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OleDK

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  1. Rushall Olympic - February 2026 (Vanarama National League) We were fighting hard for every point we could gather. It wasn’t that pretty and we were often pressed into a very defensive position in the matches but for each point we could gather we were a bit closer to another season in National League. But sometimes the pressure on our defence became too much : We did however play a splendid match away against Dagenham & Redbridge with a crushing 5-0 win. Manager Paul Ince was sacked after the match had ended… The fine win made us climb into the playoff places - definitely a position we could only have hoped for before season start. Our FA Cup Second Round match away against Stockport from League One turned out to be just as difficult as expected. Two Stockport goals in fist half was enough and they just ‘cruised’ through the rest of the match but a fine result for our small club to get so far in FA Cup though. In FA Trophy we had drawn League rivals from Altrincham away. Altrincham had beaten us out of FA Trophy two years ago - and they did it once again….😩 Our good run in the League came to an abrupt end after the fine 5-0 win in Dagenham. In the following nine matches we only gained eight extra points so we dropped back to the middle of the League but still with a fine gap to the relegation zone. We had introduced some new players in the latest months. We had some trouble regarding our wing play so I demoted Ollie Bostock and Fopefoluwa Dera to the reserves and promoted 18-year old Fran Cherchi (AMRL - free transfer from West Bromwich in pre-season) and 19-year old Troy Terry (WBR/MR/AMR - free transfer from Preston in pre-season) to first team squad. Good talents but no immediate improvement in our results… Thanks for reading 😀
  2. Rushall Olympic - November 2025 (Vanarama National League) The first match ever for Rushall Olympic in National League was an away match in Halifax who had finished 8th last season. Not many believed in success for the “minions” from Rushall and to be honest we had major difficulties but our strengthened defence kept Halifax away from our goal(Halifax had two goals disallowed for offside) and Justin Obikwu scored the decisive goal just after the break. National League, we’re here to stay 💪 Our next match was at home against also promoted Kings Lynn and with a 2-0 victory we were sitting comfortably in the League table. Our promotion to National League and stadium expansion extended our fan base but still with less than 200 season tickets sold we were a very small club compared to Chesterfield, Oldham and Southend with 4,000 season ticket holders. In general, our following matches in National League were more difficult. We would be on our heels very often and relied on a solid defence and counter attacks. Our 20-year old keeper Ollie Camis played magnificently while our central defence (Danso and Bates) were deeply challenged and with some difficulties against the good teams in National League. The following five League matches provided us with five more points and a solid place in the best third of the League table. We were still searching for players who could improve our depth and signed five new players for our first team squad. Most interesting new player is 19-year-old Lucas Sant (DL), an ex-Crewe youth player who had been released at Bromley after just three months. He would become a strong alternative to 22-year old Demico Burton on left back. The other new players were intented to be backup players: Jackson Blaize (19), MC/AMRC, free transfer from Hemel Hempstead, Marquise Martins (20), free transfer from Braintree, Harry Taylor (18), DC, free transfer from Oxford and finally Eddy Nsasi (19), free transfer from Tamworth. The best performing new player was definitely 18-year old Dylan Gairns with eight goals in his first 17 first matches. He was now first team regular together with Justin Obikwu in front. Status after fifteen League matches: six wins five draws and four defeats and 15-11 in goal score (pleas note only 11 goals against) and sitting just below the playoff zone - a very satisfying start of the season. In FA Cup we entered the tournament in 4th Qualifying Round and we won 1-0 against Scarborough after a close match (goal scored by substitute Marquise Martins) and had drawn Northampton from top of League Two in First Round proper at home at Dales Lane. This is the first time in club history that Rushall Olympic has qualified for First Round. Not a match we could expect to win and as expected Northampton took the lead in the middle of first half but Dylan Gairns gave us new hope with a equalizer just after the Northampton goal. We played very well and after Dylan Gairns scored his second goal just after the break we managed to keep Northampton away from our goal and even score once more to give us a very surprising 3-1 victory 😀 The fine win also added a fine amount to our bank account - fin financial situation by the way. We have drawn Stockport from League One away in Second Round of FA Cup. A very difficult match but it will definitely boost our financials even more. More about that in my next update Thanks for reading😀
  3. Rushall Olympic - August 2025 (Vanarama National League) As mentioned before it is part of our transfer strategy to find young talented players (21 years and younger) on free transfers or very low transfer fees. Some we keep in our squad (first team or reserve team) and those who are far from first team are sent on loan to get some experience and hopefully develop into players who are capable of breaking into first team squad. Last year one player managed to develop enough to get into first team (Tylah Wallace-Ming, played 14 matches mostly coming in from bench) but this year the “loan-out-and-let’s-see” strategy paid off very well. In the last six months or so (game time) I’ve been looking forward to say “welcome back” to David Danso, a 19-year old Ghanaian defender who was signed on a youth contract in June last year (free transfer from Charlton) and at the time his was very far away from first team - and from the reserve team start XI - so after a couple of weeks I sent him on loan to a club in Ghana (Ashanti Gold) and his development in 12 months is the wildest I have ever seen 💪 David Danso would become a very important player in our debut season in National League and by far our best defender. But also five other players came back from succesful loan spells and were included in our first team squad: - Romani Rowe, DC, 19 years, returned from loan at Harlow (signed last year on a free transfer from Bristol City) - Jaiden Drakes-Thomas, DL/DMC/MC, 21 years, returned from loan at Witton (signed last year on a free transfer from Colchester) - Lui Bradbury, MC/AMC, 21 years, returned from loan at Leek (signed last year on a free transfer from Reading) - Reece Nicholas-Davies, ML/AMRL, 20 years, returned from loan at North Ferriby, ex-Derby youth player) - Fopefoluwa Dera, MR/AMRL, 20 years, returned from loan at Carlton, signed last year on a free transfer from Huddersfield) And we managed to sign qualified new players: - Jack Flint, GK, 19 years, free transfer from Bolton - Ernie Weaver, DL/WBL, 18 years, free transfer from Sheffield Wednesday - Jacob Anderson, DRC, 20 years, free transfer from Billericay (ex-MK Dons youth player) - Rio Grant, DR/WBR, 20 years, free transfer from Coventry - Marcel Campbell, MRC/AMRLC, 21 years, free transfer from Kettering (ex AFC Wimbledon youth player) - Ollie Bostock 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿MC/AMLC, 18 years, free transfer from West Bromwich - Jake Davies 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 AMRLC/ST, 18 years, free transfer from Cardiff - Dylan Gairns, ST, 18 years, free transfer from Preston - Josh Pitts, ST, 18 years, free transfer from Southampton So not less than 15 additions to first team (!) it would probably give some difficulties in the beginning due to lack of team cohesion but I believe we have some very interesting players in our young squad. Average age has dropped to 19.95 years with Callum Rowe (25), Demico Burton (22) and Nelson Agho (22) as our oldest players. Captain Callum Coyle was put on the transfer list after being passed by several newcomers. But as mentioned, I’m especially happy about David Danso’s return. However, he is aware of his quality so he is not interested in signing a new contract so we must see how things work out… Here is our squad in the first match of the season: An exciting season lies ahead of us - Vanarama National League here we come ! Thanks for reading!!
