[FM24] CDs, BOTs, and Unkindness – FC Isle of Man

[erik45]

The Idea and the Aim of the Save

This is my first career story on this forum.

My goal is to get FC Isle of Man as high as possible on the English football pyramid. I will be using mostly players from the youth academy, with two exceptions: I'm also allowing myself to acquire players from all the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. 

I chose this island-focused framing for the save, because I was reading a book about remote islands (Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky). For some of you these islands (especially the Crown Dependencies) are not that remote, but from the pov of a person living in the Nordics, almost everything feels remote. 😀 

Usually my saves go on for 20-30 years before it gets boring, but I have had some saves that go until the 2070s. Let's hope this save would be one of them!

Before diving deeper into the save itself, I'll explain the name of the save. 

 

Part 1: CDs = the Crown Dependencies
(the Bailiwick of Jersey, the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Isle of Man) 

Players born in Jersey, Guernsey or Isle of Man are available for me to use. The most well known name (atleast for me) of current football players is Arsenal/Real Sociedad fullback Kieran Tierney, who's born in Douglas (the capital if Isle of Man). 

I don't know if the place of birth is the best way to find these players in the game, so if anyone has better ideas, I'm happy to listen! 

The location of the Crown Dependencies:

 

Part 2: BOTs = the British Overseas Territories 

As well as "CD players", also all the players with any BOT nationality are available for me to use (doesn't matter if it's their 1st or 2nd nationality). 

The BOTs are:  

• Anguilla 
• Bermuda 
• British Antarctic Territory* 
• British Indian Ocean Territory* 
• British Virgin Islands 
• Cayman Islands 
• Falkland Islands* 
• Gibraltar 
• Montserrat 
• Pitcairn Islands* 
• Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha* 
• South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands* 
• Turks and Caicos Islands 

*afaik, these territories are not in the game (I haven't checked from the editor) 

 

Map from Wikipedia showing UK & Overseas Territories:

Most of the players in these territories have England as their first nationality. For this save it doesn't matter if the player have BOT nationality as their 1st or 2nd nationality. There are quite many players with Monsterratian, Bermudian or Gibraltarian nationality, let's hope some of those want to join my team! 

As the save goes on, I try to follow how players from Overseas Territories are doing in the game (and snatch the best ones to Isle of Man).  

 

Part 3: Unkindness = a Flock of Ravens 

The nickname of FC Isle of Man is the Ravens. A flock of Ravens is called unkindness, so that's the third part of the name of the save.  

FC Isle of Man is a club that was formed in 2019. They started their journey on the 10th level of the English football pyramid, in North West Counties League Div 1 South in 2021/2022 season, winning the promotion play-offs. (The original plan of participating already for the 20/21 season didn't happen as the team was suspended from the league because of covid restrictions.) 

After the promotion, the team has been participating the North West Counties League Premier Division. In 2022/2023 they finished 13th. This season (23/24) they are currently 14th IRL. In my save, I simulated the season and the team ended up as 16th with 56 points and a goal difference of –10. 

 

What's Next? 

The save starts from the beginning of pre-season 2024/2025. I have holidayed one season to get some players to the teams. 

I will start by going through the team, facilities, expectations etc. 

I've been heavily influenced by some of the great stories on this forum. @Punch had an amazing FC Isle of Man save in FM21 – and I really enjoy their current save with Guernsey. @Jimbokav1971 youth only saves have been an inspiration for me for a good few years. @Rainbowz has created Isle of Man nation database, which would create a whole new dimension to this save, but in the end I chose against using it in this save. 

As this is my first time posting a story here, all the comments and feedback are much appreciated! 

Edited January 19 by erik45

[erik45]

Manager & Tactics  

My manager is Pherick Ramsey. Pherick is the closest Manx name to my handle Erik45 and Ramsey is both and Manx last name and a town in northern part of the island. 

No badges, no problems. I put all the skill points to Working with Youngsters and Determination. I chose to focus on Determination because I've noticed it has been very difficult for me to gain a positive personality for the manager in the game. The "best" personality I've had was Fairly Loyal, most of the time my managers have been either Slack or Casual... 

(FYI: You can the personality of your manager – and squad as well – from the league's season preview when you click your team) 

 

I have been very fond of narrow 4-3-3 tactic for some years. In an earlier FM24 saves I have tried 4-4-2 and 5-2-3 systems, but those don't feel like my systems. 

I try to keep things simple. A lot of players in the middle lane and a target forward who to utilize for long balls when needed. In this save, I won't go too deep into tactical side of the game (at least in the first few years, but I will update if I make major changes to the system I use. 

 

[erik45]

Facilities & Finances 

As could be expected, the team doesn't have great facilties. My aim is to get better junior coaching as soon as possible as I see that's the most efficient way of getting players with good current ability. If we at some point go pro, I will start to switch the focus from current ability to potential ability. 

 

 

The bank balance was a positive surprise. If it steadily stays around 100k, I might be asking some improvements sooner rather than later. 

[erik45]

Squad & Transfers 

 

When I took over, these were all the players in the team (U21 & U18 included). We quickly needed some reinforcements, and that need was emphasised even more when Ryan Cooper, our only RB, broke his angle and is out for 4 months. 

 

 

The signings from July onwards were made by me. Only Louis Parral is going to play in the first XI as he is the replacement for injured Cooper in the DR slot. Now we have our first player from Overseas Territories!

