"Gentlemen, as you are all aware, I'm sure, Berwick-upon-Tweed is in England..."

[glamdring]

It was hardly the most imaginative nor the most inspiring argument, but as an opening gambit it was ideal. It was an undeniable fact, it demonstrated a precedent, albeit one which could be argued away, and it was a test balloon to allow me to gauge the mood of the men assembled before me. I had other arguments of course, most of them owed more to persuasion than to the clear fact of that first Ace I had played, but in some cases persuasion goes a lot further than fact. As does money. Yes, money was the key factor, money makes the world go round and even without any suggestion of corruption, money can be a powerful tool, a persuasive argument in getting one's way with an initially sceptical group of people.

There were 11 men sat before me and as I spoke I studied each in turn. Ten were considerably older than myself and showed little initial sign of warming to me or my wild suggestions. The eleventh was a different type of man entirely. He had youth on his side, possibly even as much as I did and as I put forth my arguments I could see the glint of excitement in his eye. I had done plenty of homework in advance of this meeting, but I had neglected to research the eleven men who made up this panel so I had no idea whether this young man was influencial or just a "yes" man for whatever the remaining ten wanted. Instinctively I decided he was not the latter so it was to him that I began to focus my arguments, whilst at the same time being very careful not to neglect the attentions of the other ten. I felt my best chance was to get this one forward thinking young man on-side and allow him, together with my persuasive arguments, to cajole the other ten around to my way of thinking.

We had already leaked news of the idea to certain media outlets of course, no-one could acuse us of being a cowboy operation. We were media-savvy and new exactly how to play things to get just the right amount of momentum and excitement building up behind the idea. Thus it was that the eleven men sat before me had as good an inkling as I did what public reaction to my ideas would be. They knew also exactly what my plans were well in advance of this meeting since I had submitted a highly professional and detailed dossier to them over a month earlier.

"Berwick was once in Scotland. This can hardly be used as a precedent for what you are proposing..."

He was correct of course, Berwick upon Tweed had indeed once been part of Scotland, but his argument went no further after my response:

"That is quite correct sir, but if I remember correctly Berwick has been part of England since around 1482. Berwick upon Tweed football club has only been around since..." here my research failed me, but the point had been made forcefully enough so I allowed it to wimper out somewhat "...well, since many centuries after that date. You surely aren't proposing that we use national boundaries from 1482 to determine in which nation's league a football club should play? My knowledge of European history isn't what it ought to be, but I think I'm safe in saying that borders have changed a little in that time"

The man conceded the trick, but still felt that he had made a worthy point. Perhaps he had, but I was only getting going and the issue of Berwick upon Tweed's geographical status didn't much interest me any more. Money...that was what it all came down to. The Scottish game has, at times, struggled to attract TV money, to attract decent gates for the leagues below the SPL, even in the SPL itself. Indeed, this whole situation had arisen because only the previous month Albion Rovers had gone out of business, leaving a new opening in the Scottish league. Surely an idea such as this would stimulate the excitement, show other Scottish clubs the way forward and generally re-ignite Scottish football outside of the Old Firm. Sure some believe it is a gimmick, but I can guarantee that it is not. I have sunk millions into this project and I am a successful businessman. I do not waste millions on projects which will not work. This was just a small sample of my arguments as the meeting wore on.

When I say money talks, I should add that there was no hint of corruption, of sly backhanders...I am a reputable businessman who is used to getting his way merely by force of argument, by being a persuasive character. To the casual observer this is often not apparent. I am not at all averse to people getting the wrong initial impression, of underestimating my intellect and sharpness. It has been advantageous in the past and will be again in the future. People get lulled into a false sense of security and then, just when I have allowed them to go far enough down one line of argument, when I have subtley committed them to their stance I play my Aces, one by one, and sit back to watch the effect as men who were previously confident and assured in their line of argument suddenly find the rug pulled from under their feet leaving them trying to defend a now very flimsy point of view.

There was to be no decision that day of course. The eleven board members would ruminate on the ideas, discuss them further and maybe even call me back to discuss or argue their point or mine further. That was to be expected. Also to be expected was that I would succeed. It was a radical idea, an idea the like of which had never hit Scottish football before, but I had judged the moment, judged the characters of my audience to perfection. The carefully leaked media stories, the slow unfolding of my arguments in response to their scepticism had been masterful. Some would call me arrogant, but arrogance is a trait reserved for those who only pretend to be good. I was in my element, doing what I do best and I rose to the occasion with a majestic grace. No, there was no chance that even the most conservative of FA boards was going to reject my application. Public relations was my forte and I was master of all I surveyed at that meeting. In truth though the pebbles were already moving down the hill before that meeting and not just the subtle leaks to the media...many things had happened in preperation for this moment, not least that supremely confident dossier outlining my plans.

Yes, I went home that night with a smile on my face, knowing that my genius had shone through and that my vision would soon begin to be realised.

[glamdring]

It was hardly the most imaginative nor the most inspiring argument, but as an opening gambit it was ideal. It was an undeniable fact, it demonstrated a precedent, albeit one which could be argued away, and it was a test balloon to allow me to gauge the mood of the men assembled before me. I had other arguments of course, most of them owed more to persuasion than to the clear fact of that first Ace I had played, but in some cases persuasion goes a lot further than fact. As does money. Yes, money was the key factor, money makes the world go round and even without any suggestion of corruption, money can be a powerful tool, a persuasive argument in getting one's way with an initially sceptical group of people.

There were 11 men sat before me and as I spoke I studied each in turn. Ten were considerably older than myself and showed little initial sign of warming to me or my wild suggestions. The eleventh was a different type of man entirely. He had youth on his side, possibly even as much as I did and as I put forth my arguments I could see the glint of excitement in his eye. I had done plenty of homework in advance of this meeting, but I had neglected to research the eleven men who made up this panel so I had no idea whether this young man was influencial or just a "yes" man for whatever the remaining ten wanted. Instinctively I decided he was not the latter so it was to him that I began to focus my arguments, whilst at the same time being very careful not to neglect the attentions of the other ten. I felt my best chance was to get this one forward thinking young man on-side and allow him, together with my persuasive arguments, to cajole the other ten around to my way of thinking.

We had already leaked news of the idea to certain media outlets of course, no-one could acuse us of being a cowboy operation. We were media-savvy and new exactly how to play things to get just the right amount of momentum and excitement building up behind the idea. Thus it was that the eleven men sat before me had as good an inkling as I did what public reaction to my ideas would be. They knew also exactly what my plans were well in advance of this meeting since I had submitted a highly professional and detailed dossier to them over a month earlier.

"Berwick was once in Scotland. This can hardly be used as a precedent for what you are proposing..."

He was correct of course, Berwick upon Tweed had indeed once been part of Scotland, but his argument went no further after my response:

"That is quite correct sir, but if I remember correctly Berwick has been part of England since around 1482. Berwick upon Tweed football club has only been around since..." here my research failed me, but the point had been made forcefully enough so I allowed it to wimper out somewhat "...well, since many centuries after that date. You surely aren't proposing that we use national boundaries from 1482 to determine in which nation's league a football club should play? My knowledge of European history isn't what it ought to be, but I think I'm safe in saying that borders have changed a little in that time"

The man conceded the trick, but still felt that he had made a worthy point. Perhaps he had, but I was only getting going and the issue of Berwick upon Tweed's geographical status didn't much interest me any more. Money...that was what it all came down to. The Scottish game has, at times, struggled to attract TV money, to attract decent gates for the leagues below the SPL, even in the SPL itself. Indeed, this whole situation had arisen because only the previous month Albion Rovers had gone out of business, leaving a new opening in the Scottish league. Surely an idea such as this would stimulate the excitement, show other Scottish clubs the way forward and generally re-ignite Scottish football outside of the Old Firm. Sure some believe it is a gimmick, but I can guarantee that it is not. I have sunk millions into this project and I am a successful businessman. I do not waste millions on projects which will not work. This was just a small sample of my arguments as the meeting wore on.

