into the cup game? I decided on the former, but with Matchday 5 being another day another draw I had a twinge of regret. My central defence is beginning to show their limitations and they will be overrun by East Fife, whereas they may well have withstood the strikers of the mighty Lochgilphead. Oh well, let’s see how my back-ups get on in that game.

Well that was a game worth the one pound entrance fee! Behind at the break and with Nyman clueless up front, I decide that despite the upcoming Big Match, Esslemont had to come on. He promptly won a penalty before skinning the defence twice to grab a brace. We’re fifth – that’s play-off territory! We sustained our first two injuries though – that will hurt.

Scottish Cup - 0-5. Well that didnae last long!

The positives:

1. Windowed mode - yes, now I can take screenies.

2. We are now under no illusions about our standing in the game - heck, according to the match highlights we only got out of our own half twice.

3. We weren't humiliated as bad as the Firemen - 11 To be fair, they'll have picked up twice our income; our takings hardly made a dent in our debt.

Okay, let's dust ourselves down and get back to the league.

Uh oh, our first competitive loss was closely followed by our first competitive league loss. Our defending was purely to blame – a hangover from their appalling efforts in the cup? This could be a tough one to crack as I have no reinforcements. Curiously our gate was inflated four-fold – a new trend or a one-off? Our distillery does produce a similar peaty whiskey to Islay, and we have a satellite Gaelic college on the island which could explain it.

The next fixture proved it was the travelling whiskey-swiggers. I’d forgotten about the wee diddy tin-pot cup we were entered in, the Amateur & Welfare Cup. Last thing I need for my threadbare and demoralized squad is extra fixtures but the Chairman and fans are expecting us to reach the fourth round. So out we staggered to face Wigtown & Bladnoch. After two defeats, 90 minutes of turgid goalless soulless fare should have felt quite good, but I couldn’t face a pointless replay so I went all-out overload and … we scored! Then, as I was screaming out orders to go into ultra-contain mode we won a daft penalty. Now this could prove to be pretty significant. Kevin O’Hara’s hapless performances at the heart of our defence has been a big contributing factor in our poor form; I had a word with him before the game but had to play him as the only back-up central defender, Andrew Grace is even worse and it’s too late to train these simpletons in a new formation now. Anyway, he took and scored the penalty - I hope it boosts his confidence.

Next up, it’s the battle of Bannockburn.

Ach, hung, drawn and quartered by the Bravehearts. Will the Picts of Breadalbane gi’ us any more slack?

No. As August draws to a close we have 2 wins from 9 and are in the bottom half of the table. The boys are becoming familiar with my tactics at this point so I can assess them properly now. They’re a good bunch of lads, not causing any trouble, but their limitations are plain to see. Physically, this group of 15 year-olds are small and weak, easily getting shoved off the ball and beaten to headers. The weaknesses at the back I noted on the training ground have translated onto the pitch. All I can do is keep their spirits up and keep them on fitness training until they grow into their roles. I can only hope the chairman and fans keep the faith.

Trouble is - the worst staff in Scotland (and not one reply in two months to my adverts)

Struck down by the plague!! Three injuries, including our own saviour will desperately hurt us - I can't fill a bench for the next game.

We lost the next game. And the next, both to teams below us in the table. The kids are thoroughly miserable and betraying their immature ages. We’re also crippled by injuries and all I can do is hobble until February when an intake will swell the inadequate numbers. I might not get that far – the press is suggesting I have little support from the chairman. I wasn’t worried at first since we all know what that deceitful toe-rag on the Portree Post is about, but somehow the BBC got hold of it and spun a yarn about my next league match being an ultimatum.

Auntie Beeb - what the heck are you taking an interest for????

And that was September – started with a false dawn followed by three devastating defeats, a rash of injuries, wholesale dejection and 22nd position in the league table.

The first game in October was in the Sucky Cup, a competition we’re not in to win; nevertheless I welcomed the respite from the relentless league punishment. I simplified the tactics a little and took the pressure off the kids and as a result they played better than I’d ever seen them. The result matched their performance – a remarkable 3-0 scoreline. The next round pairs us against a team topping a table five levels above us but I hope this little success instills much-needed confidence into the squad. This streak of 7 losses in the last 8 has to stop now.

