The FM09 Career Thread

Just like last year, this is a thread for those of you who want to have a 'career' type game. There's no rules, just load the leagues that will allow you to play out the type of managerial career you want.

As a minimum, an end of season review with a career outline each year is required.

Here's an example of a career from last year:

Season     Team                 Country    League                 League Finish    Achievements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Started    unemployed
2007/08    St Albans            England    Blue Square South      15th             Took over in March
2008/09    St Albans            England    Blue Square South      3rd              Lost in playoff final
2009/10    St Albans            England    Blue Square South      2nd              Promoted via playoffs
2010/11    St Albans            England    Blue Square Premier    4th              Lost in playoff final
2011/12    St Albans            England    Blue Square Premier    3rd              Promoted via playoffs
2012/13    St Albans            England    League 2               14th    
2013/14    St Albans            England    League 2               7th              Promoted via playoffs
2014/15    St Albans            England    League 1               14th  
2015/16    Bassano Virtus       Italy      C1/A                   16th             Relegated, resigned  
2016/17    Notts County         England    League 2               9th          
2017/18    Notts County         England    League 2               3rd              Promoted  
2018/19    Wycombe Wanderers    England    Championship           19th
2019/20    Wycombe Wanderers    England    Championship           21st
2020/21    Wycombe Wanderers    England    Championship           18th
2021/22    Wycombe Wanderers    England    Championship           3rd              Lost in playoff semi
2022/23    Wycombe Wanderers    England    Championship           4th              Lost in playoff semi
2023/24    Wycombe Wanderers    England    Championship           3rd              Promoted via playoffs
2024/25    Wycombe Wanderers    England    Premier League         n/a              Left to join Deportivo
2024/25    Deportivo La Coruna  Spain      Liga BBVA              n/a              Sacked after 13 games
2024/25    Middlesbrough        England    Premier League         17th             Took over in February
2025/26    Middlesbrough        England    Premier League         16th            
2026/27    Middlesbrough        England    Premier League         7th              Qualified for Intertoto Cup
2026/27    Uruguay                                                                 Copa America losing finalists

Enjoy

Nice one Is this for any career whatsoever?

Nice one Is this for any career whatsoever?

It's the same as last year really, most people's careers were based around loading multiple leagues and starting at the bottom. If there's demand for it there can be another big clubs version.

I think that'd be best, alot of people like to start off with their favorite clubs (usually Prem) so it would probably get quite a bit of activity.

Is this thread purely for 09 careers? I have just started a new one on 08, should that still go in the old thread?

Yes, this is for FM09 games. You can still use the old thread though, it will stay open.

dafuge, maybe you could put in the OP an example of a career built from scratch, I found a nice example from the old thread

Not sure if that was the whole career, but I couldn't find any other updates in there from yourself.

Career:

Thanks for that, good idea

Been waiting for this to open

I have the English (down to BSP), Germany (top division), Italy (Down to Serie B), Scotland (Down to 2nd division) and Spanish (down to second division) leagues running. After a year of holidaying, I finally got a job.

BREAKING NEWS:

Adam C signs a 2 year deal with new Scottish second division side Cowdenheath, With wages of just £160 a week. With the side faveroutes for the drop, it will certainly be a though start for Connellan's career...

I will have a go at one of these soon.

going to start this

hopefully i can do a bit better than last years many tries

all leagues from:

Brazil

England

France

Germany

Italy

Portugal

Romania

Russia

Scotland

Spain

i think it was them anyway, will probably set my rep to Auto

Small appointed as manager.

decided to go with these, as they were the only offer i got haha, pretty sure they will be terrible

ended up getting relegated pretty much had to win all my games to stay up, so i left

unemployed again, waiting for a job

After a year on the dole Rob "Knoxy" Knox has taken over as the new manager of Blue Square premier team Southport, he is said to be "delighted" although we suspect he may be fibbing.

So here we go for FM09! I have loaded up the following nations down to the following leagues:

England - Blue Square North/South

France - National

Germany - Third Division

Holland - Eerste Divisie

Italy - Serie C2

Scotland - Division 3

Spain - Segunda B1-B4

I have a Sunday League reputation and started unemployed. My first opportunity came up as Hayes & Yeading United. They were bottom of the table when I took over and they stayed that way by the time I'd finished with them too. I managed to win just a single game of the twelve games I took control of, drawing five and losing the other six.