  4. Rushall Olympic - May 2025 (Vanarama North) The distance between success and failure is often very short in football. We maintained our good form in February with ten points in four matches a new club record and a close race with King’s Lynn in top of the league as the results of this fine streak 😀 and also with a fine 3-1 victory in FA Trophy 5th Round against Tonbridge… But following these fine results our good form ended abruptly. We actually had a terrible period in the following month with only four points in five matches (which made us drop out of the race against King’s Lynn in top of the League) I took the consequence of our poor form after our second defeat in a row. Experienced Sam Manton (33) was replaced by young Luca Woodhouse (20), signed on a free transfer from Welling despite him playing as first team regular at Welling) in central midfield and it helped a lot. Sam Mantom had been great for our side in 1,5 year but did not seem to be able to compete at this level any longer. So when I received an offer from Ilkeston for Mantom I decided to let him go after Another experienced profile from last season, 28-year old striker Danny Waldron was unhappy about his playing time after the signing of Justin Obikwu and I sold him at a fine price of £6K at end of season - two months before end of contract 👍 We got back on track with a 2-1 victory at home against Boston United after being down 0-1 at half time with Justin Obikwu as match winner. Next match was the quarter final in FA Trophy away against Rochdale from National League. Not the best odds for us but we gave it a good fight and held them away from scoring so the match ended in a penalty shootout which we unfortunately lost 4-2 😡 not a happy ending but I was very satisfied with our attitude against a far better team. The FA Trophy defeat was followed with a home match in front of 1,740 fans against local rivals from Tamworth (ended 1-1) and a thrilling 5-4 victory against Chorley after a 94th minute matchwinning goal from Luca Woodhouse. A thrilling match for the fans but not satisfactory for a football manager. I had to realize that Charlie Waller (20) in central defence was not good enough at the moment (average rating 6.64) so I decided to demote him to the reserve team and give the chance to some of our other central defenders. This rotation paid off in our next match - home against King’s Lynn who had recently been promoted as league winners after a 23-match undefeated streak. But we played marvelous and beat the league winners 3-0 as a sweet revenge 😈 The fine win made sure that we would qualify for the playoffs for the first time in club history - my goal for the season was fulfilled. Before the 46th and final match we were in second place but lost the final match 1-0 to 5th placed Braintree so we finished in third place but was looking forward to a playoff semifinal at home at Dales Lane 💪 But before we reach that match a little about other things: Despite the bulletins, this year's new players from our Youth Academy were of quite a promising standard. Not players for now but perhaps in a foreseeable future. However, However, i am not impressed with the creativity of young mr Scott’s parents🤪 Now to the playoff semi-final. Tamworth - just a 15 mile drive away from Rushall - had qualified for the match with a 3-1 victory against Boston United was the perfect opponent for us. An almost full Dales Lane Stadium - 2,705 seats (90%) sold - witnessed a fine match. Nelson Agho and Callum Coyle gave us a perfect start with 2-0 after 19 minutes and with a penalty goal by Justin Obikwu to 3-1 just before half time. A goal to Tamworth in 81th minute gave some extra excitement but we pulled it off - we’re ready for the final 😀👍💪 My expectations before the final - an away match in Darlington - were not great. Darlington had 9 wins in the last 11 matches and we were to play at their home field with more than 3,000 Darlington fans in stadium. But there was no need for my skepticism! A header from Bates gave us the lead with his first goal for Rushall (good timing…) after just 9 minutes and midfielders Liam Loughlan and Luca Woodhouse made it 3-0 to Rushall at half time - what a fantastic display ! An early goal by Darlington after the break made their hopes return just for a time but Alex Higgins crushed their dreams with his 4-1 goal in 69th minute (his 20th goal of the season) which became the result of the match. Rushall Olympic are promoted to National League 😀
  5. Rushall Olympic - February 2025 (Vanarama North) Our strategy on the transfer market is to find young talents with no or minimal transfer fees and also players who have reasonable expectations regarding their playing time and then develop them here or as loan players in other clubs. This strategy has made us one of the teams with the youngest squad (21-22 years) but thus also with good developments in squad. Nelson Agho (21) and Demico Burton (21) are both developing into good first team profiles with Agho as one of the best goal scorers in the league and Burton providing both with assists and hard work in the defense. Starting out in our reserve squad and getting some game time in the reserve matches combined with good training efforts can also be basis for a career and as such Jack Bates (CD, 18 years, free transfer from Burnley in May) was promoted to first team following a good personal development. And our scouting efforts provided us with two first team players from other league rivals. Justin Obikwu (20 years ST, paid £500 transfer fee to Farsley) and William Tamen (18 years, CD, free transfer from Tamworth) was good signings for our depth in squad. the signing of Justin Obikwu made experienced Danny Waldron unhappy because he was now only my 4th choice to our attack after being squad player so far. Before this I had a similar situation with 31-year old Jake Gosling (Gibraltar international) who had lost his place as our preferred right winger to Liam Loughlan so we agreed upon finding a new club for Gosling and this resulting in a record transfer fee of £7,250 from our league rivals from Southport for Gosling. November was a difficult month for us with four points in four matches and with an absolute low point away against Kings Lynn in a battle against another top team. We held them from goals in first half but fell apart in the end of the match 😡 But after the lesson learned at Kings Lynn we did not look back 👍 so after two draws we only lost one match in December and January and won all the other matches and was now sitting in second place in the league - just after Kings Lynn 😱 We have reached 5th Round of FA Trophy which is club record after a lucky 2-1 win in Lancaster from Northern Premier League (Danny Waldron scored to 2-1 in injury time) and a 3-2 victory away against our league rivals from Buxton. In our 4th Round match against Southport I decided to give debut to our third -choice keeper Alfie Roberts (20) and he shined with saving two penalty kicks and by doing this giving Rushall a victory after a close penalty shootout 😈 And other stuff: The Board is ecstatic about our performance and offered me a new 18-Month contract which I accepted. And our finances are still improving. But our youth development sucks 😡 Thanks for reading 😀
  6. Rushall Olympic - October 2024 (Vanarama North) The expansion of Dales Lane Stadium was completed according to plan and we could now say welcome to a maximum 3,000 fans at our home field 💪 The new facilities were inaugurated against Hereford with a fine 3-1 victory and a week later the most attendance in recent years was noted with 1,006 at Dales Lane to see our 1-0 victory over local rivals from Stourbridge. The win over Storbridge was the completion of an almost perfect beginning of the season. And please note that our defence had been great with only two goals conceded in six league matches👍. Our defence had improved in quality but consisted of some very young players: Ollie Camis in goal is 19, Demico Burton at left-back is 21, Charlie Waller and Finn Steele in central defence are both 19 and so is Joseph Cunningham at right-back. This will normally mean some instability in the performances and it turned out to be so true as we received our first defeat in Oxford (1-4) in a match where nothing worked for us and we allowed Jack Goodman, a 19-year old striker on loan from Doncaster to score a hat-trick against us 😡 The fine start also established some of young players as first team regulars. Alex Higgins (20) and Nelson Agho (21) was our new duo in front keeping experienced Danny Waldron on the bench as a rotation player and Alex Higgins’ fine start made his player of the Month in October ahead of two teammates. But still, Rushall Olympic remains to be a very small club. See the level of our new sponsorship…. Young Tylah Wallace-Ming did not live up to my expectations when given the chance so I decided to promote 19-year old Keane Barugh to first team and give Tylah some matches in our reserve team instead and see how he will develop. Keane Barugh was signed in the summer period on a free transfer after being on contract at Doncaster and last season playing 33 league matches for FC United on loan in Northern Premier League (level 7) Our first FA Cup match was an away match in Colne from NW Counties Premier (level 9) and as hoped it would not be a serious challenge for us. Alex Higgins was man of the match with five (!) goals in a 8-2 victory (6-0 at half time). Several new records - biggest win (following a 7-1 victory last season in FA Trophy - most goals scored in a a match (following the damned 5-4 defeat to Gloucester last season) and the five goals from Alex Higgins in one match was also a new club record (in the latest seasons). Callum Rowe was developing into a crucial person in our team and I decided to double his wage and secure him until June 2026. Highest salary to any player in Rushall but “only” an average salary in the league The salary increase to Callum Rowe meant that we needed to make other reductions in our squad. 32-year old Jamaal Brown had been playing among our reserves since August but with no luck to sell him. However, I agreed to a player exchange with Havant & Waterlooville bringing him to them and us receiving a young talented defender to our reserve squad with a £500 transfer sum (a club record transfer fee by the way…..) Problem solved 😀 Alex Higgins had a one-year extension clause in his contract and it was a no-brainer to activate it after his start of the season! We were still battling for the top spots in the league and with us in second place we were meeting Scarborough in first place and it turned out very difficult. We were on our heels in the first 60 minutes but was “only” down 1-2 and I subbed experienced Waldron and Gosling in and they changed the match with Waldron scoring the equalizer to 2-2 in 71th minute and with Gosling giving us a bit undeserved victory in 94th minute - 3-2! Scarborough got their revenge 11 days later as they ended our FA Cup run with a 3-0 win at home after a bad day for our team 😡 The matches in October meant debut for two young talents. James Warner, DC/DMC, 18 years, from Hemel Hempstead and just 16-year old Gary Mason who was signed on a free transfer in July with no previous club career behind him. Only knowledge about is whereabouts is that he is born in Whitby. He became our younger player ever after coming on from the bench in the not so pleasant defeat in Scarborough. Gary Mason has the potential of becoming a star player at Rushall if we can keep him here. After 15 league matches we were sitting in second place just one point after leaders Darlington. And relegation will definitely not become an issue… Thanks for reading!