 

 

[erik45]

Season Expectations 

 

 

Board and fans expect us to get to the promotion playoffs. It might be a challenging task as we found ourselves at 9th position in the season preview. 

 

 

 

The encouragement to reach the playoffs comes from the fact that we have four players in the media dream eleven: O'Connor, Moore, Thorpe & McCaffrey. 

 

 

McCaffrey is also bookies' favourite to be the top player in the division!

 

 

[erik45]

Pre-Season Friendlies 

 

The club had arranged most of these before I came here (I added the one against Tranmere). Happy with the amount of goals scored, but conceding all games but one is something to think about. 

 

Upcoming 

 

I was too eager and already played pre-preliminary game of FA Cup... which we ended up winning! 

We have three league games and we go straight to the deep end as we travel to Padiham, who are the third favourite to win the league. After that, two Liverpool sides and a FA Cup tie against Sheffield – oldest still existing football club! 😮 

[Jimbokav1971]

Good luck with this. 

I like any saves that have self-imposed restrictions like this. I've considered doing an "Island save" where I could only sign players who were born on an Island, so players from Ireland of Isle of Man of Jersey or Sicily, or Australia or Japan or New Zealand etc etc etc, but players born on the mainland anywhere would be excluded. 

[erik45]

3 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Good luck with this. 

I like any saves that have self-imposed restrictions like this. I've considered doing an "Island save" where I could only sign players who were born on an Island, so players from Ireland of Isle of Man of Jersey or Sicily, or Australia or Japan or New Zealand etc etc etc, but players born on the mainland anywhere would be excluded. 

Thanks!

I'm a big fan of self-imposed restrictions. Last proper save I had was in the Nordics with players who are 190< cm tall. I won the top divisions in Norway, Sweden and Finland, but I just couldn't win Danish league

I really like the idea of save with island born players. A bit similar is my idea to start save with Hammarlands IK. It is a club based in Åland in Finland, and in the save I could only use players born in Åland. The real twist comes from the fact that Hammarlands IK play in the Swedish system. The problem with starting a save with them is that they play in Div 7 (which is 9th or 10th level), and for now there's no proper league/data update for that.

[shd34_216_42]

Unless you have really good home attendances (or a FA Cup run), I doubt you're going to get much in the name of facility improvements, so the junior coaching is probably the right approach to take.

Too bad Isles of Scilly isn't in the game, the footballing history there is rather interesting.

[Punch]

I had a lot of fun with my IoM save.

Good luck, hope you enjoy it too.

[erik45]

9 hours ago, shd34_216_42 said:

Unless you have really good home attendances (or a FA Cup run), I doubt you're going to get much in the name of facility improvements, so the junior coaching is probably the right approach to take.

Too bad Isles of Scilly isn't in the game, the footballing history there is rather interesting.

Yeah I think FA Cup run is the way to go to get some improvements done. At lower divisions maintaining a good youth setup is relatively cheap. But if/when I get promoted multiple times, the payments get bigger even if I don't do further improvements. I don't really understand how it works in FM, but this is my experience in earlier editions.

Isle of Scilly is the smallest league, right? Two teams competing each other, at least seasons would just fly by!  

[erik45]

First proper games, first proper wins! Really good start, and the first cup wins are very important for our financial balance. We got lucky to get the draw against Ilkeston, let's hope we can win the replay.

 

 

League table is starting to shape. As we had so many cup games, we've already played 1-2 games less than the others. 

 

 

We also broke first record – although my manager had very little to do with it  

 

Next month we continue in the cups + have four league games

 

Finances were positively affected by the first cup games, let's hope the cup runs will be long! 

[erik45]

 

Wooow, unbeaten start for the season continues! Two draws and a win in the league is good, but even better are the wins in the cups.

The win against phoenix club Macclesfield was massive, and over 3000 fans got to see it! 

 

 

In the league we are one of the two undefeated sides. Cheadle Town is looking dangerously effective, but we have played two games less than them. 

 

Financially we are doing goooood! Over 70,000 profit in one month is crazy for a club at this level 

 

 

Next month the team faces this season's biggest test so far against Harrogate Town who are on top of Vanarama. 

[erik45]

October 2024. Well, the game of the season (so far) was very much deserved loss to Harrogate Town. We concede a lot of goals, but we just keep on grinding results! Big - or tall - reason for our wins has been target man Robert Jones. Top scorer, highest average rating and most POTM awards, not bad.

Comparing our results to this table, the win against Cheadle Town and draw against Glossop North End might be very valuable for us at the end of the season.

I forgot to screenshot the finance page this month, but maybe the next picture tells something about the club's financial situation:

We have our first upgrade, let's gooooo!!! 

 

Next month we continue with 5 league games, 1 FA Vase game and also enter the North West Counties League Cup. West Didsbury & Chorlton should be the toughest test as they lead the xG table.

[erik45]

November 2024. Good results just keep on coming! I really don't know why, because we're playing quite well, but not that well. Ramsbottom game was frustrating, because nothing, absolutely nothing happened in that game. Look at the opposition's pass map, it tells all the action you need to know...

We are steadily climbing up the table. The board expects us to finish in the promotion playoff positions and so far it looks like we have a good chance of achieving that.