Well, more than hope: my job is on the line. Lose this game and I’m out. I’ve got two key players coming back from injury but they’re not ready for this match. Damn. Trying not to show any nerves, but …..

Ah, the wee boys played their hearts out for me. We took a sustained battering but somehow emerged with a 1-0 victory to move us six places up the table.

Promotion contenders????

Can you believe it? The headline is kinda true but we're only up to mid-table.

It was a remarkable victory. We’re starting to play like a real football team now. That was a very disciplined performance and we’re learning how to close out games with resolute defending in the final 20 minutes. One factor in our transformation seems to be the change of goalkeeper. In the midst of our form and injury crisis the only change I could make was to drop our 14-year old keeper Neil McLaughlin. He really hadn’t done anything wrong, but since Connor Hughes came in apart from his debut we’ve won every game.

Auntie Beeb - what the heck are you taking an interest for????

And it's not even BBC Alba. They must really be in dire need of news worth reporting...

And it's not even BBC Alba. They must really be in dire need of news worth reporting...

Hey hi! My spin is that the culture vulture dept. is interested in angles on the Gaelic College dimension.

I even have BBC Sport open while I play the game! "Get back to gossiping about Mourinho you lot!"

And there we go again, grinding out yet another 1-0 victory. In an incredibly tight league other results went our way, sending us up to 8^th. Given that 6^th place is a play-off spot I suppose we could be considered promotion contenders. Just don’t tell our emotionally fragile lads that. Having said that, what the heck is the BBC still blethering about???

I'm gonna half to withhold my licence fee at this rate. To be fair, the fans aren’t having it. Before our slump most home games were pulling in 50 punters; despite October delivering five wins on the trot, only 20 souls are turning up – we have more season ticket holders than that. Okay, the entertainment factor is not great, but come on, give the wee boys a bit more support!

I'm loving/ will love following this career Phnompenhandy so best of luck! Interesting to see the Isle of Jura being a decent-ish team so far even though they have a population of 188, do any of the islands in the Outer Hebrides have teams in this database?

Hi Makoto, thanks for following.

I created Jura; even though I didn't put in any data for attendances, it only gets on average about 18 fans - i.e. about 10% of the population. For some reason Islay has a large following (the fictitious clubs will carry the data for the clubs they replaced - all I did in the editor was change the club name and rep). Considering the rep I gave Jura, they should be near the bottom. One thing I like about these kinds of saves is that despite the starting reps, the performance of the clubs can be quite random.

The database has a couple of teams from Orkney - I think one has done defunct or changed to be Orkney FC. On Skye Portree (which is the club I've made into Skye Thistle), Portree Juniors and Kyleakin are in the db, but as far as the Western Isles are concerned I don't think there are any. Initially I was going to create more levels and put the likes of Barra in but I didn't do that in the end.

Matchday 18 took us up to Golspie Stafford, sitting in the second automatic promotion spot. Without a shot on target in 90 minutes we ground out a 0-0 draw, thus ending our winning streak. I was in no way disappointed with that and am highly satisfied that we can now hold our own against the strongest teams in the league.

Oh yeh? Well I haven't forgotten, you fickle gits

And thus endeth October. Five victories and a draw. I love you October!

Waah! Call the fire brigade – I have a nose-bleed! We’ve only gone and won 3-0 away from home and hit 6^th place – a play-off spot! A very assured performance; by the way, with our fresh element of competence and newly-found self-belief, I’ve switched our tactic from counter-attacking to controlling games; as a result we’re starting to show wee moments of flair and our play is definitely more attractive. Absent ‘fans’, please take note.

Aye, the fans are trickling back – 44 paid punters saw a minor set-back in a draw with Jura. We played very well but sometimes you can’t legislate for the ball unwilling to hit the onion bag. A sucky cup game then intruded on our march up the league. I gave the fringe players a run-out but Bellshill were the more determined to throw the tie and we ran out 2-1 winners. Into the fourth round.