  7. Rushall Olympic - pre-season 2024 (Vanarama North League) After season end a lot of things happened at a short time. First of all the Board announced plans to increase the stadium capacity to hold a further 500 supporters. A well balanced solution at less than £50K when you look at our average attendance last season of 632 visitors - less than 25% of previous capacity but this will be enough to fulfill the League demands. The Board also shared their expectations for the coming season. Still with the primary target to remain in Vanarama North another season. And more important - they increased my wage budget to £4,750 per week - a 75% increase😀 But I would soon need to get used to a new management in Rushall Olympic FC. The rumours started in end of May a transfer ban was issues at June 1 and two weeks later the new management took over. This means the end of a legendary era at Rushall for our chairman John Allen who joined Rushall Olympic as manager back in 1997 and later became chairman. During his 27 years at Rushall Olympic the club had developed from pure amateurs in fifth tier of non-EFL football in England to a mid-team in second tier and with this he leaves Rushall Olympic with pride and everyone’s admiration. However, the new owner does not seem to be a billionaire with only £16K pumpes into the club’s coffers….😳 The transfer embargo did not give any major problems so I continued to strengthen the squad. We managed to find the following young talents for the first team squad: - Ellis Farrar, DLC, 20 years, free transfer from Guiseley (last year on loan at Finn Harps, Ireland) - Charlie Waller, DLC, 19 years, free transfer from MK Dons (last year on loan at Brackley) - Aaron Burton, DC, 18 years, free transfer from Watford - Brooklyn Bailey, DR/DMC/MC, 18 years, free transfer from Rochdale - Tylah Wallace-Ming, DR/MC/AMR, 19 years, joined us in December on a free transfer and has been on loan at North Ferriby for the remainder of last season (ex-Middlesbrough youth player) - Daniel Murray, DMC/MC, 18 years, free transfer from Portsmouth I was very happy about the new signings. Tylah Wallace-Ming had developed rapidly after his signing and did very well in the pre-season friendlies. Daniel Murray could become the man to follow in the footsteps of our captain Sam Manton (32) and I hope we now have enough strength in our defence to be less leaky in this season. My ambition for the season is to get into the playoff zone and battle for promotion - Up the Pics! Thanks for reading 😀
  8. Rushall Olympic - May 2024 (Vanarama North League) Our main problem in the season up to now had been our defence. Apart from Lewis Hudson on left back our defence was ageing (Jordaan Brown and Mitch Clarke in central defence is 32 and 31 and Kristian Green on right back is 33) and we had 52 goals against in 30 League matches. I tried to tweak our tactics a bit and starting rotating between Mitch Clarke and young American Finn Steele (19) in central defence and in beginning of February we signed two new and talents backs - Demico Burton (19 - ex-Derby youth player) on left back and Joseph Cunningham (19 - ex-Rochdale youth player) on right back and these adjustments in tactics and squad did a good job for our defensive strength. We managed to climb very close to the playoff zone and with a comfortable distance to the relegation zone after five matches in a row without defeats. Our captain, Kristian Green was not going to come back among our starting 11 so I decided to send him on loan at lower ranked Kings Langley until his contract would end in June after 95 first team matches for Rushall Olympic. However, the tactical tweaks seemed to reduce our offensive qualities and when Alex Higgins got injured and was off for a Month the results failed really bad. In March-april we had a run of seven matches without a win and for defeats in a row 😱 (goal score 2-7) so we dropped down from near the playoff zone to a mid-table place 😩 In the end we finished at 14th place in the middle of the League - with same distance between playoff and relegation zones. The Board was happy but I think we should have done better. Next season I think we will base our play on a more possession style of play and try to dominate the matches. Only a handful of the original squad will play for our first team next season so we will start next season with a younger squad than in my first season at Rushall. Callum Rowe was our biggest profile now and he had developed nicely in his first season at Rushall And 19-year old Ollie Camis in goal was developing into a profile and with better and better performances. He played a big role in our defensive improvements in the final third of the season after a difficult start. We had a fine youth intake this season with a young gifted Scotsman from Alloa, Fergus Williamson as a coming man 👍 Our financial situation still developing nicely with now £134K in the bank 💷 I was offered a new contract and accepted immediately - looking forward to continuing our development next season 👍 Thanks for reading!
  9. Rushall Olympic - February 2024 (Vanarama North League) November 2023 was a fairly good period for The Pics -11 points in six League matches and a thrashing 7-1 victory against lower ranked Whitham in FA Trophy Second Round but seven matches in a month is a big burden for semi professional players like ours. And we definitely paid the price in the following five matches with only one point to The Pics and going down in the table to a place in mid-table. Furthermore, we ended saying goodbye to our star player Ronan Maher. Neighbouring Walsall did not want to prolong his loan contract and his career at Rushall Olympic came to an end after fine 16 goals in 25 matches. Good luck and thank you, Ronan💪 Biggest profile in squad must be midfielder Callum Rowe after this departure. Now it was up to experienced Danny Waldron and young Alex Higgins to score our goals and they seemed ready to step well into the new role with five goals from the pair in January 😀 January also marked the end of our participation in FA Trophy. We had drawn Altrincham from National League in Fourth Round in an away match. We did however make the match quite even but lost 1-0 after a late penalty goal to Altrincham 😡 After thirty matches we were ranked 12th in Vanarama North but only four points below the playoff zone but with a nice gap of ten points down to the relegation zone - we were heading for survival 👍 We had signed a few improvements to our first team squad in the period: - Josh Wells, 21 years, DC, ex-Middlesbrough (Latvia) - Liam Loughlan, 21 years, MRC/AMR, ex-Salford - Dejanae Campbell, 20 years, AMRLC/ST, ex-Nottingham Forest - Nelson Agho, 20 years, ST, ex-Port Vale The financial situation is also developing well with a £110K deposit in the bank 💷 Thanks for reading!