 

Next month we have no cup games, but we compensate that by having six league games. Can we continue our unbeaten record in the league? (Hint: no )

 

[erik45]

December 2024. And there goes the unbeaten run. Against the bottom of the league... Other than that, the month was quite okay.

The xG story of the first league loss of the season was quite even, but only after our red card. We were leading the game until 80th minute and drawing until 94th, but in the end we lost.

 

We are still holding on to our second place in the league. There's seven points between us and the teams outside of playoff spots, let's keep it this way!

To enhance our chances, we also made a new signing! Dean Pinnington, born on Isle of Man, will slot right in to our starting XI (as soon he learns to play CM )

 

I also got the preview of our youth intake. At the moment, we just need more bodies. If the bodies are for left back, midfield or attack, even better. I had my hopes up, because sometimes at this level you get crazy good intakes for no clear reason...but maybe not this time.

 

The first facility upgrade gave a hit to our bank balance, but we are steadily keeping a positive balance.

 

We start the new year by heading to Liverpool. We also meet two teams from our division in cups, I'm hopeful we get to continue our good cup runs!

 

[shd34_216_42]

10 hours ago, erik45 said:

Yeah I think FA Cup run is the way to go to get some improvements done. At lower divisions maintaining a good youth setup is relatively cheap. But if/when I get promoted multiple times, the payments get bigger even if I don't do further improvements. I don't really understand how it works in FM, but this is my experience in earlier editions.

Isle of Scilly is the smallest league, right? Two teams competing each other, at least seasons would just fly by!  

IIRC Isle of Man has really good attendance compared to other teams in the same level, so you might be in better shape than it seems because you'll have good gate receipts. (I appreciate you adding attendance numbers to your view.)

I'm guessing the youth setup probably takes the in-game reputation value along with the current league competition into account, and typically your reputation will be increasing every season so the costs should be going up every year.

Yes, that's the smallest league.

Nice cup run to make it to the 4th Qualifying Round of the FA Cup, the other cups aren't nearly as lucrative but it's more games to keep the backups happy.

[erik45]

January 2025. Things are going well. REALLY well! We won all the games, but on top of that we are scoring crazy amounts of goals. I'm used to scoring 1-2 goals per game in FM, this is all new to me  

I'm really happy not just with the cup wins, but also with the win against City of Liverpool, who were just behind us in the league.

 

Because of our excellent form, we have not only topping the league, but also created a four point gap between us and Cheadle Town!

 

The win against Ramsbotton United guaranteed that we passed our very first vision objective!

More first time successes: Manager of the Month and Player of the Month! Kiam Reddy has been an excellent poacher for us, scoring almost 30 times in all competitions.

 

Financially we continue gaining small profit every month.

 

All the positive news made me brave enough to ask contract extension already in January. On top of that I also asked to start my first coaching course - and surprisingly the board thought all this was a good idea!

 

Next month the busy schedule continues with seven games: five in the league and two in the cups. The league games will probably decide if we still have the possibility to win the league as we face teams in 3rd, 6th, 2nd, 12th, and 5th. 

Edited January 21 by erik45

[erik45]

February 2025. Well, we can't win them all, can we? The start of the month made me question our capability to challenge for the title. Especially the 3-4 loss to Cheadle Town hurt. But after that, team decided to start playing again and three nice wins ended the month.

Even after some hiccups, we are holding to our position at the top of the table. 

 

More upgrades!

Financially we continue on the same positive path. As we get a new youth coaching upgrade, we might see some increase in expedintures.

Next month we will have our very first youth intake...and seven games! We have a chance to gain place in the League Cup final as Prestwich Hays visit us in the semis. They're just above relegation battle, so I would consider ourselves small favourites for the game.

[erik45]

March 2025. We keep on winning! Losing to Ramsbottom was bit unlucky. Lower Breck has been our bogey team this season. They've been in the relegation zone for the season, but we only gained 1 point from two games against them... Anyways, good results mean that we're closer than ever of achieving promotion!

We are in such a good form, that winning the league is a real possibility! This is the first month that I actually am thinking that we are the favorites now.

Even though promotion is very close, some players are not happy. The four players mentioned in the message are all key players for us, so I need to keep them satisfied. I would be happy to strengthen the team, but there just aren't any good players wanting to join us.

Slowly, money keeps on rolling in. We might be asking new improvements soon!

Last games of the season. In April we have four league games. If we win two of them, we've guaranteed league win! After the league has ended, we have our first cup final at Highbury Stadium, home of Fleetwood town.

[erik45]

Youth intake 2025

The most interesting day is here as we have our first youth intake!

What to expect? This was the preview from December:

5-star intake but no position with players better than grade D. I really don't know how that can be five stars.

These are the players we got. We have only three players over 0,5 stars, but on the other hand, quite many players with 5 or 4,5 star potential. My favorites are Mateus Paulo, Ayrton Bowes and Aaron Kelly. They don't have the best personalities and I'm not expecting any players to develop too much at this level. But even small development can make them important for the first team. Mateus Paulo will get some playing time soon, but I'm thinking to utilize him as DLP (s) as I don't use CAMs.

Now that I'm looking at these "top talents" I think only Mateus Paulo has a real chance of making to the first team. But you never know, as we have so few players that one or two players leaving changes things drastically.

I'm giving contracts to 15 of the 16 players. In a "normal" situation I would be stricter, but we really need bodies and many of the lower quality players are born in Isle of Man, so I want to keep them. Only Chidi Akanni is released, as his potential is so low even if he reaches it, he won't get to the first team (+ he doesn't have a good personality, but that's an issue with most of the players ).