Season     Team                     Country    League                 League Finish    Achievements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Started    Unemployed
2008/09    Hayes & Yeading United   England    Blue Square South      22nd             Relegated (Took over in February)

Here's hoping for a better season next year depending on where I end up.

unlucky start there josh, difficult to do any better wth your side last in february. Good luck next season

What repatation have you started on guys?

Also Dafuge how do you get a table going like the one you done above?

I started on Sunday League reputation as I like to play realistically and that's as much experience as I have.

Cheers Adam, how are you getting on so far?

Yeah me to, probaly going to play around with a career game, then I might try and do the Dafuge challange this year.

Yeah I also started on Sunday League, (as with auto I waited for ages, not getting a job). Today I had a lot of trouble with FM, but after fixing it, I've managed to play these games, here's how I did:

Challenge Cup 1st Round: Away - Dumbarton - 2-1 Win

Second Division: Home - Clyde - 2-0 loss

League Cup 1st Round: Home - Partick Thistle - 2-1 Win

Second Division: Away - Berwick - 1-0 win

That leaves me safe in both cups, and 6th in the league. Which I'm ok with so far, considering I'm predicted to come 10th (last).

So after a failed attempted to keep Hayes & Yeading afloat, I've wound up 10 miles down the road at Staines Town. As with most promoted teams into the basement division they have no players or coaches which means it's all hands on deck in order to get people in for the new season.

Not too bad so far Adam, where do you hope/expect to finish?

I hope to finish in a surviving position. But I think we may be able to do better, as in the Leacue Cup against Partick Thistle, they're in the higher division yet we won, but still, Who knows?

What position are your new side expected to finish Josh?

Also Dafuge how do you get a table going like the one you done above?

I wrote it in notepad first, then copied it inside the code tags.

Code tags? How do you do that?

We're predicting to finish 16th apparently. Can't see that happening I'm aiming to avoid the drop if possible. I've played two games so far on this version and I've been sacked twice so I can't say I'm anticipating a good run!

Jon, put

 at the end of the table and it should work. Remember to remove the space before the second bracket. If you have any issues, look to the bottom left of the page and there is a hyperlink for codes which explains how to get them all to work. 

Awesome! Likewise I've been waiting for this. I always find career, or dafuge challenge style games to be the most fun. Good luck everyone! Considering some of the extra features I think the FM09 career thread is going to be grand.

Game set up

I've gone for a strong GB/Home nations feel for this. I've loaded all the English, Scottish, N.Irish, Welsh and Irish leagues as well as all the French leagues. I've included the French to give me a chance to manage further abroad if I want it, I expect I'll mainly be staying in Britain and Ireland though. Hopefully the league choices will work out well. In my last 08 career game I made the mistake of including the Australian league. Not to say that it's not fun or worth playing but once you become a 'big' manager it become a bit of a wasted league choice.

England - All

Scotland - All

Wales - All

N.Ireland - All

Ireland - All

Rodrigo De La Vega - 2008

I started off unemployed with automatic rep. It didn't take very long at all (about two weeks) before I was called back off my holiday with a message from a club in Northen Irish 2nd Division. Brantwood.

I jumped straight in at the club. They are a semi-proffesional side who are expected to come in at around 10th place in the league, just above the relegation zone. There wasn't much cash floating around and I found myself a little hamstrung by the fact I couldn't sign anyone for fear of breaking the wage budget. Even if they only wanted a pittance, like 40pw, the board would step in and veto it. Which was a pity really. I was able to find a few really good players who were interested in coming, ones who would have probably been able to really lift the club but the money situation meant it was no go. I instead managed to scrounge a few players on loan to bolster the squad. Most were only as good as players I already had in place, and for the most part the loanee's would be there to just add depth rather than giving me a star or two to rely on.

The season started fairly well, and although we struggled in our friendlies we managed to make a good start picking up a few unexpected wins here and there as well as forcing the odd draw. The initial run collapsed pretty quickly though and a losing streak took over. I'm not entirely sure why but I have a sneaking feeling it has to do with my strikers being awful (two of my four strikers haven't scored in roughly ten hours of football each). I've actually got the team playing good football, for this level. Whilst I've told them to hoof it and hope I do tend to see passages of play where the midfield and the strikers link up beautifully. Unfortunately the strikers aren't converting that play into goals.