When I say money talks, I should add that there was no hint of corruption, of sly backhanders...I am a reputable businessman who is used to getting his way merely by force of argument, by being a persuasive character. To the casual observer this is often not apparent. I am not at all averse to people getting the wrong initial impression, of underestimating my intellect and sharpness. It has been advantageous in the past and will be again in the future. People get lulled into a false sense of security and then, just when I have allowed them to go far enough down one line of argument, when I have subtley committed them to their stance I play my Aces, one by one, and sit back to watch the effect as men who were previously confident and assured in their line of argument suddenly find the rug pulled from under their feet leaving them trying to defend a now very flimsy point of view.

There was to be no decision that day of course. The eleven board members would ruminate on the ideas, discuss them further and maybe even call me back to discuss or argue their point or mine further. That was to be expected. Also to be expected was that I would succeed. It was a radical idea, an idea the like of which had never hit Scottish football before, but I had judged the moment, judged the characters of my audience to perfection. The carefully leaked media stories, the slow unfolding of my arguments in response to their scepticism had been masterful. Some would call me arrogant, but arrogance is a trait reserved for those who only pretend to be good. I was in my element, doing what I do best and I rose to the occasion with a majestic grace. No, there was no chance that even the most conservative of FA boards was going to reject my application. Public relations was my forte and I was master of all I surveyed at that meeting. In truth though the pebbles were already moving down the hill before that meeting and not just the subtle leaks to the media...many things had happened in preperation for this moment, not least that supremely confident dossier outlining my plans.

Yes, I went home that night with a smile on my face, knowing that my genius had shone through and that my vision would soon begin to be realised.

[Peacemaker7]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Founded in 1881, Berwick Rangers entered the “senior†league system in 1951 and has since become a familiar name amongst football fans all over the world. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wasn't that hard to research

[glamdring]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Peacemaker7:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Founded in 1881, Berwick Rangers entered the “senior†league system in 1951 and has since become a familiar name amongst football fans all over the world. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wasn't that hard to research </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not for me personally no, I had to research to find the date when Berwick the town was last in Scotland, but I wanted my alter-ego to have some gaps in his arguments Thanks for the info though

[glamdring]

Failure would not have been catastrophic for my plans, but there was no doubt that this was an exciting opening and one which I had targeted with gusto. The seeds for my ambitious plans were sown a number of years back, in 2002 to be precise, when I decided that I would plough some of the millions I had earnt through my various business practices into football. I could have bought a Premiership club - this was still a year before Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea and began the trend of Premiership football clubs becoming millionaires playgrounds - but I wasn't so rich that I could invest heavily in one or do anything of any real interest so I had looked for a more challenging and exciting project. In particular I had looked for a project that would make a real impact rather than one where I would come to be hated by a club's fans as many football club owners are who don't have an endless pot of cash to pour into the club.

So I turned my attention to youth football. Despite being English I had precious little interest in getting involved with youth football in England. I am not a football coach, I have no technical knowledge whatsoever about football, I am just a fan like millions of others. David Beckham has since opened an academy for coaching young players, which is separate (as far as I know, I can't be bothered to look into the details - that's his project, this is mine) from any specific club side, but in general youth football in England is connected to the clubs and I had no interest in tying myself to a football club whose politics and other shenanigans might sideline my project. No, it was abroad that I would go in my quest to develop youth football. Just like with England, I had no interest in moving to a country were football was already big business. I am an successful and important man, I want my project to be revolutionary, to change the footballing aspirations of a people, I am not one to be a small fish in a big pond.

In truth I never even considered mainland Europe and never seriously considered England. There was only one place I wanted to build my football academy and from the moment I decided I single-mindedly pursued my aims, to the extent that I sold my multi-million pound software business to release both the funds and the time for me to fulfill my dreams. Land was acquired, indeed, numerous plots of land were acquired for purposes as yet undisclosed, but one site in particular for which I had also acquired planning permission was chosen as the site of my new youth academy. It was an unbelievably ambitious project, but the council loved the idea and gave me their full backing. This was not just to be an academy for young footballers to hone their footballing skills, it was to be a school also, an all-encompassing experience which would teach young kids a wide range of life skills, both practical and academic alongside the main sporting theme.

Initially that had been the sum total of my plans, but as the project began to take shape my vision became even grander. Why stop at an academy which would produce young talent to be sent off to play elsewhere? Why not create a new football club to reap the fruits of the academy, to continue the "all-encompassing experience". Not only would it contain a school, it would now also provide facilities for distance learning to degree level for footballers who would now play for a newly formed team whilst at the same time stimulating their brains and providing themselves with the skills and qualifications to have a successful career when football had put them on the shelf. The local council were slightly less behind this idea. They like it in theory, but it seemed rather pie in the sky and vastly expensive. They were worried that the, already ambitious, plans for a youth academy and school would become lost in a huge project that would drain finances and end up as an unfinished dream. As we have already seen though (or rather, as I have already claimed), I am a persuasive character and soon had the council right behind me again as I promised to invest millions in this massive project.

So it was that one of the smallest capital cities in the world, supposedly the oldest capital city in Northern Europe, dating back to the 10th century, was to become home to a sporting complex that would rival any seen throughout Europe. Many people scoffed, major European football clubs with their posh youth academies openly derided at our embrionic project, claiming it would never develop into anything. We didn't care though. Me and my small dedicated team worked ceaselessly to make our dream come true and to make the new Tórshavn youth academy, football club and educational complex one of the wonders of the modern world. Apart from the massive construction and recruiting projects, one issue which remained to be solved was to enter the newly formed football club into the league system. No one, not even myself, was quite sure when the football club itself would be ready to begin taking part in a competitive league, but the groundwork needed to be done to ensure that this would infact be the case. Planning permission had already been granted and plans drawn up for a brand new 5000 all-seater stadium in the heart of the city, but until that was built we could play in the national Tórsvøllur stadium.

Obviously the initial plan had been to enter the Faroese league like any sensible new football club based in Tórshavn would do, but then, at the key moment when our plans were starting to all come together, when the academy had been completed and was already up and running, when entering the new football club into a league had become something of a reality rather than a distant dream, Albion Rovers football club went bust. No-one else in the Faroe Islands cared, but I, ever one for creative, outside the box, off the wall, lateral and downright ridiculous ideas, suddenly came up with my most audacious one yet...to apply to the Scottish FA to enter the new Tórshavn football club into the Scottish 3rd Division. On paper the idea was ridiculous, doomed to ridicule and failure and yet...the more I thought about it the more excited I became. By this time the new Tórshavn academy was big news throughout the world of football and the media interest surrounding it would make the inclusion of the associated football club in the Scottish league a very appealing proposition for those concerned with money and increasing the profile of Scottish football.

Thus, I had prepared the aforementioned dossier and flown to Glasgow for a meeting that could change the course of both Scottish and Faroese football forever. There was always the Faroese league to fall back on if need be, but the prospect of getting our club into a semi-big European league, one containing two huge clubs, was an enticing one...

[sherm]

Nice start glam, I'll be keeping a close eye on what looks an intriguing story

[glamdring]

Thanks I've just got to hope now that I can stick with FM08 long enough to get into this save - so far FM08 has been a hateful process of non-stop defeats in most games I've played

Author's Note

Time for all the usual blurb about the game setup for those who like to know what kind of a game they are reading about, since I've given away the key parts in the story now:

FM08, Scottish league is the only one active, but players loaded from numerous different nations, mostly Scandinavia and a few Eastern European nations and obviously the Faroe Islands.

I edited the original database to create a new club - Torshavn and a new stadium (which turned out wrong as we appear to be playing in it at the game start despite me setting it up to be built in 2 years time ) which will be mentioned later. I created a few staff with low current reputation, but high potential to the club to reflect the fact that it is an ambitious project. No players were added though. I did spend ages creating a new Weather thingy to try to be realistic for the Faroe Islands, then forgot to assign it to Torshavn and I added a couple of Faroese media outlets (radio station and TV). The club has similar reputation to the others in Scottish Div 3, but has maximum training facilities, youth system and a youth academy and I added in a £1.5 million loan repayment to the chairman to partially reflect this.