 

[erik45]

We did it, we are the champions of North West Counties Premier Division! 

April 2025. As the results tell, we didn't do it without some troubles. After Chadderton win players might have felt too comfortable, so of course we lost the next two games. We had over 1,000 people in the last home game ready to celebrate winning the title, but things were not meant to be.

As Cheadle Town won all their games in April, we needed at least a draw from the last game. 34-old showed how to make things happen as he scored a hat-trick in the last game as we cruised past Litherland who ended up in the bottom of the table.

In the end there were two points separating us and Cheadle Town, who went and won the promotion playoffs. We scored loads of goals, but also conceded a lot.

If we look at the xG table, it tells somewhat similar story. West Didsbury & Chorlton can count themselves very unlucky, as their xPts were better than ours, but they finished outside playoff spots. 20 out of 21 teams overperformed their xG and underperformed their xGA which is not unusual in lower divisions in Football Manager.

While we were playing the last games of the season, we also got our first youth facility upgrade done. We have now even better facilities than before: basic youth facilities, woohoo!

The last game of the season is a big one as we have chance to get our very first cup title!

Edited January 21 by erik45

[erik45]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, que no pare la fiesta - don't stop the party!!

We do the double! We controlled the match from start to finish and deserved the win. This was our last chance to do it as next season we have new cups to conquer!

After the cup win, there was something new at our Club Info page:

[shd34_216_42]

I see you've discovered the glory of youth intakes in the lower tiers.

It's a shame you can't win the FA Vase anymore, but honestly I think you would rather be promoted.

[erik45]

10 hours ago, shd34_216_42 said:

I see you've discovered the glory of youth intakes in the lower tiers.

It's a shame you can't win the FA Vase anymore, but honestly I think you would rather be promoted.

Yeah, it would've been nice to win FA Vase at some point, but I'm usually very bad at cup runs, so it was a great surprise to me even to win the league cup  

At least promotion gets me one step close of being able to offer proper contracts to players (but we are not there yet).

[erik45]

Season Review

I don't know how it "took a little while to get going" when we were unbeaten in the first 14 competitive games and lost only 3 games before Christmas (compared to 6 between Christmas and end of the season). 

North West Counties Premier Division: Win

The league table was already in a previous post, so I want to use this post to highlight our excellent cup runs.

North West Counties league cup: Win

FA Vase: 5th round (loss vs. Milton United are were on the same level as we.)

FA Cup: 4th Qualifying Round (loss vs. Harrogate Town, who got promoted to League Two)

Without the cup runs, the first improvements to our facilities and youth coaching wouldn't have happened, so let's hope we continue on the same path next season!

Financially we are in a relatively strong position. As players might be asking more money for appearances, we need to be sure to balance that out somehow.

Transfers in: We made surprisingly many signings, but only Parral and Pinnington had important roles in the first team (+ McKinnon, who has signed before I did).

Transfers out: Before the youth intake, we had only 18 players in total at the club. Monks, Ronald and Hook were true benchwarmers, so losing them didn't affect the quality of the team, but McKinnon was important in our defence rotation. 

 

Before turning the page for the new season, we got some exciting news about our facilities!

First of all, the board decided to add some seating capacity to comply with league requirements.

 

And then the board surprised me by accepting to improve both youth category rating and junior coaching budget!  Now junior coaching is at adequate level, which is more than I wished for at this point of the save. Now we just need to make sure it doesn't create too much of a financial burden for the club.

[shd34_216_42]

You balance the higher wage demands with higher revenues (you should have higher ticket/season ticket prices and more attendance because of the promotion).

The bigger issue is probably holding on to the players you want to keep.

[erik45]

New season, new league, same old FC Isle of Man!

This season FC Isle of Man will make its first appearance in Northern Premier League, Division 1 West! To get us fully prepared for that, we played a closed-door friendly against U21s and five friendlies against English and Northern Irish teams.

As one can see, the results were mostly very positive, although the Guernsey loss really annoyed me. Anyways, the team is ready for the new season, fully fit and in positive spirits!

Expectations: Season preview tells us we should be many teams fighting for top half finish and that's also my personal aim for the year. I was about to show the board's expectations, but this interesting message popped up before the season started:

Even before the first league game, the supporters are saying we failed the objective of finishing top-half. Well, they might be a bit too eager to judge, so let's play the season first and then see what happens. Fortunately, this message didn't trigger any reaction from the board, so I should be safe for now. The board is expecting mid-table finish.

Transfers: There was only one transfer move, in or out, during the summer: we brought in Isle of Man born midfielder Jack Camarda on a free transfer. He actually played for us in 22/23 season, before moving to Dunston (who are on the same level as we are now). Camarda will be rotational option for BWM, DLP and RWB roles.

Financially we continue on the same path. If we get good money from our cup games, I will be asking new facility/coaching improvements soon.

Upcoming fixtures: We start the season same as last yer: by having pre-pre round of FA cup! Whickham are one level below us, so we should be small favourites, even if it's. an away tie. Our journey in the new league starts against teams who are also predicted in the big lump of mid-table sides. We end the month against Cheadle Town who were promoted with us last season (and are predicted to finish last... ) 

[erik45]

August 2025. The second season started even. better than the first one! We needed replay against Whickham, but after that it was (almost) smooth sailing from win to win. If you look at the scorers of the replay against Whickham, you might notice we got our first goal by youth intake player!