  10. Rushall Olympic - November 2023 (Vanarama North League) We played our first Vanarama North League match ever in front of a small crowd of 539 people at home against Farsley (after selling 100 season tickets). Our motivation was in top and we had a fantastic start with Danny Waldron scoring after only two and a half minute 💪 Two more goals by Gosling in 5th minute and by Coyle in 17th minute was a brilliant way of showing the English football world that Rushall Olympic had entered the second tier of amateur football in England with full intention to stay here! An extra goal by Gosling in the second half clinched our 4-0 win over Farsley. A very impressive start! We followed up on our great start with a 3-2 win away over Curzon Ashton but after that it became a lot more bumpy. Only one point achieved in the following three matches and then we hit rock bottom (from a managerial perspective) 😡 We were playing in Gloucester and had an early 2-0 lead after only 19 minutes and was in front 3-2 and 4-3 in second half but ended up losing 5-4 after a goal to Gloucester in 95th minute… I’m sure the Gloucester fans and the neutral spectators found it to be a thrilling and entertaining match but from my point of view we did everything possible wrong. Simply not good enough! We had struggled to regain possession so I made a few adjustments to our tactic and it seemed to help with two wins in the following two league matches. Our first match in FA Cup was an easy 4-0 home win against lower ranked Marske in front of 918 spectators at Dale Lane and followed it up with a fine 2-1 away victory in Curzon Ashton. We had drawn Altrincham from Vanarama National League away in 4th Qual. Round and it was to become just as difficult as expected. An honourable defeat of 2-0 but there was never any doubt in the match who would end up as winners - they were the better team. We managed to grab enough points to be sitting in a comfortable 9th place after 15 matches with six points away from relegation zone - and with Ronan Maher as league top goal scorer 😀 Our financials was also in good shape with £82K in cash 👍 This was after being very active on the transfer market with many new signings: Ollie Camis, GK, 18 years, ex-Bournemouth (Wales, new first-choice goalkeeper) Eric Hanbury, GK, 18 years, ex-Manchester United (Netherlands) Max Sutton, DLC, 18 years, ex-Rochdale Finn Steele, DC, 18 years, ex-Ipswich (USA), ex-Ipswich Oliver Kilner, DRLC, 19 years, ex-Oldham Joshua Addae, DR/WBR, 19 years, Crystal Palace Joe Jeremiah, MC/DMC/MC, 19 years, ex-Forest Green (New Zealand) Tobias Hurlock, AML, 18 years, ex-West Bromwich Kian Pritchard, AMRL, 19 years, ex-Newport (Wales) Alex Higgins, M/AMRL/SC, 19 years, ex-Crewe Michael Aileman, SC, 18 years, ex-Huddersfield Goalkeeper Jake Weaver (last season’s hero from playoff final) left us on a free transfer to AFC Telford after being passed by younger and better goalkeepers and young Saja Manafá went back to Portugal on a free transfer. Now our first team squad was the youngsters in the League (22.9 years) - looking good for the future! Thanks for reading!
  11. Rushall Olympic, pre-season 2023, Vanarama North OleDk welcomed his players at Dales Lane on the first day after their summer holiday, this day also being his first day in charge of Rushall Olympic. The history of Rushall Olympic dates back to 1893 and perhaps even earlier. The earliest known reference to Rushall Olympic Football Club is in local newspaper reports of matches from the 1893-94 season. There has been both good times and bad times in the past 130 years but the club had taken a mostly positive direction since the appointment of John Allen, the present chairman, as manager back in 1997. With small but good adjustments the club has been moving forward with promotions in 2005, 2011 and in 2023. The promotion from Southern League Premier Central in May was secured after a penalty shootout win (4-3) in the playoff final away against Nuneaton Borough with goalkeeper Jake Weaver giving himself an early birthday present a day before his 26th birthday with his decisive save of the last penalty kick. Rushall Olympic is an old but in most respects, a very small club. The club is located in Rushall (population approximately 13,000), a former mining village and today a suburb to Walsall in West Midlands. The home matches are played at Dales Lane built in 1977 with a stadium capacity of 2,112 spectators which is below the stadium requirements of Vanarama North League so if we survive something must be done with the stadium capacity. The Board’s expectations are minimal and should provide me with a reasonable patience in the beginning of the season. The financial situation is okay (balance of £23K at day 1) and a wage budget of £2,775 per week (which probably is the lowest in all league) My predecessor as manager, Liam McDonald, had done a great job for the club in his six years as manager and the squad I inherited was not bad but still with a lot of improvements necessary if we are to survive in Vanarama North League this season. The star player in the squad is definitely 18-year old Irish Ronan Maher who is natural as attacking midfielder but has been retrained in pre-season to striker as we are doing okay in midfield regarding quality. Ronan Maher is on loan from Walsall until 1 January. The other profiles in squad are Jake Gosling, 29, a Gibraltarian national player (12 caps), and Sam Manton, 31 in midfield. Biggest talent in the squad is Callum Rowe, 23. However, the squad depth is not good in all positions except central midfield so I went for young players as backup and for strengthening the squad. I decided to start out with Wing play tactics in a 4-2-4 formation: Before the first match we signed 8 young players for first team: Beau Hudd, 18, GK, ex-West Bromwich Pier Gyamfi, 18, DL, ex-Notts County (Ghana) Cody Read, 19, DC, ex-Leicester Andi Janjeva, 20, DC, ex-Watford (Kosovo) Jay Hines, 19, DR, ex-Hampton & Richmond Ruairi Behan, 19, AMRLC, ex-Burnley (Ireland) Saja Manafá, 18, AMRC, ex-Everton (Portugal) Rio McEvoy, 18, SC, ex-Bolton (Ireland) I have good faith in Beau Hudd as goalkeeper. Not sure if our playoff final hero Jake Weaver can maintain his position as first-choice goalkeeper. I also added several young players to our reserve team just to have good prospects at hand if required due to injuries. In order to free up space in the salary budget I sold three fringe players on free transfers: Jourdain Masidi, Will Shorrock and Tom Tonks. The bookmakers expect us to struggle to survive in the league: But I think that our improved and fit squad is ready to take on our first opponent Farsley😀 Thanks for reading!
  12. RUSHALL OLYMPIC FC Rushall, West Midlands, 7 July, 2023 “What do you think of him, son? Is he the right man for the job” John Allen laid down his pen on the table. His son, Nick Allen, was quietly looking at the green field at Dales Lane Stadium, the home of Rushall Olympic FC, a newly promoted club to Vanarama North League, the second tier of not-league football in England. John Allen, having first joined the Rushall Olympic as manager in 1997 when they played in the fifth tier of non-league, now chairman of the club, had just signed the contract with a new first team manager, a totally unknown Dane. Nick Allen, his son and also vice-chairman of Rushall Olympic FC had moved fast after a surprising resignation handed in by former manager Liam McDonald who had secured last season’s surprising promotion. “I definitely hope so. He may be inexperienced but he has good thoughts about how we can develop further as a club and I like his personality. After all, we didn’t have any other candidates for the job so we must have faith in him. But the newspapers will have a party with us when they ask us into his empty resume…” Father and son both laughed softly. The next months would decide if they had chosen the right decision. But they were optimistic. Now it was up to OleDK to live up to their expectations!
