The Regionnaire Challenge

[SavoNFFC]

https://5starpotential.com/fm22-blogs/the-football-manager-regional-challenge

I decided after coming across the MaddFM Northern Boys save to do one of my own. Starting with my own team Nottingham Forest, we have 4 seasons in which to embed an East Midlands-only squad. Players only born within 30 miles of Nottingham are eligible which is inspired from the Celtic side of the 60s winning the European Cup. I've loaded the English league system down to level 10 in order to try and promote clubs within the region to higher leagues, through generous transfer fees and loans.

 

A few rules to begin with:

Any paid permanent transfers must be local to Nottingham (30 mile radius) from day one.

Any loans can be from anywhere for the first 4 seasons, from the 5th season onwards must be local.

Each pre-season will see us pump money into local clubs to allow them to boost their own facilities and buy players to rise through the leagues, by buying players for generous fees and arranging friendlies.

 

Season 1

Lots of players leaving the club whilst I analyse the potential options to bring in. To be honest there's a stark lack of local East Mids talent playing in the top 2 divisions. Probably stand out players are Grantham-born Patrick Bamford, Leicester-born Che Adams, Luke Thomas and Hamza Choudhury and Derby-born (and former Forest player) Jamaal Lascelles.

Signed Leicester-born Wes Harding, Derby lad Ben Osborn and Lee Camp on a free transfer, On loan we signed Idah from Norwich, Shelvey from Newcastle and Lewis Dobbin from Everton.

Idah scored 27 goals and finished league top scorer as we played a 4-2-3-1 system. It wasn't enough to fire us to promotion though as we finished 3rd and lost in the play off semis to Hull. 

Part of me was relieved as with our squad and the restrictions in signings we'd surely have been cannon fodder in the top flight and possibly would've ended with me getting sacked therefore ending the challenge before it starts.

During pre-season we arranged friendlies with Burton, Mansfield whilst our u23s went to local sides Basford and Eastwood Town. I then was given a 4m transfer budget and struggled to sign a great deal of local players so effectively gave local teams most of it.

Mansfield - 775k

Notts County - 800k

Derby - 250k

Alfreton Town - 475k

Chesterfield - 500k

Burton - 500k

Matlock Town - 250k

Ilkeston Town - 195k

Carlton Town - 175k

Basford Town - 300k

Loughborough - 35k

Grantham Town - 155k

Worksop - 90k

Heanor - 25k

Some massive amounts there given the size of some of those sides. Hopefully it will allow them to strengthen and build to rise up the leagues and therefore provide us with better local talent to poach...

 

Season 2 (so far)

We find ourselves in 4th position in January and have either looked brilliant this season or garbage, Unfortunately Adam Idah didn't want to return on loan so we signed Dane Scarlett from Spurs instead who has also banged them in.

Other loan signings include Armando Broja, Bradley Dack, Neco Williams and Tyler Roberts from Leeds, of course the birthplace of the loan players is irrelevant for these first 4 seasons as we look to establish ourselves.

Permanent signings were Nottingham-born Tom Cairney from Fulham and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall from Leicester. We also just manage to send out promising local-born regen Andre Felix out to Notts County on loan. As an aside County are top of League Two after a promotion first season so their rapid rise up the leagues will really benefit the region.

 

 

Has anyone else done a similar challenge for a different region? It's effectively a Basque-style model relying almost solely on local youth intakes. It's difficult to find players to actually spend money on as they're either Premier League quality or terrible and I can see a real challenge in the seasons to come in making the squad competitive and hopefully actually winning something. There's also the added frustration that I had in the first season where we have a really promising player in the youth intake but was from London...

Edited February 8, 2022 by SavoNFFC

[Taunton]

I really like this idea. I was thinking doing it with Preston and sign Lancashire born players only. Do you have any tips regarding search filters?

[SavoNFFC]

On 12/02/2022 at 11:33, Taunton said:

I really like this idea. I was thinking doing it with Preston and sign Lancashire born players only. Do you have any tips regarding search filters?

It's quite painstaking but when it's done it's done. If you go to 

https://5starpotential.com/fm22-blogs/the-football-manager-regional-challenge

Then some search filters have been done for you. You can then adapt it according to how strict you want to be. 

[hyrule_king]

I am going to start this with Ipswich. Great Idea will post updates as i go.