I think that is everything pertinent to the game...any other issues will be brought up in the story no doubt anyway!

[glamdring]

Oh yeah, and the obvious fact that I swapped Torshavn with Albion Rovers to put them in the Scottish 3rd Division and condemn poor Albion to playing in the Faroese league which the story will conveniently gloss over

[Peacemaker7]

I really really really wish they would include the Faroese league

Shall we start a petition Glam?

[glamdring]

It'd definitely be good

SI seem to have lost interest in adding new leagues now though. Since the addition of Iceland and the bunch that came in whatever version that was (FM05) they haven't added any new leagues

I'm still yet to see if I get any nasty surprises from having a Faroese-based club in the Scottish league, but the club Info page says we are Scottish which means we have the proper setup of Reserve and U19 squads, but the players created at the start of the game are all Faroese and born in or near Torshavn (unlike when I tried the same thing in FM07!) so it is promising...

[Peacemaker7]

Thats good to hear actually. If the newgens coming through are on the whole Faroese this could be something quite interesting!

[glamdring]

Surprisingly the call came within a week, asking me to return to FA headquarters for another meeting. Given how long it takes for the FA to deal with disciplinary hearings I was fully expecting to have to wait for weeks before hearing any news on such a big decision. Perhaps it was exactly because it was such a big decision that the board had acted quickly. Whatever the reason, what was certain was that the next day I would be flying into Glasgow airport, soon to hear the news that would shape my future and that of my multi-million pound Faroese project.

The number 300 bus rolled out of Tórshavn bus station exactly on time for the one hour trip out to the island of Vágar, home of the Faroe Islands’ only airport. The weather was closing in ominously as we headed northwest towards the 5km long Vágatunnilin tunnel, linking Vágar with the main island of Streymoy since its completion in 2002 and replacing the previous ferry connection. For a long time it seemed the tunnel would never be completed as a financial crisis in the 1990s saw the project, begun in the late 80s, abandoned for some 11 years before the Faroese parliament finally restarted the expensive project. Halving the travel time between Tórshavn and the airport, the tunnel has been a huge boost to the Faroe Islands’ tourism and general growth in the 21st century.

On exiting the tunnel the road climbs steeply, up over the narrow eastern section of the island before dropping down into the small village of Miðvágur on the southern coast of Vágar. The fog had come down to engulf us as the bus continued to wend its way along the Faroes’ main trunk route, hugging the banks of the Sørvágsvatn trout fishing lake, until we finally reached our destination. The airport was originally built by the British during the Second World War as a military airstrip, Vágar being chosen as its location for the simple reason that it is about the only place in the Faroese archipelago with a flat enough piece of land on which to build a landing strip. Nowadays the airport has been renovated to include all the modern facilities one might expect of a small international airport.

Such facilities were very welcome that morning as the thick fog kept the small Atlantic Airways plane grounded for a few hours, giving me plenty of time to reflect on what might lie ahead, assuming I was ever to reach Glasgow. On leaving the FA headquarters the previous week I had been very confident, but, as with many things, my confidence had started to fray a little at the edges as the nerves kicked in on receiving the phone call. Why had I been so confident that this group of largely conservative elderly men in a different country would accede to my request to enter a brand new Faroese football team into the Scottish league? Fraserburgh, Huntly, Irvine Meadow, Bellshill and plenty of other Scottish non-league clubs had apparently all applied to take the one available place also so why would the board choose us? Such thoughts had begun to eat away at me as I sat in the airport cafeteria, looking out at what could be seen of the runway, still shrouded in fog. The sooner I could get the reply the sooner I could relax and make plans. If those plans involved submitting an application to play in the Faroese league instead then so be it, I just needed to know now.

Atlantic Airways are almost certainly one of the smallest international airlines in Europe. They own just a handful of small planes, but their importance to the small island nation cannot be underestimated. Prior to the company’s founding in 1988 all flights to and from the Faroes were operated by a Danish airline for whom the Faroes were just one of numerous destinations. For the islands to have their own national airline was (and still is) a great source of pride and a sign of greater independence from the Danish “motherlandâ€. The link between the Faroe Islands and Denmark is a complex one, Denmark are a member of the EU, the Faroe Islands are not and whilst the Faroes have their own parliament they are still very much reliant on Denmark financially. Indeed, some 14% of the islands’ GDP comes from Danish subsidies. However, to have their own national airline which, in 2004, became the sole operator in the islands after the withdrawal of Danish airline Maersk, is a huge sign of a positive future for the Faroese people. One of the key advantages is that, being based in the Faroes, Atlantic Airlines’ planes are ready to take off as soon as the weather clears, rather than having to first arrive from Copenhagen. Thus, 2 hours after our scheduled departure time we finally took to the air for the 1 hour flight to Aberdeen, from where I would catch a connecting flight to Glasgow and thence on by taxi to the SFA headquarters.

It was just after 15:30 when I finally arrived at the meeting. By 16:15 I was sat in a Glasgow pub celebrating with Tom McIntyre, the young man whose enthusiasm and persuasiveness had won the other 10 members of the FA board round. There had been a few more questions which I, as expected, responded to with consummate ease to reassure the board that this would be fantastic for the Scottish game, but then it had all just been dotting i’s and crossing t’s. Tórshavn football club had been accepted into the Scottish league and would take their place in Division 3 for the 2007/8 season. It had all happened very quickly, but it had needed to for we were already well into June of 2007 and many things needed to be done before the season kicked off on August 4th.

[glamdring]

Tom was very interested in my plans for the club and its youth academy and we discussed these at length before I left to make numerous phone calls. To say there were many things to do is a bit of an understatement. Tórshavn had no stadium, no sponsors, no staff, no players and no manager. In fact, as a football club, Tórshavn, was just a few bits of paper confirming its registration as a new business and other such legal issues pertaining to the starting up of a new company. The football club was a separate business to the youth academy, school and the rest of the associated facilities for a number of reasons. The remit of the football club was, for me, very clear. It was to be a vehicle for the young kids coming out of the youth academy – a natural progression in their learning curve. The academy and its school and distance learning facilities had attracted a huge amount of interest and with it a number of sponsors and people willing to provide numerous grants.

It was clear though that these grants were very much for those facilities and were not to be ploughed into the football club to be lost on player wages or transfer fees. The football club would have to stand on its own two legs financially, as a separate entity. Indeed, the football club would be expected to provide a large proportion of the finance for the youth academy ultimately. So far I was mostly funding the academy from my own “pocket†with the money I had raised from the sale of my software company, but this was not a situation that could continue forever. In return for providing the bulk of the funding, the football club would benefit by having access to what was hoped to be a constant stream of potentially talented young footballers. Whether they were then sold on to provide the cash to keep funding the academy or whether the club could be successful enough that these players would bring in prize money to pay for those expenses was entirely down to those running the club on a day to day basis. Of course, all associated aspects of the projects fell under my umbrella company and initially I would pump funds in wherever needed, but the whole reason for having a football club attached to the project, apart from to give something to the locals to come and watch, was to make the whole project eventually self-sufficient, with players flowing in one direction, cash in the other, almost as if the football club were buying its players from the academy.

Anyway, pardon my digression into issues of financing the various parts of the overall company. Such aspects will go on in the background and, whilst they will provide me with some sleepless nights in the early years of this project, they will not overly feature in this, largely football-based, story. Getting the football club up and running would be a challenge, not least because I had taken the decision not to provide any transfer funds. A little under half a million pounds was deposited in the bank account of the newly created football club and this was to be the sum total of my financial input for the foreseeable future. This money would be used for running costs, paying wages and all other costs, but not transfer funds. It was vital that the youth academy, school and university-esque learning facility should be given all the funding they needed and it was to these projects that the rest of my money would go. Conferencing facilities and other money-making ideas were to be incorporated, but these would take time and would, in no way, be able to fund the entire project. Thus it was that Tórshavn football club came into being, with a remit to create something out of nothing…or rather something out of nothing but £500,000.

[Spav]

Great start, glamdring.