  13. Pre-season 2028 (League One) With a good financial basis and good results last season I was in a good position to negotiate with the Board and after they said yes to my request for an improved youth development budget in May I tried my luck once more at the Board - and they said yes again! 😉 we could now look forward to improved training facilities in November at a cost of £400K! It was great to experience all those permanent improvements. A brand new stadium and improvements for our youth department and now better training facilities. But Hungerford still is a very small club with facilities far from our competitors’ so we were definitely still punching extremely above our weight. If any doubted on our position than league rivals from Plymouth proved the point by poaching one of our talents (a talent not yet part of the Youth Intake in the spring) showing to everyone who is the “Big Brother” here. I will remember this, Plymouth! Our position was underlined by the financial status compared to our league rivals. Bolton’s sponsorship earning are 30 times larger than ours not easy to maintain being competitive🤨 Our low status was also recognized by the bookmakers. Our odds were even worse than last year’s odds ? But hey bumble bees can’t fly either - but yet they do! We will show them will we! The transfer window started out fine for us. Ryan Wainwright, a natural WBL who I believed I could retrain to AML and latertried to retrain him to DL but I had to give up on both attempts so I transfer listed him and sold him for £230K so not a bad mistake to sign him afterall….🤑 We received a £250K bid for young midfielder Harrison Hamilton who had three first team matches last season but I decided to turn it down. The money was good but I believe Hamilton may develop further. I believe we are better off with keeping him at Hungerford…. ….that is until Stoke came with an improved offer of £675K…. After some negotiations I ended selling Harrison Hamilton for a record sum of 1 million £ 🤑🤑🤑 this has boosted our financials to a new level. More than £1.5 million in cash and more than £400K in net future transfer payment. Not enough to wipe out our stadium loans (remaining debt £2.7 million) but it was going that way. So everything is going great and the manager seems to be in control of everything 😀 or is he…. NO Some of our profile players have too small release clause amounts in their contracts from when we were playing in League Two and our biggest profile - goalkeeper Nicola Castelli - has a release clause in his contract of only £165K and Charlton took advantage of this by making a bid on the player 😩👎 I was devastated 😱. Frustrated 😳 and angry 😡. At myself! How could I have missed this? Not to secure our most important player against too low bids due to a low release clause amount? Was I even qualified for my job? I played the next friendly match without Castelli - we had to prepare our squad for a future without Nicola Castelli 🥵 But then these very positive news arrived - Castelli had turned down the Charlton offer 👍 The fact that Hungerford is one of his favoured clubs and that I am categorized as favoured personnel made it come out to our favour I think but this was close…. Must renew his contract very soon! After this very unpleasant experience we seemed to have our squad for the season ready with some interesting new additions: Lewis Holden, 21 years, DLC, free transfer from Torquay in 2026 - been on loan spells at Chelmsford (VNS) and Aldershot (VNL) Stuart Martin, 20 years, DC/DMC, free transfer from Leeds (a defender with great aerial presence) Barry Rose, 21 years, DR/WBR/DMC, returned after loan spell at AFC Wimbledon (VNN) - national player for Barbados Nathaniel Nicholas, 18 years, MC/STC, free transfer from Brighton And not less than 3 AMR/STC players to compete for first team matches in our offensive positions. Simon Maloney, 19 years, free transfer from Wolverhampton Junior Wood, 18 years, free transfer from Manchester City And finally Bradley Spencer, 18 years, free transfer from Bournemouth We had strengthened the team in positions where a better depth was required (STC and DC). I believe that Stuart Martin in central defence and Nathaniel Nicholas in central midfield and players like Bradley Spencer and Junior Wood in our offensive positions will be playing a good deal of our matches. I believe we have a stronger squad this season (doesn’t bother too much about the bookmaker predictions…) Thanks for reading !😀
  14. Spring 2028 (League One) When I started at Hungerford Town almost six years ago we were an afilliate club for Reading and Swindon. The partnership ended a few years later but Reading and Swindon are the closest we come to “local rivals”. We had played against Swindon a few times but always came out as losers. Therefore, it was a symbol for our progress to send them back to Swindon with a 3-0 defeat after a very efficient performance by our team. We were no longer the minnows from Hungerford 💪 Except for the fine and self-esteem building win over Swindon we were struggling in the early spring. From end of February to end of March we only added five points to the table in seven matches (five draws and two defeats) but were lucky despite that to maintain a spot in the playoff zone with four matches left of the season. We were out of the race for direct promotion but a place in top 10 was very probable. We were fighting for every inch of the field and sometimes a bit over the line. We broke a record in League One but probably not a record to be proud of 😈: This year’s outcome from Youth Department was not the worst in my time but not future improvements for first team. Perhaps one of the candidates could end up as a trusted reserve team player in Dennis O’Connell - good mental stats. We finally got a win 2-1 at home over Wycombe from the bottom of League One after a 90th minute goal 😳by left-back Chris Wray and the lucky win made us maintain our spot in the playoff zone. We were also a bit lucky in our next match away in Salford. We were about to lose but Matthew Dawes scored the equalizer to 2-2 in 89th minute 😀 With two matches remaining we were in fifth position with one point down to seventh position but with a match against table leaders Blackpool ahead of us. Blackpool had been quite dominant and had already gained promotion to Championship but once again we were “lucky” that Blackpool got a red card in first half. We probably should have won being 11 against 10 but the Blackpool team was so much better than us so we in the end we were happy to get a point after a goalless draw! Now it was all in our hands to qualify for the play-offs being two points ahead of Rotherham and Salford. A win over Ipswich in 15th position would qualify us for the play-offs - a remarkable performance it would be! But our young team with little experience were too nervous in the important match and we had to swallow the disappointment of losing 0-1 to a team with nothing to play for. but we were definitely in a lucky period. Neither Rotherham or Salford managed to win their games so we were ready for two playoff semifinals against Portsmouth 😀💪. We had a 1-0 win and a 0-1 defeat in our two previous league matches against Portsmouth so I hoped it could become close even though Portsmouth has been having a great season so far and finished third in the table - 17 points ahead of us lying in 6th position. It became very difficult for our side in the semifinal when left winger Kevin Evans received his second yellow card just before half time. So we went very defensive and we almost managed to get a draw result but Portsmouth scored in 90th minute 😡 at least they deserved to win the match at least we broke the gate receipts record with £130K for our finances 💷 Before the away match there was a relaxed mood among the players. We were down 0-1 and Portsmouth had by far been better than us in the first semifinal so the pressure upon the players was low. We were out so we could just as well play our chance. Nobody would be disappointed if we failed. We got behind after just 8 minutes but Harvey Cribb scored just a few minutes later so we were still in the game.(aggregate 1-2) . Anthony Donovan made it 2-1 (aggregate: 2-2) in 42nd minute but unfortunately Portsmouth scored just a few minutes later. In the final ten minutes we pushed hard for a goal and it was a great pleasure to see Youssef Yahyaoui score his first goal for us after his loan spell (good timing😉). Aggregate 3-3 and injury time! However, Portsmouth scored again and this time we did not come back. 3-3 and we were out…. But what a season. A very young squad and with no-one expectingus to survive relegation and now we had been so close to playoff final at Wembley. A sixth place in League One makes us no. 50 in England. Not bad for a small club from a small town. Matthew Dawes had been a fine addition in our attack and Gareth Delaney in midfield had pushed Andrés de Gracia out to the bench and orhe young players were pushing for our first team so I looked with great pleasure toward next season. Our preferred lineup: Our finances were very fine and I was happy that the Board agreed to invest more in our youth academy. Perhaps we could develop better players in future! 😀 Thanks for reading!😄