Mateus Paulo 25a played so well he was awarded as Player of the Match. He's been playing in DLP (s) role. We have two players in that position already, but both of them are 35-years old, so we will need a replacement soon.

I will keep a list of all the players from youth intakes to see when they made their debuts and how are they doing later on.

League Table. The league table looks like this after the first month. Avro has started very well, but so have we. I'm not expecting us to be fighting for the title this season, but if we can keep the best players, we might have a chance for playoff places.

Stadium expansion. ...or maybe not so much of an expansion as overall capacity has been decreased, but at least we have more seats now!

Finances. We are doing so well that I will be asking some improvements as soon as I am able to ask them

Next month we (might) play the matches that were postponed because of new games in cups. Mossley is in the same division as we are while Newton Aycliffe is in the one below us. Both are winnable ties, but let's not get cocky. It will be a busy month, especially if we get through in one or both cups.

[erik45]

September 2025. Oof.... well, there goes both of the cup "runs". The loss against Newton Aycliffe really hurt. But we didn't deserve much from it, even if we had a goal disallowed in the 92th minute which would've taken us to a replay at home. If the cup run was horrible, it wasn't much better in the league. We won against other promoted team, but then it was downhill. xG told us being "better team" in all games but the one against Widnes, but I think xG flattered us.

League table. Even after this month's results, we are in a good position. Five points above relegation and at the same points as the team in last playoff position. If we could concede less, we should be able to get a respectable position at the end of the season.

Facility upgrade! The board didn't allow me to ask about youth facilities or coaching, so I went and asked them to upgrade training facilities. First they said no, but after a brief discussion they accepted so we wouldn't be left behind our rivals (which we don't have according to the club info ). 

Finances. I asked for the upgrade because of our strong financial position. Now I might need to wait until the next season for next upgrade, as we won't be having big bucks from the cup.

Well, we have one more cup we can go try to win! The league cup starts and we face Mossley who we already beat in the first league game of the season. On top of that we have four league games. I'm really waiting for the game against Leek Town, just because I absolutely love the name! I think it is the only town I know that is named after a vegetable.  

[erik45]

October 2025. Well, well, well, this is looking much better! We are still conceding, but we also scored 2 or more goals in all our wins. We keep our last cup run alive as we won a scrappy game against Mossley.

League table. This looks nice. I'm quite sceptical, but if we can keep up getting on average 2 points per game, we are playoff bound. The more important thing is that the gap between us and relegation zone is already 11 points.

Finances. Nice, nice. Let's hope this is going to be the trend for years to come. I might be dropping finance part off from the monthly update if it is going to be like this every month

Upcoming fixtures. Next month is going to be tough. We face league leaders Avro + 5 other teams in the league. We also have league cup game against Wythenshawe who are second in the league.

Edited January 23 by erik45
wrong date in the text

[erik45]

November 2025. All-in was the theme of the month. League leaders Avro were too good for us, but the all the other games were much more even. We even had our first big win as we beat Atherton Colliers 6-0! 

League table. Even if the results were all over the place, we steadily stay in the last playoff spot. Pointwise, the top is further away from us than last month, but so is the relegation zone.

One reason for varying results was the injury of Neil Parker, our best goalie. Losing the starting keeper is bad, but what makes it even worse is the fact that the back-up is 17-old, who's CA is 1 star... although he did keep clean sheet in his last game before Parker returned.

Finances. It's all looking good. Let's see if we can afford more improvements.

Records & Awards. Kian Reddy was on fire in October! He scored 8 goals, four of those in one game. The 6-0 game was also our biggest win so far  

Upcoming fixtures. In December I'm hoping we find some stability (and points.) We are now out of all cup competitions, so league is the only focus.

[erik45]

December 2025. 5 games, 9 goals, 10 conceded...only three points gained  We apparently decided to use all the goals and saves in the first game of the month. Lancaster were bottom of the table, so win was to expected, but so were wins against Uttoexeter and Ashton, who also were in the relegation zone.

Table. We lost a lot of ground in the battle for the playoff spots. Couple of wins and we go up by one position, couple of losses and we might be 14th.

Finances. No upgrades asked yet, but we are doing steady profit so I will be meeting with the board in the second half of the season.

Youth intake preview. It's not looking too rosy. 4,5 stars is excellent, but on the other hand one position with C and everything else E or worse is...bad. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the preview, but this tells me not expect players who would go straight in to the 1st XI.

Upcoming fixtures. Six games, but only one midweek game  Clitheroe is 2nd in the league, so away game against is going to very difficult. Mossley and Widnes are in relegation zone and both games are at home, so we should be winning them.  The last three games are more balanced in regards of expectations, but let's see what happens.

[erik45]

Nice start to the new year!

January 2026. Clitheroe game was crazy fun even if we lost it. After that it was much more boring, but I'm relieved our losing streak didn't get any longer.

Table. Six points from six games is not good. We are saying bye bye to promotion playoffs.

Transfers.  We get bids to our players all the time, but I've been ignoring them as about 95 % are rejected by the players. They're free to leave as they are on non-contracts, but it would be very nice of them to stay with us  

Losing Dean Pinnington was a real shock, I hadn't even noticed Avro offered him a contract. Pinnington came to the during last season and conquered the starting position as CM (a), playing 41 league games in total. I can't be mad at him, I might jump the ship if league leaders came offering a starting position in their team.