So this is where we are so far. 11 games in and we sit....11th! Not a great position to be in at the mid point of the season (22 games per season), especially when I can't say I'm confident in the strike force. We've only scored 9 - joint lowest amount of goals so far.

My plan so far then is to carry on grinding out results where I can. The defence seems robust enough I just need to start clawing back a few points. We can do it as ability wise were probably better than quite a few teams above us. We certainly don't deserve to go down.

<< And as a general aside I'm really enjoying FM09. I was worried about the 3D match engine at first but I think it's a joy to behold at times. It's certianly showing me just how rubbish my strikers really are!>>

Rodrigo De La Vega - Brantwood - 2008/9

[To the board]

Erm...yeah. About that relegation battle you wanted me to win? There was a little problem and well...

For the first time in a FM career I've been relegated in the first season. Normally I've been able to at least keep a team safe and steady in the first season, even if I eventually had to jump ship later but this time...I just don't know what happened. The team wasn't bad per se it just had one fatal flaw - It didn't have one decent striker. It didn't matter how tight we kept it at the back as once we went a goal down we could pretty much kiss the chance of 3 points goodbye. Two goals down and we could do the same to getting a single point.

After my last up date I played a couple of matches and lost them. The streak continued until I responded to reports about my lack of flexibility. I gave up pinning my hopes on the strikers suddenly finding form and stuck on an extra winger. He could play either wing so I set him as a free role and let him do his thing. It worked and I started picking up points. Only a draw here and there though. We need wins to pull us out of the relegation zone and they weren't coming. As the press bugged me more and more about it the conferences got shorter and shorter until I finally stormed out.

The extra points were making the team feel better but it just didn't work out. As we failed to win our 19th match (we bossed them around and went ahead but conceded a penalty) we were consigned to relegation. Our pride took another hit when we drew with the team below us in the next match.

There wasn't a big song and dance in the news about it. Just the announcement we'd been relegated. The board confidence update at the end of the month let me know that they were still quite satisfied with my work but I knew I would have to go. I decided to play the last few matches and then leave.

Table

Normally in an update I'd mention a few players but seeing as they were so mediocre, and that I won't be managing them next season, I've given it a miss.

So, it looks like it's back to the drawing board. I'm going to go on another, barely deserved, holiday and see who bites. It may take a while though...who would want to hire me now?

2008/9  --  Brantwood  --  11th  --  Relegated

Hard luck fella. Looks like a lot of us have succumbed to early relegations in our careers! Strangely when I got relegated I was being tipped for jobs at Blue Square Premier clubs, didn't get one but I was in the frame. I'm sure you'll be back in the game soon!

I'm currently sitting in 18th of 22 in the Blue Square South and struggling in the cups. We've only met one of the boards aims in the cups so far, so needless to say I'm a bit worried. I did manage to survive a takeover in September/October which had me fearing the worst!

Is the game to hard this year?

I wouldn't go that far. I just think that if you have a bad team, or a weak link then this year that actually shows. I've been struggling to come up with the right tactic in my games and so to be honest my downfalls have been my own tactic choices.

Hard luck fella. Looks like a lot of us have succumbed to early relegations in our careers! Strangely when I got relegated I was being tipped for jobs at Blue Square Premier clubs, didn't get one but I was in the frame. I'm sure you'll be back in the game soon!

I'm currently sitting in 18th of 22 in the Blue Square South and struggling in the cups. We've only met one of the boards aims in the cups so far, so needless to say I'm a bit worried. I did manage to survive a takeover in September/October which had me fearing the worst!

Ta Josh The Hayes and Reading job was one of the ones free after I jumped ship but they didn't even give my CV a second glance. Hopefully though now we've got relegation out of the way we won't have to worry about it again! A bit too optimistic perhaps!

Good luck with Staines....another team who rejected me. 18th is safe isn't it? Hold on to it for all you're worth! You've already managed to survive the take over so I wouldn't worry about the cup aims. I think boards tend to be a bit flexible with cup aims so long as you're meeting the league ones.