Back to the league and we ground out yet another 1-0 victory – we’re becoming experts in that scoreline. The last game in November was against the in-form side Tullibody – 6 straight victories and winning their last 5 away matches. Whilst they were the better side, we played with true grit and it was only a dubious 90^th minute linesman’s flag that denied us victory. And in a dreadful match at St. Mungo’s there was one shot on target in the entire match. 1-0 us. That’s 12 games unbeaten.

And that brings us to the mid-point of the season. Time to stand back and appraise our performances so far, and then to finally meet the players now that we've had time to assess them.

Half-way Home

Squad ranked by average rating

Note the central defence all lumped at the bottom

Okay, let's meet the players.

Goalkeepers

McLaughlin started the first 14 games of the season and seemed to be perfectly competent, but we kept losing. As soon as I dropped him for Hughes our fortunes dramatically swung around. Looking at their attributes side-by-side it appears the key is their determination: young Neil threw in the proverbial towel when results started to go against us. I’m happy to keep him as back-up but Connor is our Mr. Reliable. Interesting to note that despite being 5” shorter, Neil is far more agile than Connor – I’m gonna name him ‘The Cat’.

Left Fullback

McCarthy’s got the physicals; Piesse has the technicals. My assistant insisted Andrew is the better player, but again, it looks as if Sam’s determination has proved a key difference.

Right Fullback

I initially went with the assistant’s recommendation of McAlinden but find more success when I rely on Williams. They’re both impressively determined lads, but I think Sam’s lack of concentration has cost us on too many occasions.

Central Defence

This position is proving to be our greatest weakness; it was when I put 2 BWMd in front of the centre backs that the leakages stopped. And you can see why – 3 of my 4 DCs have zero concentration! O’Hara can play (badly) in a number of positions, but defence is where I need him.

Central Midfield

Not that the BWMs are great in themselves. King is nothing special and McKenzie pretty weak; Molumby prefers a more offensive role, but he does a disciplined job where I need him. Flanagan quietly goes about his business in the middle of the park spraying about some nice passes, and is proving our most consistent player. Despite having a tiny squad we have a bit of a surfeit of central midfielders – Curry’s determination means he can be relied on in an emergency although he has no actual skill to speak of, and Smith is simply the weakest member of the squad.

I will be following this as well. This is a very interesting idea.

I use the Andromeda skin as well, I really like how it is laid out.

AML

Le-Gallez is really a wide midfielder but my system requires him to be more attacking. He does very well although I wish he’d lay the ball onto a forward more often rather than taking hopeless pot-shots himself. Magennis is very much the back-up, although as a defensive winger he has established himself as a very useful substitute to bring on to close a game (more often on the right since Le-Gallez can run for 90 minutes).

AMR

Stewart is proving pretty dependable here. I don’t really have a back-up for him so Molumby has to move from his position shielding the defence when Jack needs a rest.

Strikers

Esselmont all the way, really our most important player. Nyman supposedly is better at finishing although you’d never guess from watching him.

LO (left-over)

Kioso is supposed to be proficient at DL and DR but he’s very weak in both positions. Being therefore third-choice in both, he doesn’t get much of a look-in.

Training

This is not my normal training regime. I'm keeping a focus on fitness to beef up these wee waifs, and keeping the match prep schedule on maximum because the games are nearly always so tight.

Always take an interest in the unusual and the new so i will be following.

Best of luck.

Thank you kris

Having assessed the squad, I’m of a mind to cull Smith at the end of the season – he’s not developing and is superfluous to our central midfield. I desperately need central defence reinforcements from the February academy intake, but I’ve decided that with a back 3, I can’t wait until then so I’m making a tactical tweak. I’m going to move Williams inside from RB to CDr and hope McAlinden can do a better job at RB now. He doesn’t have the stamina to charge up the wing so I’ll need to restrict his role to defensive full-back. I’m dropping Grace to last-ditch option and hope to replace him in February.