On a more positive note, we had our first loan deal done. Reed 25o is a 2,5 silver star striker with low PA, but it's nice to see loans happening at this level.

Facility upgrades. We have better facilities than ever before, woohoo!  From poor to basic, we are moving to the right direction!

Upcoming fixtures. February is the month we steady the ship. Top half finish is what I'm aiming for, so we need to start winning (and drawing) matches to stay there.

[erik45]

Our 34-old back-up defender started making noises earlier this season about his playing time. I asked him to settle for the role of a squad player, he wasn't happy about it.

Now I got a message about "pressure building on Ramsey". As he was not too important for the team and on a non-contract, the easy decision was to release him. I did it so quickly his "revealing interview" didn't get published until the next day, when he was already a free agent 

The story in three screenshots:

 

[erik45]

February 2026. Okay, this is better. 8 points from 5 games means we are no longer fighting for the playoff spots, but I feel like we have steadied the ship. Leek Town loss was very much deserved, I don't think we created any good chances in the game. Also, leek is one of my favourite vegetables, so if I had to lose to someone, I would lose to Leek.

In the last game of the month the team gave me a nice gift for my 100th game in charge of the club. 

League table. We are right where we should be based on the team's performances. 11 points to playoffs, 13 points to the relegation zone.

 

 

Injury. We lost the spearhead of out attacking trio. At this point Kian Reddy was leading the goalscoring charts as he had scored stunning 22 goals in 27 league games. His back-ups are both 35-olds who are planning to retire at the end of the season, and they didn't score in any of the four games they played in this month...

 

Finances. Financially, we are stronger than ever. The upwards trend on bank balance seems to be even stronger this season than on the previous one. A bit surprising, isn't it?

 

Upcoming fixtures. Now we just need keep grinding on. Avro game is definitely the most difficult, they look like winners of the league already. It's also the first time I face an old player from our team, as they signed Dean Pinnington from us earlier in the season. I would be happy with home wins and an away draw or two.

Edited January 24 by erik45
wrong date in the text

[erik45]

March 2026. Wow, we won against Avro?? And then lost 3-0 to the team we won 6-0 in the home fixture. I love the randomness of this month!   I expected to get wins from home games and one or two draws from away games, but I was certain we would lose to Avro. So, this month was a better than expected!

League table. Wait, wait... 5 points to the last promotion playoff spot?! We surely can't make it... or can we?

Transfers. Our player gets signed by team in Vanarama!  He was our backup keeper and even made 4 appearances in the league, but I didn't think he would've ever been a regular for us. I was surprised to see Aldershot snatch him, but I'm happy for him as he actually gets some money now

Injury. Last month we lost one starting striker to injury, now we lost another one... Mateus Paulo 25a hasn't been too efficient, but he is a youth product of ours, so he gets the nod before the 35-olds. The average age of our current attacking trio is over 33, let's hope they want to show people one more time why they've had such long careers

Upcoming fixtures. Somehow we still have a (marginal) chance of making it to the playoffs, let's do it! As we have 2 out of our 3 starting attackers injured, but maybe somebody else will take a bigger role in the final third..? Who it could be, I really don't know. I think we need 15 or at least 13 to make it to the playoffs, so the chances are very slim.

Edited January 24 by erik45
wrong date in the text

[erik45]

Youth intake 2026

Preview. As it often tells us in the lower division, this could be a golden generation! It is a five-star intake with five "elite talents" who are shown in the picture

Full list of players. Six players with 5 star potential, but only two players who have more than 1 star in their current ability. There aren't many positive personalities, but (almost) same can be said about the negative personalities. Six players from Isle of Man, but also three from Llandough - why? It's right next to Cardiff in southern Wales, not very close to Isle of Man 

Anyways, I'll be signing everyone from this batch of youth. I think about 6-8 players might get minutes in the first time at some point, but we also just need more players for the youth teams. (Especially now as U18 team is in a league for the first time).

My favourites are: Joe Harris 26a, Borja Herrera 26c and Dale Charlesworth 26g.

 

Youth intake tracking. I have a lot of excel lists about my saves, here's one about facilities and youth development. I don't have a major reason why I follow these specific stats, I just think they are important for any player. I keep all kinds of tracking lists just for myself to see how far I go (or don't) in my saves. (Ps. the facilities are listed at the start of the season, so for example training facilities got upgraded during this season but I will make update when new season starts.

From now on, I will also keep list of all the players from youth intakes who have made it to the first team. I will publish it in season review.

[erik45]

April 2026. Good month, but maybe not good enough? Stalybridge Celtic showed us we are not ready for a promotion battle. Then we decided not to score against Wythenshawe so we could score even more against Ashton United   We are not being consistent at all, but it's not something team at this level would be.

Records. A few records were smashed this month. We had our and league's youngest player in the field as Borja Herrera came fresh from the youth intake to get some minutes. Then Robert Jones took advantage of Kiam Reddy's injury by surpassing him as the record goalscorer of the club  

Final league table. Even if we were quite good this month, is was not enough to make it to the playoffs. But, first season in this league and we achieve very respectable 8th position. I'm very happy with this!