I've finally got another job but it took ages. I had to leave my computer on overnight as I holiday'd through. I left Brantwood in April 09, I just accepted a job at Buckley Town in the Welsh Premiership...in June 11! That's a big break I think but understandable considering. The team is newly promoted and they don't have a huge squad, which means I should be able to bring in who I want and really make a team this time round!

Is the game to hard this year?

I agree with Josh, I wouldn't go that far. You notice things like a lack of money or weak players a lot more but there are ways to deal with that. If you don't have the money to bring in new players then you have to rely on your tactical ability. And getting the right set up for your team can take a while.

In 08 I just used to go emphasis strength and speed at the lower end of things. I'd have big burly strikers who would outmuscle defenses or I'd have nippy ones who would out pace them. Niether were technically very good. My midfield was poor but didn't matter because I'd hoof it over the top of them and the defense followed the strikers leads. Big and strong or small and fast. That would normally be enough to work but in 09 I think you need to pay more attention to your tactics to get the best out of your team. Which is why I got relegated I think. I couldn't bring better players in so it fell to my tactical choices which in all honesty were far too inconsistant for a 22 game season. I started off defensively which worked well for a time, swapped to attacking, which halted a poor run of form but did little else and then finished with one that only had a lone striker. So three fairly different approaches in 22 league games (maybe 10 cup games too) was too much for a team with no real ability or tactical know how. You live and learn though!

Another thing I guess is noticing weak players. I think in 08 you could get away with wanting to play a certain way and then bending your players to it, even if it wasn't ideal for them. In 09 I think it's the other way round, your players definately dictate what formations and tactics you can or cannot manage.

With my next team I'll hopefully be able to build a solid defense that can hoof it to some consistant strikers, and so long as I've got the right players I'll stick with that regardless of what the fans say!

Will defo take part in this challenge.

Could someone give me some pointers, how do i add images to my posts and how do i add the screen shot that dafuge included in his first post.

Thanks in advance.

18th is safe. If I start mentioning I'm sitting somewhere between 20-22 then you know I'm in trouble. As it is, I'm currently struggling without half my team thanks to the injury issue (which as I own a mac I cannot patch yet) and struggling to score goals. To the point in my last league game I managed to pick up a 0-0 draw without having a single shot on goal. Right now I'm sitting nicely in 16th place and have just been drawn away to Rotherham in the 3rd round of the FA Trophy. Right now I am hassling all the teams in League Two for which players I can take on loan.

Buckley Town? I can't say I've heard of them. I've never managed in Wales, so god knows how difficult it's going to be. I've managed in Northern Ireland before so can understand how you struggled to keep them up. How many teams go down from the Welsh Premier? Are you confident of beating the drop?

Hello Richard.

To insert a screenshot I believe you need to put either side of a hyperlink of an image. For example [img ]http://www.imagehostingsite.com/yourimage.jpg[/img].

Failing that you can add a link to screenshot by doing this [ url=www.imagehostingsite.com/yourimage.jpg] Text you want to display.[/url].

As for the code, you just need to make a table up and then put

at the end. Just remember to remove the spaces I've added before/after words in the brackets to make it visible to you.

Good luck buddy!

Will defo take part in this challenge.

Could someone give me some pointers, how do i add images to my posts and how do i add the screen shot that dafuge included in his first post.

Thanks in advance.

The more the merrier!

To add what Dafuge did in the first post you need to type

 (but without the final space in both of them.

To add general screenshots press thje print screen button on your keyboard and then open an image editor (photoshop, Paint, GIMP etc) and press paste, then save it and upload it to something like photobucket. Then you can take the url for the uploaded image and either just paste it into your post or select a word in your post and hyperlink it by pressing the button on the tool bar (the globe with a chain).

18th is safe. If I start mentioning I'm sitting somewhere between 20-22 then you know I'm in trouble. As it is, I'm currently struggling without half my team thanks to the injury issue (which as I own a mac I cannot patch yet) and struggling to score goals. To the point in my last league game I managed to pick up a 0-0 draw without having a single shot on goal. Right now I'm sitting nicely in 16th place and have just been drawn away to Rotherham in the 3rd round of the FA Trophy. Right now I am hassling all the teams in League Two for which players I can take on loan.

Buckley Town? I can't say I've heard of them. I've never managed in Wales, so god knows how difficult it's going to be. I've managed in Northern Ireland before so can understand how you struggled to keep them up. How many teams go down from the Welsh Premier? Are you confident of beating the drop?