[glamdring]

18 players were drafted straight into the club from the youth academy. Raw talents they may be, but they had spent 1½ years in the academy and would now continue their learning at the football club itself, part time youth contracts allowing them to still spend time both at the academy and at the school. Ultimately the aim was for Tórshavn to acquire all of its players from the youth academy, but clearly this was something that could only happen over time. A squad of eighteen 15 and 16 year olds was clearly not sufficient to kick off a season in Scottish Division 3, so we would have to sign some senior players on free transfers. This, however, was not to be one of my tasks, for my first task was to find a manager and then he would be responsible for finding a playing staff, leaving me free to take a back seat and concentrate my energies elsewhere.

As a project with Europe-wide interest there was no shortage of applications to manage the football club, just as there had been no shortage of out of work coaches wanting to come and work at the youth academy. I could have appointed a “big name†manager, but that would not have been in keeping with my vision. Instead I appointed a young Faroese manager who had just completed all his coaching badges. It had been me, some 2 years earlier, who had paid for him to take his coaching badges, with a view to him taking a job in my setup. At that time I had envisaged a role for him at the academy, but impulsively I decided instead to offer him the job as manager of the senior football team, although of course I use the term “senior†very loosely as meaning a club playing in a senior league. Jakup Poulsen was his name and his Herculean task was to turn an idea into a football club in under two months.

As I have alluded to previously, the issue of a stadium was not an immediate problem for us. I had already sounded out the Faroese FA about us playing at Tórsvøllur initially, and they were more than happy for us to do so, for a fee of course. For the long term I could now begin to put my plans for our new stadium into action. I had held off previously until I was 100% sure that we would actually have a football club and a league for them to play in, but now work could begin in earnest. I set a 2-year deadline by which time I fully expected the new 5000 all-seater Tinganesvøllur to be ready for us to kick off the 2009-10 season. For those who know Tórshavn, I should say that the stadium is not so-named because we have knocked down the entirety of the Faroese parliament buildings on the ancient Tinganes peninsula at the heart of Tórshavn, only because it overlooks Tinganes (along with the rest of Tórshavn).

Jakup first set about appointing his staff – an assistant manager, 2 senior coaches, one youth coach, one scout and a physio. The scout was promptly sent out to recommend players whom we could sign from Faroese-based clubs. It wasn’t until the second week of July that Tórshavn made their first player signings. No fewer than 7 players arrived in the space of a week, all being unveiled together at Tórsvøllur. From B36, based just down the road at Gundadalur, came strikers Tummas Hans Rubeksen and Bergur Midjord, whilst former Skála goalkeeper Bent Djurhuus, still just 17 years old, was delighted to find a new club to continue his dream of a football career. In addition to these came 4 Faroese internationals, all, of course, on free transfers. The vastly experienced Allan Mørkøre (54 caps) arrived from Argja Bóltfelag, 22 year old Marni Djurhuus (4 caps) from EB/Streymur in the north of Streymoy island, centre-back Rasmus Nolsoe (1 cap) from Tórshavn-based HB and creative midfielder Jann Ingi Petersen (11 caps) joined from B68 of Toftir.

Just a week before the season began 30 year old Poul Ennigarð, surprisingly capped just once, signed from Gà to add some much needed experience to our back line. Numerous trialists, some Faroese, some not, would arrive at the club in the weeks after the season had kicked off, but none were deemed worthy of a contract so the only further arrival prior to the January transfer window, was that of left-back Jónreid Dalheim in September, on loan from GÃ. So that was that. Initially 8 players in, 18 youth players promoted from the academy and an air of palpable excitement around the club as the big day arrived, when Tórshavn would make their debut in the Scottish league, indeed, make their debut as a football team in any league. That first match would be a long away trip to a much fancied Dumbarton…

[glamdring]

Those who don't like nice neat season summaries and prefer to have facts and events randomly hurled at you in an order bearing no resemblance whatsoever to their actual chronology and owing everything to where about in the alphabet their key descriptors fall should look away now. For the rest of you, here is a chronological nutshell of our first season in the Scottish league. Following it is a rather more whimsical A to Z of our season which meanders through events, players and random other stuff at its own leisurely rate and probably misses out as much useful information as it includes spurious sidelines, as well as repeating bits of the nutshell summary.

We lost in Dumbarton. We lost 3-0 in Dumbarton, to be precise. At no point in the game did we ever look like achieving anything other than a non-scoring defeat. Indeed, losing football matches was very much a habit for Tórshavn in the early weeks and even months of the season. We managed to scrape through the first round of the Challenge Cup, but promptly got thrashed in the 2nd round and failed to carry the "form" provided by that earlier win into the league. 1 league win from our opening 10 games, together with a handful of draws was an inauspicious start to our new club's life, but at least that sole win had come against league leaders East Fife which was a very pleasant surprise. Eventually we managed to win an away game too, Allan Mørkore suddenly finding a goal-scoring touch to net the winner in two successive 1-0 wins. We were underway at last and 2 further wins saw us rise as high as 7th before an horrendous run of fixtures in December saw us plunge back into rotten form.

January brought with it the opportunity to add some more players to our woefully thin squad, but finding Faroese players who were good enough and who wanted to join us and who didn't want wages we couldn't afford (I had put very strict constraints on our wage budget) was a problem. With my backing, Jakup opted to sign a pair of Scottish fullbacks to take some of the weight off the shoulders of our 16 year old left- and right-backs. It was a tough decision, I had originally wanted us to be a 100% Faroese team, but this was no time for applying needless constraints on the team. Jakup knows what I want long-term, but short-term I see no reason not to add a few cheap Scots who can improve the squad. Thus John Ovenstone and Calvin Shand arrived on 6-month contracts and another Scot signed a pre-contract agreement to join us in the summer. Wanting a 100% Faroese squad is all very well, but we are a business too and the sooner we can rise up the leagues to the SPL the better it will be for all concerned and for the future of this club and its youth academy.

Another upturn in form saw us again win 4 games on the trot, but 2 defeats followed and our very faint hopes of flying up the table to grab a play-off place quickly evapourated. From that point on it was all about performance and I was very pleased with what I saw. Sure there were still plenty of mistakes from young, inexperienced and just plain unskilled players, but the commitment and togetherness was building up nicely. Most importantly we began to score goals consistently. We also conceded them consistently, but so long as we were scoring I wasn't overly concerned. Besides, such issues were Jakup's problem - as chairman I just sit and observe with a fan's viewpoint, albeit one in control of the purse strings. A few fewer draws, a few more wins and we could so easily have finished 5th. As it was we finished 7th and that was that. A decent enough opening season and time to look forward, to the next crop of young youth academy graduates and a new season with a team now more used to winning than they had been at the start of the previous season...an 8 game unbeaten run was an ideal way to finish the season, especially with a final day 2-2 draw at champions East Fife in a carnival atmosphere which was only added to by us snatching a 90th minute equaliser. A late flurry of goals saw captain Bergur Midjord finish the season as our top scorer with 16 goals, providing further optimism for the next season.

[McLovin]

Great story Glamdring, I'm really in to it!

One question I have though, when you made your team - did you set it's nationality as Scottish or Faroese?

For example, Toronto FC are set as American rather than Canadian to avoid complications with the league.

[glamdring]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by McLovin:

Great story Glamdring, I'm really in to it!

One question I have though, when you made your team - did you set it's nationality as Scottish or Faroese?

For example, Toronto FC are set as American rather than Canadian to avoid complications with the league. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the support. I actually set the club nationality to Faroese at the start (I think), but that is because, in the editor, I put them into the Faroese league setup to try and avoid issues I had in FM07 with exactly the problem you mention. Then I used an .edt file to swap the club with Albion Rovers, at which point we became a club of Scottish nationality and Albion Rovers became a club of Faroese nationality. I guess if I had just put us directly into the Scottish league with Scottish nationality it would have been the same, but when I did that in FM07 all my youth players were Scottish instead of Faroese.