  15. Winter 2027/28 (League One) We had drawn Wrexham from League Two in a difficult away match in FA Cup First Round and it was indeed going to be difficult. We were heading for a defeat but Anthony Donovan became our saviour with his equalizer to 1-1 in 94th minute 😀 We had more hope for a win in the replay match at home at Hungerford Stadium in a televised match. To be honest it would have been better for us to play the match in an empty stadium without TV viewers, crowd, press, etc. as our performance was indeed very forgettable 😩 Only a good performance from Ted Baker in our goal made the game end in a penalty shootout after 0-0 in regular time but justice was done properly with a 4-3 win to Wrexham in the penalty shootout 👎 We had some hopes of reaching second round in Papa Johns Trophy after a 3-1 victory against Shrewsbury but after losing 0-2 to Brighton Reserves we needed a win away agains league rivals Wycombe Wanderers and it did not seem to happen as it was still 0-0 after 90 mins but we again were saved by a 94th minute goal this time by substitute striker Marley St. Louis 😉 We didn’t deserve the victory but at the end only goals count in this sport….😈 Our Second Round match in Papa Johns Trophy was at The Valley in Charlton (also league rivals) and we got very close to “Steal of the Century” as were were ahead 1-0 until 81th minute being down 10 vs 11 after a stupid red card to Reece Nicholas-Davies in first half and only one shot on goal in 80 minutes but as in the FA Cup match against Wrexham justice came in the end as Charlton scored twice and secured a 2-1 victory after 26 shots on goal vs 2 shots from our side…. This time we did feel the pain when the opposite team scores in 94th minute 😳 That was it for the Cup tournaments this year so back to League One. Our major problem in this season had been he goalscoring (mainly due to our cautious tactic but it shouldn’t be this difficult). We were lucky to have a class keeper in goal in Italian/Welsh Nicola Castelli who had saved us for a lot. Therefore, I was very happy for him when he could celebrate his first international game for Wales Under-21s (and a clean sheet of course ) But Castelli couldn’t keep saving us from defeats - especially if someone found out about his Release Clause of £165K - oh no now The Athletic spread the news 😱 So I had to tweak our tactics again. I changed the role of Harvey Cribb in midfield from CM-S to CM-A and a few other tweaks to increase our presence close to our opponent’s goal. And it seemed to work. We did become more “leaky” but in the majority of the matches it was very helpful to us and in thirteen matches from end of November to end of January we scored in twelve of them but losing 0-3 to Birmingham and 2-4 to MK Dons were hard to forget… Still when we got ahead our primary focus was to stay in lead instead of going forward for extra goals. Most of our home matches was played in front of a sold out Hungerford Stadium and our finances were developing nicely. The Board made an agreement with Huddersfield to buy them out of the outstanding clause from the sale of David Parker and I decided to cash in - further £79,560 for our bank account making the Parker deal worth £525,000 in total. Our bank account is overflowing and passed £1,000,000 and the Board decided to offer me a new contract and increase the wage budget just a little… (based on our fine performance). The improved financial situation gave some opportunities so when we received offers for Matthew Dawes (almost regular starter as one of our offensive players) and Zak Collingwood (regular starter in central defence and capped for New Zealand) without being great than we were now in a position to decline the offers. I decided to call Youssef Yahyaoui back from his loan spell at Barrow in the January transfer window. He had only played nine matches and all with him starting on the bench so it was better for us to have him as backup for Anthony Donovan here. He didn’t protest even though his loan spell was upon his own request. “Come back Youssef. The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.” 😀 I also promoted 21-year old Billy Gough (DL/AML) to our first team squad after developing fine in the reserve team. Gough had joined us in June in a free transfer from Derby. And the standings: the good results had made it possible for us to climb up to 7th place. Relegation is no longer an issue at all. I dare not hope to maintain a playoff spot at Season End as we are the worst team in the xG table. So a good position in the best half after 46 matches would be just fine 😉💪….or….? Thanks for reading 😀
  16. Autumn 2027 (League One) We had our debut in League One at home at Hungerford Stadium against Rotherham in front of a crowd of 4,734 (record high after a record sale of 1,050 season tickets). To be objective, our chances for survival in League One were minimal. Our best rated player (goalkeeper Nicola Castelli) is rated as a “Leading Vanarama National League player” and now we were playing two levels above National League. But at the same time it could lead our opponents to underrate us and I believe that’s what happened for us in our league debut 😀 Harvey Cribb gave us an early lead by his 1-0 goal after only seven minutes followed by a header to 2-0 by central defender Ibrahim Bah until debutant striker Matthew Dawes scored to 3-0 in second half. A sensationel win! Debutants: Matthew Dawes, Paul Hill, Kevin Evans, Stephen O’Connor, Martin Kucera The successful premiere made more people come to Hungerford Stadium. The following four home matches were sold out: - 5,000 tickets sold to all matches! Our first match in Carabao Cup against Notts County (League Two) went well too 😀 But then problems came: injuries to captain Baylin Johnson, experienced midfielder Andrés de Gracia and young Matthew Dawes in combination with international duties and a tight match schedule made the following month more difficult but we did collect some points despite getting some losses too. We had drawn Bournemouth from Premier League (no. 11 last season) at home in the next round of Carabao Cup. We were happy to be hosts but it is a shame that our capacity only is 5,000 seats. We could have sold a lot more tickets if possible The match was not exciting. As expected Bournemouth was the best team and left Hungerford with a 3-1 victory and a place in Third Round As our season progresses it turned out that some of our players did not have the necessary quality for League One. Henry Fieldson (22) was a disappointment in central defence and was demoted to the reserves and Luke Cooper (20) had some disappointing games as winger so he also needed some more training with the reserves 😈 On Deadline Day I decided to sign Portuguese Rafael Monteiro on a free transfer from Nazareno in Portugal. Actually I had him on a non-contract for a few months in 2024 (free transfer from Barnsley) but I could not hold on to him then when Nazareno from his home country approached him with a contract offer. But now he was on a two-year contract here 👍 and was intended to be rotation player in right wing and central midfield positions. I also promoted Tom Baker (GK, 20 years, free transfer from Bournemouth in July) to first team squad as backup for Nicola Castelli and as Cup goalkeeper. I believe he can develop into a decent backup if we suddenly lose Castelli in a transfer bid. We were also looking forward to playing against local rivals Swindon (a 30 minute drive from Hungerford) in League One. However our first battle in Swindon was a great disappointment. To be honest we were almost not present 😡 in 88 of 90 minutes…. Young Tom Baker saved us for a humiliation! We had experienced an old problem again - we couldn’t score goals! But our defence was extremely solid - with Nicola Castelli showing his class in goal so we could get some points but after seven matches in a row without a win we were silentium dropping down in the table just two points ahead of the relegation zone😱 This could develop into a problem for us… Two 1-0 wins - among them a very undeserved win over Bolton gave us some space to relegation zone and we could breathe a sigh of relief. All in all an okay start for us! Left back Chris Wray was still developing fine and was always putting a big effort in training 👍
  17. It is also a very difficult task to keep us healthy financially. I try to keep our salaries at a minimum but still I (in October 2027) am spending 99% of my wage budget. My transfer strategy is to find transfer free players (maximum price £4K) and if they won’t play for £400 or less per week its better they find another club to play at. This more or less makes it impossible to hire experienced players but it groes fine anyway