Whisper it quietly, but I’m a wee bit concerned that I’m relying too heavily for recruitment on Colin Golabek our school PE teacher a.k.a. ‘Head of Youth Development’. He’s a terrific guy – the best we’ve got, but whilst he knows what I need, his judgment is questionable.

One other tweak that I mentioned is shifting from a structured to flexible approach even though tactical familiarity is still more often accomplished rather than fluid. A final change is that I’ve decided the dribbling abilities of my four most offensive players are satisfactory enough to allow them the occasional dribble – I’ll monitor how that goes.

So we move into the second half of the season, with the league opposition appearing in the same order as in the first half. I’m mindful that after our opening victory we had four draws followed by a slump that almost got me the sack; I trust the boys are older and wiser enough to avoid repetition. We shall see.

Stepping out of character for a moment, this winter I took my Cambodian wife of eight years to visit my homeland for the first time and Skye was covered in snow. It therefore surprises me not a bit to find my next fixture postponed due to the adverse weather. I just hope we don’t experience a serious fixture backlog with this squad.

Hang on, it’s been arranged for the middle of the winter schedule. Uh oh.

So here comes the Christmas rush, 5 games in 15 days, Dornoch, the rescheduled Rothesay tie, Auchtermuchty, the Fire Brigade and then the sucky cup tie. No training scheduled and bans on travelling to Inverness to go Christmas shopping.

Ah, a Christmas present of sorts. After 6 months with no response we finally got one enquiry for our physio vacancy. Beggars can’t be choosers – he’s in (still no interest in the reserves’ team manager post). I’d failed to notice he’d cost us 1000 GBP in compensation; my finances are plummeting with no scope of clawing any back (our cup run is in an amateur competition). Would the Scots Nats like tae gi’ us a wee grant for our, um, cultural significance??

My assman lady is increasingly nagging me about training the lads in a second tactic. They’ve barely got their thick skulls around the one; another will have to wait, possibly a long time. But, we’re about to see if the opposition have the measure of us as we meet them all a second time.

In the wider world some less delightful presents have been delivered. After an indifferent start Aberdeen have sacked their manager and brought in Burley, and in England Allardyce has been replaced with Monk and with Crystal Palace bottom of the Premier League, Pardew’s been dumped. And no, my phone is not ringing.

A disappointing draw was a repeat of the result at Dornoch in July; the boys hated the freezing, driving rain as much as the handful of hardy supporters who turned up. Sam Piesse sustained a thigh injury that will keep him out for a month. Welcome back, Andrew McCarthy. I was surprised the rescheduled game went ahead – it started in a blizzard, which thankfully finished by half time although not before Flanagan was carried off (that’s our best player out for a month). In the second half Neville was gone too with a gashed head. I’d had to manage the playing squad carefully and having noticed neither central midfielder had the energy to finish the last game in the heavy conditions, I’d taken a risk by putting two CMs on the bench. My gamble paid off when I made my late third substitution; McKenzie came straight on and scored the only goal of the dour contest.

Okay, what just happened? I’d cancelled all training yet Richards somehow nobbled himself on the training ground. We have a defensive crisis. That new physio better have magic hands. In the next match it was Molumby’s turn to be carried off in the first half. Where do I sign the petition to campaign for a winter break? It’s killing my wee lads! Having to draft Grace back in meant we were never going to keep a clean sheet, but as my last resort, he didn’t have to go and get himself sent off. Stupid, stupid boy; he’s dead to me now.

Pot-stirrer

Where's the option to say I have no feckin' idea where either Blaby OR Whetstone is??? And I don't need to be reminded not to trust this git.

I now can’t put out a full bench and have a bodged back line with McAlinden filling in DC and Kioso on the right. We’ll be fire-fighting the Fire Brigade.

And with the final game of 2015, we lost our 15-match unbeaten streak. I’m placing the blame firmly at the door of Andrew Grace. He’ll be in detention writing out Gaelic lines until he leaves the school.

For one glorious day earlier in the month we moved up to 5^th place; now we end the year consolidated in 6^th. I’ll still take that!