One interesting quirk though, which I will cover in the story, is that we were not in the Scottish FA cup in that first season (Albion Rovers were, however). I have just passed the season change-over though and the board's competition expectations for this season mention the FA cup so, fingers crossed, we will be in it this season. I guess maybe FA cup entrants are hard-coded in for the first season or maybe the fact I used the .edt file to swap teams instead of putting is in SD3 directly had that effect...anyway, it doens't matter because it is easy enough to work into the story

[McLovin]

I had a similar problem, I created a new Calais team and put them in the Blue Square South.

First season I wasn't in the FA Cup (don't know I was in it the following season as the game was a disaster and I quit).

I found when I put their nationality as French, trying to get pre-season friendlies was odd, as it would default to French clubs. One thing that bugged me was when I made them English the chairman defaults to a Englishman too, rather than a Frenchie as I wanted.

You story had inspired me to start a new game placing a club into a foreign league.

[glamdring]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by McLovin:

I had a similar problem, I created a new Calais team and put them in the Blue Square South.

First season I wasn't in the FA Cup (don't know I was in it the following season as the game was a disaster and I quit).

I found when I put their nationality as French, trying to get pre-season friendlies was odd, as it would default to French clubs. One thing that bugged me was when I made them English the chairman defaults to a Englishman too, rather than a Frenchie as I wanted.

You story had inspired me to start a new game placing a club into a foreign league. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, annoyingly I had to load all players from England in order to have myself (English) included as the club chairman rather than some randomly created guy. Game seems to run fast still though so it's not a big problem even though I have no wish to sign any English players! Definitely giving your club the nationality of the league they are in is best bet - otherwise you get the setup of the other nation and things can get iffy - maybe FM08 is sorted out on that, but in 07 when I added a Faroese club to Scotland and kept their nationality as Faroese they had no reserves or U19s and they also spuriously qualified for Europe at the end of their first season in Div 3, I can only assume that was because they had the highest reputation of all Faroese clubs and, being listed as Faroese, were deemed to have won the Faroese league or some such!

[glamdring]

A-Z of Tórshavn’s first competitive season

A is for Arbroath. Irritating, obdurate, free scoring and free conceding, Arbroath teased us for most of the season, the red rag to our bull for the better part of 20 weeks. Ironically they provided us with our first away win of the season, 11 games in, a win which was the launching pad for us to finally move off the bottom of the table and, a week later, to leapfrog Arbroath. For 3 glorious weeks we sat 7th in the division, looking down on an Arbroath side who, at that time, were of no interest to us at all. Soon enough though they rose to 6th, we dropped to 8th and so began the frustrating chase. 7th place we began to make our own, but week 26 was to be the peak of our season as we climbed above Arbroath into 6th before immediately surrendering the position the following week. From then on they became our nemesis – always just those few tantalising points ahead of us, like an enemy ship in Napoleonic times, always with a couple of spare sails to set to keep them just that little way ahead of the pursuing ship of the line.

When they lost so did we, when we won so did they. Head to head we had mixed results, winning twice at their place in the league, drawing once at our place and shipping 4 goals from 2-0 up in our second home encounter. They also tanked us 4-0 in the Challenge cup, but that was nothing compared to the irritation we felt come the season run in. Our classy 2-4 win at Forfar should, by rights, have been enough to put us into 6th with 2 games to go, but I spluttered into my post-match coffee as the full time result came through from high flying Dumbarton who hadn’t lost for months: Dumbarton 1-6 Arbroath…they really were just toying with us and we hate them for it. In the end they overhauled a faltering East Stirlingshire to grab 5th place whilst we, predictably, finished in the 7th place we had occupied for most of the final two thirds of the season.

B is for Bergur Midjord. Appointed captain at the start of the season, Bergur was somewhat of an enigma. True, the whole team struggled to defend, attack and generally string more than 1 pass together for the first 10 weeks of the season, but Midjord’s goal scoring left a lot (i.e. goals) to be desired. He briefly found his scoring touch, scoring 3 in 2 games, before hitting another barren spell which caused him to be booed by his own fans at times. Thankfully he eventually began to click with his team-mates and make the runs our midfielders wanted. Apparently the best things come to those who wait and Midjord’s return of 9 goals in 11 games to finish his season soon made him a fan’s favourite and took his final tally to 16 for the season. It may have been more, but for his sending off for violent conduct which saw him miss the final two games. Still, if he carries his form through into next season we may just be able to mount a promotion challenge off the back of his goals…stranger things have happened.

C is for Creativity and Cups. Creativity...Far too little of it for far too much of the season from our attacking players and far too much of it at times from our defence. Players being able to express themselves is great when they are the right side of the half-way line, but it took our midfield over half the season to start pinging the through balls for Midjord and his fellow strikers to run onto. Sadly our defenders showed no such inhibitions in their own penalty area. Talentless players getting creative in their own box is not a pretty sight for the fans. Defenders are there to defend, to keep the ball from going into our net, not to show off their not so fancy footwork and give the ball away to an opposition striker who could hardly miss. In the second half of the season things improved, but we still shipped goals. Rasmus Nolsoe and Poul Ennigarð both defended stoutly and in more orthodox fashion, lashing the ball up field or into the stands, anything other than trying to dribble it round 3 onrushing attackers. Still, at least our finances were not overstretched by goalkeeping bonuses as we failed to keep a single clean sheet after a mid-February win at Stenhousemuir. Happily we were scoring goals though as the midfield creativity began to blossom so the Keegan-esque attitude of not bothering with defence so long as we could keep scoring went down a treat. Unfortunately there were all too many times when we didn’t quite manage to net more than we conceded.

Cups...Yes, well, not a lot to say about these. Stirling gave us a footballing lesson (not often you hear those words) in the league cup whilst, as we have already seen, Arbroath rapidly ended our run in the Challenge Cup. Unfortunately, in all my excitement of getting Tóshavn entered into the Scottish league I had neglected to enquire about our status as far as the FA cup went. When I did finally consider the issue I was told by the SFA that we would not be allowed to take part in the competition this season, that Albion Rovers still held the registration and that the club had re-formed as a non-league club which would thus take the place that might otherwise have been ours. It had been too late to make changes by the time we had been entered into the Scottish system I was told. Happily though, we have our registration in for next season's competition and it should be business as normal with hopes of a money-spinning tie at Celtic or Rangers

[glamdring]

D is for Dumbarton. A strange team Dumbarton…absolutely brilliant for most of the season, rock solid defensively, but not prolific at the other end either. In the end they couldn’t quite keep pace with long-time leaders East Fife thanks, in no small part, to that idiotic 1-6 home reverse to Arbroath at a time when Dumbarton were looking unbeatable and East Fife had just been thrashed 5-0 at Stenhousemuir. Come the end of the season their top scorer was defensive midfielder Fergus Tiernan with just 10 goals. I mention Fergus in particular because he opted, in January, to sign a pre-contract agreement with Tóshavn rather than stay with the rather more successful Dumbarton. He obviously believes in what we are doing here in the Faroes. For a team who didn’t score all that many, Dumbarton managed to put 10 past us all told, a pair of 3-0 wins and a pair of 2-1 wins giving them a nice fat 12 points at our expense, unlike their promotion rivals East Fife…

E is for East Fife, East Stirlingshire and Elgin. Simply because it would be very unkind to only mention one of them. Elgin were non-entities so we’ll move on from them quickly other than to say that they provided us with 9 points, for which we were very grateful, en-route to finishing 2nd bottom of the division. Perennial strugglers East Stirlingshire were a different kettle of fish altogether though. Never in any danger of finishing bottom of the table this year, only a late season loss of form caused them to lose out on a play-off place. Against us they were frustratingly good, winning our first 3 encounters before a late-season 2-2 draw, one of 3 such scorelines in 4 games for us, which killed any hopes we had of nudging up to 5th place or even 6th. Prolific champions East Fife strangely found us very tough opponents, providing us with our first ever win the a competitive match as well as a further 4 points and a hugely entertaining 2-1 win for them over Christmas in a match which saw a total of over 40 shots on goal from the two teams and could easily have gone either way. Come the final day of the season, with the title wrapped up the previous week, they were in party mood and seemingly quite happy to gift Poul Ennigarð an injury time equaliser for another 2-2 draw which saw us finish the season with an 8 game unbeaten run, 5 of them away from Tórshavn.