Ah that sucks about the injury/patch. Good luck with getting some loanee's. They could really change things around, or at least give you a few more shots! 16th is great, is there a huge gap between 16th and the relegation zone pointwise?

Hehe, never heard of them either until I go the job offer. I've managed in the Welsh Preimer before (05 and 07 I think) and it's quite fun. It's just the one league but I think it's nicely balanced in terms of the challenge of making your club successful domestically on a season by season basis, and a huge challenge on making a splash above the domestic level. I think it could be a good one career wise because if you're successful you can get stuck in and start collection all the trophies year in and out. Only one team get's relegated as far as I can remember, it might be two though. Definately no more than two.

I've not had a chance to do much with them as I'm at work but I'm heading home in a bit so hopefully after an afternoon of tweaking I should know! I'm fairly confident though, they have money to spare in the wage budget so I should be able to put together a team capable of surviving. Getting players interested might be hard but the standard of play is low enough for me to make it. I really did find N.Ireland hard! It was my first time managing there. I've managed in the rest of GB/Home nations and usually always made it eventually but Brantwood just completely stumped me. I think it's a league I could return to though if a club has the wiggle room in the wage budget.

So the season has come to an end. I managed to steer Staines Town to a new high of 12th in the Blue Square South. It was a difficult season, due mainly to the fact I took over on the 6th July and had a month to assemble a team in a month to kick off the season. After an interesting start in which I went the first 6 games without a win but also just one defeat in the same time. A win in my 7th league game left us with 8 points from 7 games and in the safety of the bottom of the middle the pack. This is where we'd remain for rest of the season apart from one week where we dipped into 20th, the relegation zone. We sat around 16th most of the season briefly peaking and dropping but remaining constant.

As far as the cups were concerned we kind of blew it. We defeated Bracknell in the FA Cup before going out to Ashford Town (Middx) in a replay in the third qualifying round. The Conference League Cup we were dumped out in the first round by fellow Blue Square South side Eastleigh. Our success story in the cups came in the FA Trophy where we were expected to reach the first round. We managed to make it to the third round and met Rotherham United away, which was a pretty big game for the club.

A lot can be said for our season seeing as our best 4 players for the season were 3 defenders & the goalkeeper. Injuries were a massive factor this season (no thanks to using a mac and lack of patch!) and can't help but feel we could have been higher up had it not been for injuries to not just key players but pretty much the first team for long lengths of the season.

Season     Team                     Country    League                 League Finish    Achievements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Started    Unemployed
2008/09    Hayes & Yeading United   England    Blue Square South      22nd             Relegated (Took over in February)
2009/10    Staines Town             England    Blue Square South      12th

Next season I'm hoping to consolidate our place in this league. Maybe push into the top 10 of the table with a view to gaining a play-off place the season after. 1st Round of the FA Cup would be pretty sweet too!

good to have peljam and richard playing as well now Good luck guys

Decent finish there Josh Good luck next season

Ta Adam Hows it going with Cowdenbeath? I've got a bit of a soft spot for them because of various games I've played.

Nice work in surviving Josh, definately seems like the injuries took their toll on your performances. Hopefully you won't be waiting too long on the patch. It really does make a difference. Good luck for the next season!

I've still in the pre-season with Buckley. Pretty much filled the squad now and I'm a little less confident than before. The draw of the Welsh Premier isn't huge and players seem to want to stay away. That said I've been tweaking my tactics so we've still got a chance. I've been reading up on the tactical frameworks!

I will post my career so far at the end of my season. Looking forward to having a great career got 46 leagues running.

I will post my career so far at the end of my season. Looking forward to having a great career got 46 leagues running.

46! What sort of specs do you have? Does it run slowly?

Its running really well, quad core 3.2 ghz, 8gb ram. I may have all that ram but the game does not use it at all. If SI got the game to use the ram it would be really quick.

Hehe, that'd do it. Very jealous of those specs. On a dual core (2.8) with 3 gigs myself so I've tried not to put too many on.

8 gigs of ram though!