 

Facility upgrade. As a thank you from a great season, board accepted to increase the budget for junior coaching! We have now good academy coaching, which is excellent for this level. If we could get one (or maybe even two ) youth facility upgrades next season, our setup would be set for many years.

[erik45]

Season Review.

League. 8th place, three spots above the prediction. (At the end of the season the prediction had changed and now the season preview said we would be expected to finish 16th). Avro won the league and Runcorn Linnets won the promotion playoffs.

xG-wise we over-performed a little. Scoring more, conceding more and gaining more points than expected by the stats. The aim for the next season is to be a bit more consistent, concede less goals and maybe get fewer yellow cards

I'm a bit surprised that we hade the second highest average attendance. I can't complain, very happy with it as it keeps our finances in a good condition.

 

Cup performances. This season was not the season of long cup runs. We did okay in FA Cup (although lost to a team in division below us), but we were not good in FA Trophy or League Cup.

Players. We had quite solid core of players in the first team, but one transfer out and couple of injuries during the spring gave us problems. We heavily rely on Jones & Reddy scoring and O'Connor assisting. I think I've never had a defender to assist 27 goals in a season!  Mateus Paulo 25a and Adam McCaffrey are important members of the team, but they need to get more things done.

Debuts. Seven new players made their debut this season, four from the first intake and three from this year's. I think these are quite good numbers at this point, as we haven't had any real gems from youth intakes. Liam Hutchings 25i was the biggest surprise, as while he had the worts CA of players making their debut, he scored four goals when he took the place of injured Mateus Paulo 25a.

[erik45]

Season 2026/2027. New season awaits, and this time we are predicted lower in the table than at the beginning of last season. Since then, we've lost one starter and two back-ups, so it is understandable we've seen a bit weaker this time. Fortunately, we have quite a bit of youth player options to take those back-up roles, so the situation ain't that bad.

This is so stupid: my preferred formation is 4-3-3 Narrow and I've been using only that from the start of the save, but projected line-up is still shown as 5-3-2. I think that's because I chose that as my preferred formation when I created the manager.

Below you can see the profiles of our key player and hot prospect, both probably mostly playing in the CM (a) role.

 

Board expectations. Last season was somewhat a success, but it's a bit surprising that the board has lowered expectations. I'm aiming to finish in the top half of the table. This season the important thing is to start getting more minutes for youth players, as we have some positions (CD, TF) where players don't have many years left of their career.

New contract. My contract was until the end of the season, but as board and fans were happy with me, I asked a renewal already. The board gave me a 3 year contract!  (after I accepted a 25 €/week cut).

Transfers & finances. There wasn't much happening on these fronts. Mendes and McGilligan Oliver are not good players, but they are both young and good enough to be benchwarmers and at this point we do need those players. Also, nice to get first players with Bermudian and Montserratian nationalities  

World Cup 2026. No teams from British Overseas Territories, but that's not surprising. What is surprising, is both the winner and the teams in semi-finals. Austria went all the way, beating Jamaica, Czechia, Mexico, USA and Brazil in the knock-outs. The fourth team in the semis was Canada, a great success from two of the three host nations! 

Pre-season friendlies. AssMan took care of these. Good wins, although most of the opponents were much weaker than us. Last summer we lost to Guernsey so it was nice revenge against other team from crown dependencies.

Upcoming fixtures. The usual start: pre-pre round of FA Cup, and we didn't get lucky with the draw. Consett plays at the same level at us (but different division). Both the board and the fans are expecting us to lose. I'm aiming for win, but would be happy to get a draw. We really need consintent good runs in the FA Cup to get more facility upgrades.

After the cup game we have four league games, all against teams predicted above us. 6-7 points would be a good achievement.

 

[erik45]

August 2026. Cup run in the FA Cup is over... but on a positive note, the replays gave us almost as much match day income as the games in the next rounds would've given. We should've won against Ilkley Town, who are one division below us, but it just wasn't meant to be. Win against Nortwich Victoria was a surprise, whereas we dominated against Workington and deserved to win by more. Six points from three league games is a good start!

 

Transfer. We lost our best player from 2025 intake to a professional side in lower divisions in Portugal. He was playing mostly in DLF (s) role, but after his injury last spring he has had troubles gaining back his place in the starting XI.

Finances. We made a nice profit because of 4 cup games. I asked for a youth facility improvement earlier this month. The board said they are not willing to consider due to the club's financial situation. I think this means that the next upgrade will cost at least 300k€ 

Upcoming fixtures. It looks like a quiet month in September, but if we go through in FA Trophy, I think we'll have more games. Ashton is in the same division with us, so I would put us as slight favourites because of our home advantage.

[erik45]

September 2026. Cup run, cup run, CUP RUN! FA Trophy is almost ours! Okay, we still have 9 more matches to win to actually get the trophy  In the league results are just okay, not bat, not great. In the Mossley match there was one highlight, very interesting game,

 

Injury & record. Robert Jones and Kian Reddy are everything for the team when it comes to scoring goals. Last spring when Reddy got injured, Jones took over as the record goal scorer. Now Jones injured and in the next game Reddy took the record back  Hopefully this will push Jones to score loads of goals when he gets back to the field!

New personality. Yes, that happened. I love these messages, doesn't even matter if the change is positive or negative. It just adds a layer of realism that sometimes (a part of) personality can change quickly because of some major life event. Hutchings has been a regular for us ever since Mateus Paulo injured (and eventually left the team for a pro career in Portugal).