F is for Forfar and Fans. Unimaginative it’s true, but since they were in our league it would be unfair not to mention Forfar here. So Hi there all Forfar fans, your team are absolutely hopeless, but at least there’s no relegation from the Scottish 3rd Division so they can be as woeful as they like and still be here again next season. Embarrassingly they drew with us in our first two meetings, although given our early season form it is a toss up who was more embarrassed by failing to win those matches! I’m happy to report, however, that we won the final two, thus helping to condemn them to finishing bottom of the league.

Fans...Yes, no summary could possibly pass without mentioning the fans, without whom our club would not survive. Every club, or at least every club in lower leagues, likes to think that they look after their fans, but here at Tórshavn we take things to a whole new level. Acquiring a fan base out of nothing is, of course, a tricky task at the best of times, but in our case there were a few additional hurdles to overcome. For our fans coming to home matches there was no real problem once we generated some interest - our average attendance, at ~840, was the highest in the division.

The main problem was with our travelling support, given our "slightly" isolated location from the rest of the Scottish league. Thus, we purchased 2 planes, partially funded by and sponsored by Atlantic Airways. One would transport the team and other club staff and any journalists covering the game, the other would be exclusively for fans who could travel to any away game for free (excluding the cost of the match ticket and any pies and pints they may consume, obviously). Not only that, we also made both planes available for any visiting clubs to also transport both their team and any fans who wished to come to Tórshavn. We paid for the flight ourselves, but in the case of visiting fans, only from Aberdeen to Tórshavn...they would have to make their own way to Aberdeen and at their own expense. This cost us money of course, but Atlantic Airways' bore a larger portion of the cost and for both them and ourselves it was a great PR exercise and deemed well worth the expense for the publicity and advertising potential it generated.

[glamdring]

G is for Guðjon Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson. It wasn’t until the January transfer window that Guðmundsson moved to Tórshavn after scoring 11 goals in 19 games for B36, thus joining former team-mates Tummas Hans Rubeksen and Bergur Midjord. More significantly, perhaps, he became the 3rd (technically) non-Faroese player to join the club in the space of 3 days, following hot on the heals of Calvin Shand from Stranraer and John Ovenstone from Forfar. There is yet hope for Guðjon though as he has dual nationality and has not yet declared an allegiance either to Iceland or the Faroe Islands. On the pitch, he quickly made the right wing role his own, although this owed more, I think, to the quality of the competition provided by two of our 17 year old youth academy graduates than to his own performances which were solidly unspectacular. Still, Jakup has high hopes for him next season and believes that we will see a lot more from him now that he has had 6 months to find his feet at the club.

H is for Helicopters and Hans Pauli Olsen…Yes, that’s right, helicopters…not widely used as a regular method of transportation in Britain, but the Faroese archipelago contains no fewer than 17 inhabited islands and by far the easiest way to travel between these is by helicopter, not least because any other form of air travel is totally infeasible due to the terrain being totally unsuitable to build an airstrip on most islands. Whilst something like 40% of the total population of the Faroe Islands lives in the vicinity of Tórshavn we wished to leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of young Faroese talent so having a presence throughout the island chain is important, both in terms of bringing young players to the academy and slightly older players straight into the football club itself. Thus the club runs no fewer than four helicopters, spread strategically around the islands, to transport coaches, scouts, teachers and whoever else we believe can be of use to our Faroese sporting dream.

As for Hans Pauli Olsen, I thought I ought to give him a mention as he is the guy who is loosely considered to be our number one goalkeeper. I say “loosely†because to be honest keeping goal for Tórshavn last season was something of a thankless task, and one which fell, at different times, to 3 young men, each being given a rest from the spotlight when the flow of goals into our net began to become very discouraging for such young players. Olsen was the favoured of the three and is expected to play more regularly next season now that he has a season under his belt after his promotion from the academy last summer. For the statisticians amongst you, he played 18 league games last season, keeping just 3 clean sheets and conceding 31 goals. Bent Djurhuus actually managed a far better record from his 17 appearances (conceding just 21 goals), but for some reason the fans never really warmed to him and it was a tough baptism for the ex-Skala player. He will continue to vie with Olsen for the number one jersey next season though so we’ll have to see who comes out on top in the end.

[glamdring]

I is for Internationals. It is fair to say that Scottish 3rd division clubs don’t usually have players called up for international duty, but then Scotland has plenty of relatively good players plying their trade in the SPL and in the English leagues. The Faroese talent pool is somewhat smaller though and the influx of talent from the new Tórshavn youth academy did not go unnoticed. Early October 2008 saw a staggering 32 Tórshavn players (not far short of our entire club squad) called up to the national squads, 16 of these in the U19s, a further 10 in the U21s and the remaining 6 in the full senior squad.

There were, however, some very strange decisions made by the national team coach and none more so than the calling up of our 16 year old goalkeeper, Gunnar Eliasen to the senior squad where he was astonishingly thrown straight into the starting line-up for 3 matches. Now I and Jakup fully support all our players in their pursuit of international call-ups, but we made our protestations loud and clear in this case. In time Eliasen may turn out to be ours and the Faroes’ best goalkeeper, but at the time he was called up he had not even played (and still hasn’t) a single game for the senior team here at Tórshavn so his call-up ahead of the 3 Faroese ‘keepers in our senior squad was ridiculous. Of course it was a dream come true for him…what 16 year old wouldn’t be excited to represent his country? To play in front of a 25,000 crowd in Malaga was an experience he will never forget, but it was a cruel, unforgivable and un-necessary exposure, by the national manager, of a young kid to a level of football way beyond his experienc. On his debut in Lithuania he conceded 4, in Malaga he let in another 4 against Spain and between times Norway came to Tórshavn and netted 6. Eliasen was then unceremoniously dropped not only from the team, but also from the squad, instead being called into the U19 squad for future matches which is where he should have been all along. Confidence is an important factor in a young footballer’s development, especially a goalkeeper and Jakup was furious at his young ‘keeper’s exposure to the very best of striking talent that Spain and Norway had to offer. Letting in so many goals, being dropped from the squad, the whole experience left the poor lad feeling totally disillusioned and his confidence shattered.

On a more positive note, Rasmus Nolsoe and Bergur Midjord in particular became regular fixtures in the full Faroese squad, although both struggled to make an impact as the national team was swept aside match after match by vastly superior opponents. The future looks bright for our youngsters though. The dream of an academy producing young talent for the Faroese national team was slowly beginning to come to fruition.

J is for Jakup Poulsen. Many were surprised by our choice of manager, but I had total faith in Jakup’s ability to fulfil my ambitions for Tórshavn football club and I firmly believe that he can ultimately guide us to the SPL. Early in the year the media soon began to speculate that Jakup would not last the season as our early matches saw a string of bad results with precious little sign of anything better around the corner. I had always known it would take time though. Jakup had had just 2 months to put a team together out of nothing and he had done a fine job, but it would take time for the team to gel and for Jakup to find the tactics to best suit the players he had available. Eventually we rose up from the bottom of the table and at one point even looked like we might push on for a play-off place, but an abysmal run in December soon put paid to that idea, not helped by 3 very tough away games in succession. Jakup’s decision to sign a small number of none-Faroese players raised a few eyebrows, but had my total backing once I had considered the idea for a while. Having signed 3 in January, his capture, on a pre-contract agreement, of Dumbarton’s key midfielder Fergus Tiernan was considered a major coup, not least because Fergus went on to score 10 goals in Dumbarton’s promotion winning campaign, thus swapping a now Division 2 club for the adventure of Tórshavn.

