Which lower team did you enjoy this year? (recommendation thread)

Hi! After having success with some saves (Aston Villa and Middlesbrough, they had pretty different outcomes in real life huh?), I'd like to recieve some advice on which lower league team can be fun/challenging to play with, according to your experience. I prefer english teams, but I'm open for every suggestion you guys have.

By the way, I'm new to this community, so I apologize in advance if this question has been made 2000000 times before

Maine Road was a decent save, and i had a 10 year game with the Green Bay Packers

Ive started with wealdstone, it become quite hard because a year in the board decided to build a new stadium, that was the same size as the old one. Very ambitious as even though we couldnt fill that one they expanded it a year later. More debt, then somebody bought the club a year later and made even more debt to pay of the existing debt.

At least its not dull.

I quite enjoyed Burton Albion.

I started with my closest non league team (Margate in the vs) enjoyed it more than I thought I would tbh (although my local paper reports helped a lot) managed to take them up to league 2 in three seasons, before getting slaughtered every game in the league and jumping ship as soon as a higher league club came in (Birmingham)

- Ironically mick McCarthy took over from me at margate, kept them up and then got them promoted the following season and thrashed me in the cup but that's a different story lol.

The only downside of LLM which has been mentioned on here a few times is stadium expansion as you move up the leagues, I remember one guy on here (forget his name tbh) but he took Telford up to prem/champs league and the board still wouldn't give him a larger stadium than his current 12,500 :/

Thats because I think theres some stupid one rule for all where you cant build a new stadium 25 years before the last. So that means my brand new 3K stadium that can be expanded to 6K is my home for the next 23 years, so no matter how much success I have in that time, I could get back to back promotions, be in the premier league in 10 year, get into the champions league and have to put up with 6K attendances for another 10 year plus while the board pretend there isnt a demand till the 25 years run out.

These things arent thought through properly. Its no good making sure the game works 2 season playing as Mancity, they need to test 10 year+ playing with a non league team.

I have no clue why they built that 3k stadium, we were skint, the stadium I had was about 3k, I was only getting attendances of 1k. Only 750 are seats. Cost 2 million, in one year they had to expand it 1K because of league rules, Is that a rule, What was that planning for, a week in the future?

I am enjoying a save with AFC Wimbledon. Currently I am in my 8th season and playing in Europe for the first time :-).

My new stadium is expanded to the max at 22.000 (still a 17 year wait ahead of me for a new stadium).

I downloaded English level 11 DB and over Graham St Prims, 5 years in and im only one league away from the Vanarama north/south

We have no money and each years is a struggle getting decent players on amateur contracts

This has been my best player over the 5 season but this year with better players playing time is limited

Looks like a Nice challenge Graham!

I don't have that much time so I started in VNL. The choice fell on Boreham Wood. Having a nice time and really enjoying stirring around in the London area!

Had some fun with Margate before settling on Maidstone.

Doing an Academy challenge, made it to Championship in 12 season without signing any players (developing our own academy players instead).

Brilliant fun, wouldn't play any other way now, when you have players who've made 500+ appearances for you its a strong bond, can't let them go, when they retire i bring them back to the club as coaches

Which lower teams have solid enough academy's for that out of interest?

Also I have really enjoyed a Salford City save (after watching the TV program about them) -you need to holiday the first 3/4 of the year, save it, then holiday again and see if they get promoted into the Conf North, reload if they don't and keep trying - then take over.

This years FM is more realistic in that it's harder (IMO) to get a small club back to back promotions, but I did well and got them to the Prem, won it twice but last season lost out to city, also lost the FA cup final AND the CL final.....bad season!

I really enjoyed the middle leagues in England.

The major issue with FM is the fact the sponsorship money and attendances don't catch up fast enough, its 2030 in my save now, Salford are ranked 9th in Europe and have won 2 out of the last 3 Prem titles, yet we only make £12m a year in total sponsorship deals! Not saying this should be as high as City/UTD but it's the lowest in the whole league I imagine! Also the attendances are low given how successful we are (and how poorly UTD are doing).

Which lower teams have solid enough academy's for that out of interest?

Also I have really enjoyed a Salford City save (after watching the TV program about them) -you need to holiday the first 3/4 of the year, save it, then holiday again and see if they get promoted into the Conf North, reload if they don't and keep trying - then take over.

This years FM is more realistic in that it's harder (IMO) to get a small club back to back promotions, but I did well and got them to the Prem, won it twice but last season lost out to city, also lost the FA cup final AND the CL final.....bad season!

I really enjoyed the middle leagues in England.

The major issue with FM is the fact the sponsorship money and attendances don't catch up fast enough, its 2030 in my save now, Salford are ranked 9th in Europe and have won 2 out of the last 3 Prem titles, yet we only make £12m a year in total sponsorship deals! Not saying this should be as high as City/UTD but it's the lowest in the whole league I imagine! Also the attendances are low given how successful we are (and how poorly UTD are doing).

I picked Maidstone as they have a big gate for Conference South, 2000+ so you can make money non-league and build up your facilities as well as increase junior coaching and youth recruitment although you need to be careful as its very expensive if you push this too far to early. (as i did).

When you go full time your costs escalate, i did this in the Conference proper and started losing money even with big gates.

The gates also don't scale well, 2000 in Conference South yet only 6000 in League 1. In Championship i'm getting 8800. However you get a few million consolidation payment in championship so i'm turning a £3m profit every year which i'm ploughing into facilities/coaching etc.

I have 4 or 5 players now rated as decent for the Championship and some youth players with the potential to be better than that, expect to make the Prem in the next 2 seasons although staying up will be very difficult.