  18. Pre-season 2027 (League One) We were preparing for our first season ever in League One after three promotions in five seasons. For the first time we had to start our season without two players from our preferred lineup as Brad Gordon (19) and Nathan Browne (20) left us after the loan spells following their transfers to Huddersfield and Luton in Championship. I believe that Baylin Johnson (22; our new vice captain) and Luke Cooper (20) could do fine as their substitutes. Luke Cooper was appointed to “Signing of the season in League Two and perhaps this could be his chance to shine for us. Furthermore, striker Youssef Yahyaoui (21) was unhappy with his playing time last season and during last season I had to promise him that he could go on loan and when Barrow in VNN offered a loan deal I felt I had to accept it but I would have preferred to have him in club as backup for Anthony Donovan. Gerald Muchechetere (23) who has been a vital player for our side in VNS and VNN was very upset about his playing time and left us after the season so we were somewhat weakened in depth among our attackers. Several former first team players left us after their contracts had expired and with no relevance for first team anymore: Jake Evans (29), Matt Berry-Hargreaves (28), Charlie Noakes (24), Dylan Gavin (24), Harvey Beckett (23) and Tommy Jackson (23). Some of them had been out on loan last season but now their time at Hungerford was over. Just like in the last transfer window we received an offer that was to good to turn down immediately. David Parker had been a backup player for our side in the previous two seasons (19 League matches) but had drifted further away from first team squad so he was “expendable” for our side. So a £300K transfer bid from Huddersfield was definitely interesting for us. After negotiations sales price ended at £450K (£240K now and 3 x £70K in 3 instalments in June 2028 June 2029 and June 2030) plus a 45% sell-on clause. Reading tried to sign him with a £525K bid with no clauses but in the end David Parker decided to sign with Huddersfield and once more the transfer amount promised (£250K) by the Board never showed up in my transfer budget….😡 The Board had negotiated with Blackpool regarding the sell-on clause regarding Pat Mason. I decided to cash in and get £49K into the bank instead of the sell-on clause so the club’s financial situation was quite good now We added some interesting prospects for our first team squad on free transfers and players returning after successful loan spells Danny Cullum (German), GK, 21 years, signed three years ago (!) from Ipswich. After a succesful loan spell at SV Wehen Wiesbaden in the German 3 Liga he has passed Beau Hudd as my preferred backup keeper (with Nicola Castelli as a very solid first team keeper) Martin Kucera (Czech U21 national player), DRL, 20 years, free transfer from Hull Henry Fieldson, DC, 22 years, free transfer from Sunderland Stephen O’Connor (Irish), DC/DMC, 20 years, free transfer from Bournemouth Michael Robertson (Scottish), DRC/DMC, 18 years, free transfer from Southampton Danny Alexander, MC/AMC, 20 years, free transfer two years ago from Woking, returned after a loan spell at Scunthorpe in VNN Paul Hill, 18 years, DMC/MLC, free transfer from Leicester Kevin Evans (Welsh), DL/WBL/ML/AML, 18 years, free transfer from Newcastle Steve Lamb, WBR/MR/AMR, 20 years, free transfer from Sunderland Matthew Dawes, ML/AMRL/ST, 20 years, free transfer two years ago from Gloucester (returned after loan spell at Wealdstone in VNS) It’s good to see that succesful loan spells can make so much development. Three players coming back after loan spells and now included in first team. I believe that Kevin Evans and Matthew Dawes will benefit on the transfers out of Brad Gordon and Nathan Browne and that Stephen O’Connor and Michael Robertson could become good rotation players in defence. But the most exciting new player is probably Paul Hill in midfield. He could perhaps develop into becoming a regular starter instead of Andrés de Gracia who with his 24 years now is the oldest player in our first team squad (as the only one older than 22 years). Danny Alexander could perhaps be the future replacement of Harvey Cribb in midfield. So the first team squad still has a lot of potential and is better than last year’s squad in League Two. We’re ready to battle for survival in League One (a battle which the bookmakers believe we won’t be able to win…) The draw for Papa Johns Trophy - not impossible to proceed to next stage💪
  19. Spring 2027 (League Two) Rumours regarding a potential takeover are coming and going but our chairman is still in denial… 🤨 We were having more injuries and other stuff (among other a virus flu that sent three first team regulars home ) and the results were affected plus we were a bit unlucky. The 2-1 defeat against Exeter was quite crucial for us as it was a top clash with Exeter in second place and us in the lead (until we switched places following our defeat). The defeat to Morecambe was purely bad luck! I had to agree with the Board that we did not score a lot. Our good position was purely based on a solid defence so once again I tried to tweak the tactics with a “shoot more often” instruction to our poacher (Donovan) and a more supporting role to our DLP (De Gracia) and at least the first tweak regarding our poacher gave us some more shots on goal - and some more goals 👍 We were also lucky (contrary to the Morecambe defeat - a 2-1 win over Bradford after 94th minute goal by Muchechetere as super sub - not unlucky! Another player from our reserve squad was pushing on for first team matches. 19-year old Ryan Hewitt - a free transfer from Aldershot in June 2026 - was showing good development in our reserve team and with injury periods and national team matches to our first team right backs (Callum Jones and Barry Rose - the latter being national player for Barbados). A good prospect for the future Exeter has the top spot now and is heading for the League Two title but we were still a part of the promotion race in a still quite close table. However, we will be very disappointed if we fail to qualify for the playoffs. We will definitely finish better than last season (11th place). But luck had changed for Exeter who suffered three defeats in a row. With our third victory in row in the same period and a nice and very welcome hat-trick by Anthony Donovan we passed Exeter in the top and we were suddenly pushing for the league title and heading for League One 💪😀 With four League matches left we were 8 points ahead of Crewe Alexandra in fourth position. Only five more points required to get promoted! But the title race had to be without our regular right back Callum Jones 😡 Happy to have good reserve players on that position. Our next match was of great importance to us - an away match in Crewe who is sitting in fourth position. A defeat would reduce our distance to five points (with three matches remaining). A draw would be a fine result for us and a win would be fantastic for us. But we were not playing well at all😩 Crewe Alexandra took the lead after 30 minutes and increased the lead to 2-0 seven minutes later and we were really on our heels. Thankfully, Anthony Donovan reduced to 1-2 before half time on a penalty kick but I was very dissatisfied with my players in the break. We brought on Baylin Johnson in 64th minute instead of Reece Nicholas-Davies who didn’t have a good day and this was a game changer 😱 Just two minutes later he scored a very important goal with the equalizer to 2-2 after an assist from Brad Gordon. And the match turned out crazy in the injury time. Crewe was attacking but left back Noah McCann got hold on the ball in a tackle that injured him so much he couldn’t continue but while McCann was on the ground Baylin Johnson brought the ball forward and passed to Brad Gordon - who scores to 3-2 in 95th minute😀😀😀. Baylin Johnson finished the match as left back after McCann’s injury but his 30 minutes had been crucial for our side. It’s crazy how FM can make you feel good… 💪👍😀🤨😥😱😡 And as Fleetwood and Mansfield in 5th and 6th place both only had draws in their matches we were qualified for League One for the first time in the history of Hungerford Town FC 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The board increased our player budget with almost 50% (£11,700 per week extra) so we could hopefully attract better players which would be necessary as two of our profiles were leaving (minimum!) and it had been very difficult for me to keep the budget this season so the increase was very welcome. Plus the new players from Youth Department were just as bad as predicted 😩 I suppose the players had a good evening out after the promotion had been secured. Three days after the