Upcoming fixtures. It is going to be a busy month, seven games. If we get through in the cup(s) there might be even more games. Stafford Rangers are leading the league above us, so we really need to be at our best to beat them. The highlight of the month might be the home game against Leek as they lead the table (and I like their name).

[erik45]

October 2026. We made it to the proper 1st round of FA Trophy before Slough Town demolished us (we scored to consolation goals in the very end). In the league cap we had an even game against Dudley Town, but we just happened to be the ones scoring the goals. In the league, 10 points from the possible 15 is something I'm very happy with.

League table. It seems like the top half is where we belong (for now), even if the odds were against us.

Finances. We are getting closer to 0,5 m€ every month. The board has twice denied youth facility upgrades, so next time I will be asking something else (just because I need progress for the sake of it )

Upcoming fixtures. We still have one cup run going on, but I don't care too much about the league cup. There will be some rotation in that game as the main focus shifts to the league. All of these fixtures can be won, but let's not get too hopeful yet.

[erik45]

November 2026. Vauxhall Motors somehow demolished us, but we controlled all the league games. The Ashton United game should've been three points to us, but they scored from their only chance and while we put the ball into the net only once from dozen chances. We are playing on a really good level and it feels like we are more consistent.

League table & awards. We are in a very good position at the moment (we even led the league for a week this month), but let's not get too excited. Me and our target man Jones were both awarded as the best of the month. This was exactly what I wanted from Jones after his injury! He is now 5 goals behind Kian Reddy in all time goalscoring charts, they're going to have a good battle from the top position!

Facility upgrades. Board didn't want to upgrade youth facilities, but after some further discussions they were happy to put more money into junior coaching and youth recruitment! Excellent academy coaching at this level is crazy, hopefully it will bring us excellent players for years to come.

Upcoming fixtures. We start the month by hosting league leaders. Last season we won 6-0 at home and lost 3-0 away, a lot of home team goals to expected. If we want to continue in playoff spots we need at least 12 points, which I think is achievable from these games.

[Domoboy23]

On 24/01/2024 at 12:28, erik45 said:

Youth intake tracking. I have a lot of excel lists about my saves, here's one about facilities and youth development. I don't have a major reason why I follow these specific stats, I just think they are important for any player. I keep all kinds of tracking lists just for myself to see how far I go (or don't) in my saves. (Ps. the facilities are listed at the start of the season, so for example training facilities got upgraded during this season but I will make update when new season starts.

From now on, I will also keep list of all the players from youth intakes who have made it to the first team. I will publish it in season review.

Edited January 26 by Domoboy23

[Domoboy23]

Just now, Domoboy23 said:

 

For some reason won't let me type into the box!

I love that spreadsheet. Anyway you could share it? Or do I need to get my Excel on? 

[erik45]

3 hours ago, Domoboy23 said:

For some reason won't let me type into the box!

I love that spreadsheet. Anyway you could share it? Or do I need to get my Excel on? 

Nice that you like it! 

It's a very chaotic spreadsheet, I counted I have 125 columns for different things I want to follow as seasons go by. I started it back in FM18 and have added things every time I start a new save. So there's no perfect logic of what things I follow and what I don't. I would like to automate some things (as I do everything manually), but I'm a rookie when it comes to using Excel efficiently  

I think I don't have the energy to clean the spreadsheet and make it understandable for anyone to use, but here are screenshots of all the topics of the things I'm following in my saves. (In all the saves I have some variation, for example in this save I focus on players from Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories so there are some stats about those as well.)

Maybe these will help you to get started with your own tracking spreadsheets. The first screenshot is from my "performance spreadsheet" and the last two are from "development spreadsheet".

If I have time to make this available for others, I'll let you know! I think some people have shared these in their stories, but I can't remember who have done it. 

And here, as a bonus, is a little sneak peek how things start to look with long-term saves. Heres the development spreadsheet from my Africanos Bragancas save in FM22 after 30 seasons (I needed to zoom out a lot to get most things visible in one view ).

[erik45]

Youth intake preview. Yes, yes, yes! 5-star intake with three categories with A-rated players. This looks better than the previous two intake previews, in March we get to see if it actually is.

[erik45]

December 2026. ...this is not what I wanted. We scored more than once only against Stalybridge - and we didn't anything from that game. In the first two games we were all-around better, but just didn't know how to score. I feel like we play well when we have mid-table sides against us. We play badly when it's a team in relegation battle. And against top teams, it's just random.  

Table. We lose our position in promotion spots, but we are not far away.

Transfers out. We loaned out one youth player, but to my great surprise we lost two players from the first team. Camrada loss hurt, but he was more of a cover than a first team player  (for WBR and BWM roles). But losing Neil Parker can be a disaster. He was one of our absolute bests + the only keeper who had more than 1 star in CA. He decided to move to Newton Aycliffe where he gets paid, good for him.  But the team is a league below us, feels weird that 1) they can pay money and 2) Parker would want to move to a league below us.

At the moment we are managing the goalie situation as we are not conceding too many goals. Bigger problem is on the other end of the field.

Finances. Money keeps coming in.

Upcoming fixtures. Six games in January, only one mid-week game (which is good for us as we don't yet have good rotation options). In December we got only 1 win, now we need many more. I'd be happy with 12 points or more.