[glamdring]

K is for Kim Høgnesen. 16 year old Kim Høgnesen was one of the 2008 academy graduates to find himself thrust straight into the Tórshavn first team. His return of 7 goals in 30 league games was unimpressive, but this was as much a fault of the team as a whole as it was his own rather woeful finishing. Jakup’s options upfront were limited and initially he rotated his forwards in the 2nd striker position, to partner the then misfiring captain Bergur Midjord. Høgnesen netted a couple of goals and since that was a couple more than any of the other strikers had managed he became the first choice strike partner for Midjord for the rest of the season. Hopefully he can kick on from here and begin to develop his rather limited skills over the next few seasons, but only time will tell whether he has the ability to make it and if he doesn’t make it at this level he may struggle to forge a career for himself at any level. He is a pacey player and one of the fittest members of our squad and at this level pace can be absolutely deadly, but his first touch and finishing ability are so poor that even if he gets a few yards head start on a defender he tends to miss the chance to score.

L is for Losing. No need to dwell to long on this one I don’t think. Suffice to say that losing was a far more regular experience than winning during Tórshavn’s first season. Come the end of the season we had lost 14 of our 36 league games as well as 2 cup games. For those who are interested we drew 10 and won 12 of the remaining 22 league games. A respectable record in the end, but with East Fife and Dumbarton losing just 6 games each it is clear that if we are to mount a promotion push next season we will need to improve on last season’s record quite significantly.

M is for Montrose and Money. Behind the dominant top two Montrose proved to be clearly the best of the rest in the third division as they trailed in 7 points behind Dumbarton, but 8 points ahead of 4th placed Stenhousemuir. After relegating Queen’s Park in the play-off semi-final they were given the chance to snatch the 2nd promotion place in the final, but proved no match for Dumbarton who deservedly took their place in Division 2 for the new season. As for our own experiences of Montrose, it was very much a mixed bag. They thrashed us 1-5 at Tørsvollur in our first meeting, but by the time we visited Links Park we had begun to find our feet in the division and pulled off an impressive 2-4 win to gain a modicum of revenge. After that our remaining meetings were a lot quieter, yielding a 0-2 home defeat and a 1-1 away draw for us.

Money, money, money...yes, this project as sure taken vast amounts of it, but not all that much more than was expected which is good. All they key infrastructure is in-place now for the football club, the youth academy, the school and the distance learning centre. The latter is still yet to open and will still require more investment, but that is not a problem. The youth academy has been up and running for 2½ years now and is about to see its second crop of players graduate to the football club's U19 squad so the money needed for that is more predictable now - regular running costs rather than start-up costs with unforeseen extras. Work on the stadium is also now well under way and is on target to open in the summer of 2009. Faroese builders seem to be rather more up to the task of building a stadium on time and on budget than those who built Wembley, although to be fair our new stadium is only a 5,000 seater! The football club itself is turning a nice little profit now despite me having setup a long-term loan repayment of £1.5 million to myself. This in no way compensates for the whole cost of the venture, but I didn't go into it for the money - it is just a manageable sum that the club can afford whilst still progressing and that gives me a safety net. My personal bank account has stopped haemorrhaging cash at an exponential rate now, but I am still heavily funding aspects of the project whilst we get further sponsors and grants in place and until some of the profit-making strands of the empire begin to tick over. I'm not in any danger of going bankrupt in the foreseeable future, but certainly there's always that worry whilst expenditure is so much higher than income. Over at the football club our player wage bill has been rising, not least because Jakup has moved some of our key players onto full time contracts, but it is still at a level more than covered by the club's income. All in all, I am cautiously optimistic that all the major costs of this project have now been dealt with and that our (income - expenditure) curve for the business as a whole is heading back towards zero and will, in years to come, exceed this, allowing me to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labours.

[glamdring]

N is for Newspapers. It is in fact true that the Faroe Islands do have newspapers. Not very many of them for sure, but then with a population of less than 50,000 there really isn't the market to sustain a wide range of trashy tabloids like you get over in England. Dimmalætting, the Faroes' oldest newspaper of some 118 years, has however been an enthusiastic supporter of our new venture, both in terms of our on-field footballing activities and all the various off-field projects. It is certainly a great boost to us to have the main national newspaper on side because publicity is hugely important to our venture. To say they are "on side" shouldn't give the impression that they are always supportive of our football team though. Their sports journalist gives a very accurate and remorseless account of our matches, and whilst he accepts we are a new club he wastes no time in criticising players who are not performing. Bergur Midjord felt the full force of his criticism during one of his goal-less spells and, together with other factors, this appears to have given him just the kick up the backside he needed as he went on a goal scoring spree towards the end of the season. Then of course there is the Faroese national team, which receives plenty of coverage in the national papers. This in turn meant further coverage for us, especially when discussing the U19 and U21 squads which were generally well filled with Tórshavn players.

As for the Scottish press, they were somewhat less interested in us, understandably, after the initial hubbub about us joining their league died down. After that we were just a not very good football team playing in their lowest league which itself received relatively little national press coverage. Plenty of the Scottish newspaper sports columnists made the trip to Tórshavn during the season though, if only to write some uninspired and patronising article about such a small nation producing such an enterprising project. Time will tell how we come to be received in the future if we achieve our ambition of rising to the SPL and keeping a "proper" Scottish team out of their top flight for seasons on end.

O is for Outclassed. Not a subject I will dwell on for more than a few sentences. Everyone who saw us and our results last season knows that, on many occasions, we were simply outclassed by our opponents. On rare occasions we rose to majestic heights and actually outclassed some team or other, but such occasions were few and far between. To finish the season 7th was vindication for all our hard work though, proof that the young team we had put together, with a spattering of older Faroese players, was capable of competing with at least some teams in the division and was not just an embarrassment to one and all. It can be difficult with a team containing such young players, often a handful of 16 year olds, to keep morale up when the team is losing. More experienced and wiser players at this level have generally been there and seen it all before, but for youngsters being on the end of a 4-0 thrashing can be a hurtful experience. Many a time Jakup had one of the youngsters in his office looking for advice, for encouragement, for reassurance that he hadn't made a huge mistake attempting to pursue a football career. This was all part of his job and for the most part he did it very well. Some youngsters looked burned out midway through the season, but Jakup would then pull them out of the limelight and let them recharge themselves in the relative privacy of the Tórshavn training ground or move them back down into the U19 squad for a few matches.

And speaking of the U19s, they were a huge success story. Tórshavn didn't run a reserve team, meaning that we just had a small core of senior players and a large number of youngsters. Those youngsters who were not regularly in the full team would have regular run outs for the U19s which were a massive boost to confidence. While the "senior" squad often struggled to find its feet, the U19s were regularly outclassing their opponents. So much so that they stormed to the U19s league title with plenty of matches to spare and a goal difference of over 100. Two young strikers who had spent the entire season in the U19s had netted around a goal per game each and carried this form through with pleasing success when they were thrust into the first team squad for the last few matches of the season. The future looks bright for some of these youngsters and I am confident that next season we will be outclassing opponents more often than they outclass us.

[tenthreeleader]

Very nice work!

[pouncer]

excellent - unique idea and it is really great Can't wait for the rest!

[milanfan_apoorv]

back from the friggin dead!

yeye {^-^}

[glamdring]

Thanks for the comments. I'm gradually easing myself back into the writing process as my enthusiasm is returning

[glamdring]

P is for Poul Ennigarð. Poul is, by his own admission, fairly bereft of any kind of talent in the technical department. This didn't really worry us at Tórshavn though for a number of good reasons. Firstly we have, as has been seen already, a very young team with a fair number of totally inexperienced kids, therefore his experience alone makes him a very useful member of the squad. Secondly (and finally actually) we are playing in the Scottish Third Division and much the same assessment could be made of most of the players at that level. That is not meant as a criticism, of course, everyone of them is infinitely more talented with a football at his feet than I am. It is just a fact that you must tailor your standards and expectations to the level at which you are playing. We have, this season, had some fantastic matches between teams wholly committed and giving it their all and that is all you really need for a good game of football, the connoisseurs can keep their fancy skilful football of the Premiership, La Liga or Serie A. Real football is about thud and blunder, muck and bullets and all that kind of stuff - two teams of roughly the same level of ability both looking to score goals. So, after that pointless diversion, I return to Poul Ennigarð with the absolute conviction that he fits in perfectly at this level. 3 things he can do quite well are tackle & mark a lumbering Division 3 striker and head a football. The latter skill proving particularly useful as his regular sorties upfield for corners resulted in him reaching double figures in goals for the season. In his "day job" at the back he performed to an acceptable enough standard when you bear in mind that the whole team were generally struggling for the early part of the season and were still getting to know each other, having been thrown together just weeks before the season began. I am still surprised he has been constantly overlooked for international caps though. He has one, from somewhere back in the mists of time when Tórshavn football club was nothing more than a dream yet to be had, but given the paucity of talent in the Faroes he seems to me to be at least as good as some of the centre-backs who were called up.