My start with Buckley has been odd. 3 league games and 3 loses. 1-0, 2-1 and 2-0. Which seems poor but actually we were unlucky to lose the first (They scored in the first half and we bossed them around completely afterwards), the second again we were unlucky (they scored in the 3rd min of injury time) and the 2-0 scoreline didn't really reflect the match. We played well, they got one and then in injury time we got caught on the break for the second.

The team are actually passing it around well it's just a case of eeking out some results. If I had a slightly stronger keeper that would do wonders.

woooooooooo new career thread, ill be getting fm09 asap and ill be back on these forums, lets get the place lively again. I'll have to balance this and fm live though, so that'll be 12 hours a day on fm09 and 12 hours a day on fml

How do I post pictures from my photobucket account on the FM forums.

Say I wanted to show one of my players.

Ronaldo.... (Click on that and it would show you his profile from my photobucket)

please help me.

[ url=link.com]Ronaldo[/url]

Without the space between the [ and url.

On the 2nd November 2008 Franceso Giorgini was sacked by Ternana.

Then on the 26th November 2008 they offered me the job which I accepted. I signed a two year deal despite them wanting me to have a three year deal.

JON

I had already turned down two job offers from Ljungskile Sk (Sweden) and Stuttguart Kickers (Germany)

I was more than happy to join after looking at the potential of the club and the 20095 all-seater Libero Liberati Stadium.

Table

14th after 14 games in the relegation play off zone. I had a little bit of work to do. There was no way we would go down.

Media Prediction - 10th

Cups

Serie C Cup - Knocked out of the 1st round (before I took over)

Coppa Italia - Did not take part

Squad

I had a good look at my squad and knew I had to get some new players in January.

My Aims 08/09

New Players in January

Mid Table Finish

January came about and I done some deals.

Transfers

Went a bit crazy with 8 players coming in and 10 players going out.

During March 09 I was linked with two jobs Plymouth and Notts Forest.

League

I started off really well winning my first seven games. I had a little bad spell towards the end of the season that cost me a suprise play-off place.

End Of Season Table

Squad end of the season

Record Club Signing - Tomas Danilevicius - Livorno - £60,000

Record Club Sale - Romeo Papini - Carrarese - £80,000

Average Attendance - 1861

My Players Of The Season

1. Karamoko Cisse

Every game he played he gave 100%. I need him back next season.

2. Federico Del Grosso

Gave him the captaincy in January, solid right back. Will be lucky to keep him next season due to intrest from other clubs.

Also won the fans player of the year.

3. Tomas Danilevicius

Club record signing, with 16 games 10 goals. Not to bad, I want more from him next season.

Next Season Aims

League -Promotion, this club should be in Serie B.

Cups - I would be happy with a little run, but the league is my only aim.

Players needed

I really need a good attacking midfield player to pull the strings.

My thoughts

7th place finish, I would have been happy with that when I took the job. But the fact that we flirted with the play-offs left me feeling a little gutted.

At the moment I have no desire to leave Ternana I feel like I have a job to do. But you never know.

Career so far

2008-2009 Ternana - 7th (Took over in November 26th 08)

Honours

Looks like you've done a great job there in your first half season in charge. Presumably you'll be looking to take them up next season or at least reach the play-offs as it you seemed to have come pretty close. Looking at your signings makes me sad. I look forward to the day I can spend money let alone 5 figure sums!

I see you got the links working too.

I'm just reaching the beginning of the season following a topsy turvy pre-season in which I was beaten by Slough 3-0 but also beat Bristol Rovers 2-0. Players came & went and I fear the players I've brought in weren't of the quality I'd hoped, so my first team has a lot of U18s who have been marked OK for reserves in the hope they offer the depth to the squad I need.

Here's hoping the patch for the mac gets released today!

Jono Crute, with all leagues in England, Scotland, Germany, Portugal, Northern Ireland and Spain loaded is delighted to be named the new manager of Hyde in the blue square north. Bring it on!

At the moment I can't play my save because of a crash dump that happens on 24th July 09.

This bug happens with the Serie C cup so if you have serie C running in your save it could happen to you also, beware.

At the moment I can't play my save because of a crash dump that happens on 24th July 09.

This bug happens with the Serie C cup so if you have serie C running in your save it could happen to you also, beware.

That's sucky. Thanks for the warning. Have you posted it in the bug forums?

Yes, I am really gutted. SI already know about the problem but have not warned anyone.