Q is for Fabio Quagliarella. Now I know what you are all thinking. What on earth does Fabio Quagliarella have to do with Tórshavn? Well, to be completely honest, nothing at all, but there comes a time in A to Z 's in any field when the author realises that there are letters he just can't sensibly fill up - Q and X usually coming pretty high on this list and I am no exception. In my defence though I have at least opted for originality ahead of just picking out a generic word beginning with 'Q' and crow barring it into the text. I haven't totally taken leave of my senses though either - I was incorrect when I said Quagliarella had nothing at all to do with Tórshavn. As discussed previously, a handful of Tórshavn players have made it into the full national squad and therefore a small number, including Rasmus Nolsoe and Bergur Midjord travelled to Italy to face the world cup winners in the final group match of Euro 2008 qualifying. We (I like to think of the Faroese national team as "we" even though I am not Faroese and am of the opinion that a 4 year old could make a better fist of managing the national team than the current incumbent) lost of course, but not embarrassingly which was a rarity. Just 3-0 this time and Quagliarella scored one of the goals. Midjord's opinion after the match was that it had been a hugely instructive experience (from the bench) to observe a striker of Quagliarella's ability close up. Given Midjord's own goal scoring drought around that time and for a while after it was clear that whilst it may have been an instructive experience it was one which Midjord's own talents were totally insufficient to put to practical use, at least for the moment.

R is for Rasmus Nolsoe. Ennigarð's "other half" as it were, in a footballing sense. Occasionally Nolsoe would play left-back, occasionally he would be benched in favour of John Ovenstone, but in general he and Ennigarð formed our centre-back partnership for the season and did a decent job once the team finally got going. He is younger than Ennigarð, more talented and has been selected regularly for the national team so hopes are high in Tórshavn that if we can keep hold of him he might be the defensive anchor around which we can build our fortunes of the next few years and look to reach the promised land of the SPL. I say if because there was a time last season when one or two Icelandic clubs were sniffing around and putting bids in for him and he stated then that he wanted to move to a bigger club. Happily though the moment passed and, after a spell being benched, he settled down again, signed a new contract and seemed happy to stay in the Faroese capital. I know that Jakup rates him very highly, even saying that he has the ability to play in the SPL, but whether that can be with Tórshavn or not is debateable. Even in a pie in the sky best case scenario it will be 4 years before we could be an SPL club.

[glamdring]

S is for Stenhousemuir and Stranraer. Our matches against Stranraer this season were largely uneventful, but, having made the decision all the way back at ‘E’ to include all our Third Division rivals in this round up, here they are. Back in August we played Stranraer in our 3rd match of the season, still looking for our first point. We didn’t get it, but Bergur Midjord did at least score his first goal for the club, albeit from the penalty spot, in our 2-1 defeat at Stair Park. By the time they came to Tórshavn in November, we had managed to get 2 wins under our belt and Stranraer became the 2nd of 4 wins in a row during one of our best runs of the season, veteran Allan Morkore netting the winner in successive 1-0 wins. Uninspiring 0-0 and 1-1 draws followed in January and March as Stranraer headed towards finishing 8th, 10 points behind Tórshavn.

Stenhousemuir were rather more successful over the course of the season, but against us they also shared the points. Just as everyone did in those early days, Stenhousemuir beat us comfortably in our first meeting of the season, Bergur Midjord again on target in a 3-1 defeat. A turgid 0-0 draw in the Faroe Islands gave us our final point of 2007 before 4 straight defeats put an end to any thoughts we might have had of building over the 4 straight wins of a few weeks earlier. By February our ebbing and flowing season was back in a flowing phase as a 0-2 win at Stenhousemuir, Rasmus Nolsoe and Jann Ingi Peterson on the scoresheet, provided us again with a 4th straight win before successive home defeats yet again halted our progress up the table. The penultimate day 2-2 draw in Tórshavn came as part of our 8 game unbeaten streak to finish the season, a run during which we scored and conceded goals in every single match, 5 of them draws. That Stenhousemuir lost in the playoffs was a mater of absolutely zero interest to us up here in the Faroes, other than for us to note that it would be they who would be facing us again next season rather than Dumbarton.

T is for Tórshavn and Tinganesvøllur. The town of Tórshavn is like no other capital city in Europe. Those who arrive in the Faroe Islands by plane will have to wait some time before they first see the city, but for those who arrive by sea, Tórshavn is where they will arrive and there can be no doubt that to see the city from the sea is an impressive sight as you head into the somewhat exposed harbour. The modern-day population is around the 20,000 mark, although this varies depending on where you define the extents of Tórshavn itself. The turfed roofed wooden buildings of the Tinganes peninsula, home to the Faroese home rule government, stand out. Surprisingly, these buildings are open to visitors to wander around while the islands’ government goes about its business in a low key and unassuming manner. Little remains of the ancient Tinganes after fire swept through the wooden buildings in 1673, but the peninsula has been at the heart of Tórshavn for centuries and was originally home to a fort which protected the eastern and western harbours from pirates, along with the Skansin fort overlooking the eastern harbour, which exists to this day, albeit having been rebuilt twice, alongside an imposing lighthouse. It is hard to imagine what it must have been like to live in the Faroe Islands back in the 17th century. The isolation of the other islands from the capital city meant that whilst pirates may have been discouraged from attacking Tórshavn itself, they had no such worries about plundering the smaller towns and villages of the nearby islands. Nowadays though, transport links within the Faroe Islands are excellent and their road and tunnel-building skills would put those in many countries, including England, to shame. Tórshavn itself is now a bustling centre of tourism and local culture, settling happily into the modern world whilst retaining its links to its historic past.

Tinganesvøllur is, of course, the name of our new stadium which is currently under construction and overlooks the peninsula of Tinganes. Tórshavn is already home to a number of football stadia and, indeed, to no fewer than 5 senior football teams – HB, B36, AB, FRAM and Undri. HB and B36 share the 5000-capacity Gundadalur stadium, just a stone’s throw away from the national stadium, Tórsvøllur, where we currently play our home games, whilst AB play their football at Argir, just to the south of Tórshavn. I did briefly consider us renting the national stadium permanently, but in the end I wanted us to have our own stadium, for Tórshavn football club to own all its own assets and not be reliant on the whims of someone else as to whether we had a stadium to play in or not. Thus it was that Tinganesvøllur was born, with planning permission and stadium design all completed well before the football club itself was anything more than a few pieces of paper and a registered company. The stadium, well on schedule for completion next summer, is situated to the west of the main town, on the hillside overlooking the Vesturkirkja church and commanding superb views over the whole town and harbour. That said, we are hoping that those who visit will be more interested in the view over the rather large rectangle of turf surrounded by the 4 all-seater stands. The pitch has the potential to be 130 yards long by a massive 100 yards wide, making it by far the largest pitch in the Scottish leagues, but since the regulations appear to allow such a large pitch, we have opted to go for it. Ultimately the aim is to develop a Tórshavn team who play beautiful free-flowing neat passing attacking football, utilising the full width of the pitch to entertain their fans. For now though we intend to just develop a brand of football which takes advantage of all the space on the pitch to outplay our opponents with a more simple direct game, but still very attacking of course, with wingers flying down the flanks like their lives depend on it. That is for the season after next though…next season we will still be at Tórsvøllur as we look to push for the promotion which would allow us to welcome the new stadium with 2nd division football.