memorable match in Crewe we had a home match against Bristol Rovers. Half of my regular lineup wasn’t fit and the rest played like s…! But managed to get a 0-0 draw😉 Exeter and Stockport also only managed to get a draw so the distance to Exeter (3 points) and Stockport (6 points) wasn’t changed. Btw Bristol Rovers was without our former keeper Jed Ward who after three years of patience on the bench now was first team keeper at Bristol Rovers but was injured at the moment (broken leg). The lousy performance against Bristol Rovers continued a week later wit a 2-0 defeat in Accrington but by miracle we maintained our top spot 😀 We just needed one point in the final match at home against mid-table team Shrewsbury - and that is precisely what my players could manage after a long season with many ups and downs (more up than down!) Hungerford Town are the Winners of League Two 2026/27 💪 The celebration of our League Two victory was witnessed by a record attendance at brand new Hungerford Stadium - and also new club record regarding gate receipts 🤑. Not bad with 4,675 at stadium compared to the size of Hungerford (population 5,869)! Our preferred lineup for the season: (note that Gordon and Browne will leave us after the season after the sales to Huddersfield and Luton) So what’s going to happen next season. The Board hopes that we can survive and actually this is also my hope. Nothing higher than that. My players are not of League One standard (and most will say neither of League Two standard) but they also say that bumble bees can’t fly… And finally the Board has taken action upon the poor outcome of our youth academy for several years. A small step but it is in the right direction! See you in League One - Thanks for reading my story 😀
  20. Winter 2026/27 (League Two) Swindon Town was formerly one of our affiliate clubs and is - together with Reading FC - the closest we come to “local rivals”. We are situated just a half hour drive away from Swindon and therefore the draw of Swindon Town from League One as our opponents in FA Cup First Round provided our fans with a great opportunity to follow us in an away match at The County Ground in Swindon. In front of 6,713 viewers we gave it a good effort but in the end Swindon could celebrate a well-deserved 2-1 victory. A few days later it was our turn to celebrate a cup victory - a 2-1 away victory over League Two rivals Newport County after two goals from young Brad Gordon secured a qualification to Second Round in Papa Johns Trophy - best result ever for us as we were eliminated in the Group Stage last year. And then at last - after a five month delay we could play at our brand new Hungerford Stadium with a total capacity of 5,000 seats in a home match against Colchester (1-0 victory in front of 3,152 happy fans) We would have enjoyed to play our Second Round match in Papa Johns Trophy at home at brand new Hungerford Stadium but okay - Tottenham Hotspur Stadium isn’t bad at all as we had drawn Tottenham Reserves in Second Round. In front of 5,434 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium we lost 1-2 and with that result our cup run in 2026/27 was over. Once again our youth department could not provide any squad improvements…. We had a great December with four wins in five matches and we could regain the top spot in the League before New Year. The Board were eccstatic and offered a 3% (😱) increase in the wage budget if the survival ambition was to be replaced with an ambition of a mid-table finish. Not a penny more was to be offered if I said we could win League Two so I was ok with the new season expectation regarding a mid-table finish. i could do with the money as I was £1,500 p/w over the previous wage limit. Young Harvey Cribb (turned into a first team regular) won the League Two Player of the Month price (and also Young Player of the Month) for December and I won the League Two Manager of the Month title 💪 So… we’re seated in the top spot of League Two, the Board is eccstatic and so are the fans… what’s not to like about that ? No problems surrounding us…. But then the transfer window opened…and this happened that made me use a lot of time to think things through 🤨 Brad Gordon has developed rapidly and has become a profile and a first team regular as striker or right winger (and rotation player in central midfield). £205,000 is a lot of money for a small club like Hungerford but after the record sale of Pat Mason four months ago we are in a reasonably good financial situation and besides, £205K is less than the valuation of £240K regarding the estimated transfer value of Brad Gordon So I decided to turn down the £205,000 offer from Huddersfield hoping that Brad Gordon would understand my position - which he seemed to do. But four days later Huddersfield gave us a new offer - this time increased to £275,000. Once more I rejected the Huddersfield offer without negotiating it. Than..,four days later Huddersfield came with their third offer - £400,000 - the double compared to their first offer. This time I went into negotiations with Huddersfield and after some bargaining Huddersfield ended the discussion with their final non-negotiable offer: £510,000 in transfer fee (£275,000 now and 235,000 in three instalments of £78,000 in January 2028, January 2029 and January 2030) and a sell-on clause of 40% of profit from future transfers plus Hungerford having him on loan until June 2027 at no cost. That was simply too much money to turn down so I accepted. I hope I won’t regret this too much…😩 Btw I didn’t get a penny to my transfer budget despite the Board promising me £300K. All the money went straight into the bank account….😡 I guess the Board was busy regarding a potential takeover (again) but still a promise is a promise in my world! Thankfully, the performance and results on grass were not affected by the sale of Brad Gordon and the takeover rumours. 11 matches undefeated 👍 not a lot of entertainment which the Board complains about but I’m hired to make results as first priority and to entertain as second priority! We had strengthened our first team squad with two additions in the winter transfer window: Steven Collett, 19 years, DLC/AML, free transfer from Bromley (ex-Arsenal youth player) - 10 matches in VNL this season and Lennon Dobson, 21 years, DMC/MC/AMC, player exchange (with one of our reserve team players) from Morecambe Steven Collett was even more competition to our captain Renedi Masampu (27 years) and young Chris Wray (see below regarding the training performance and development of Chris Wray - very impressive!) on left back but with his ability to play as left winger and central defender I believe he will have a lot of matches for our side. Perhaps Masampu could be in his final season with us ? Lennon Dobson was signed to provide us with better depth in our defensive midfield position. It is always a good thing to remember your background. Our background at Hungerford Town FC is that we are a small and (until recently) quite poor football club from a small town in Berkshire. There are probably more than 100 football clubs in England alone that has more power and more money than us. If I had forgotten that I definitely became aware of it on Deadline Day. Luton met the release clause of £145,000 regarding our regular right winger Nathan Browne and there is nothing in the whole world I can do about it now 😡 Thankfully, Luton offered a loan with no costs for the remainder of the season which I said “Yes, please” to so I could maintain my squad for the rest of the season. At least our financial situation is great now 🤑 with £350,000 in the bank and £300,000 in future instalments from this season’s transfers. In total the winter transfer window of 2027 had been a lot of ups and downs but after its closing we have a strengthened squad for the remainder of the season and we were leading the League Two - however a close race with only seven points between us as leaders and Cheltenham in 8th position below the playoff spots so nothing was sure yet… But we are positive and full of self confidence 👍
  21. Autumn 2026 (League Two) Our beginning of the 2026/27 season was great. We did not lose any of our six initial matches (4 wins and 2 draws) - always good to ease any pressure coming from the Board Btw we played our home matches at home at Bulpit Lane despite the message from League Two management declaring we couldn’t - perhaps we received a dispensation ?🧐 Our presence in Carabao Cup was very brief. We had drawn Sheffield United from Championship at home and we did our best but lost 1-0 after a good fight. But with a new stadium record with 4,327 fans in stadium and £75K in gate receipts 💷💷💷 Ibrahim Bah (now with 4 caps for the Sierra Leonean national team) was getting in as first team regular when not playing for his national team and versatile Brad Gordon also has managed to play a lot. Two new players that were expected to be reserve team players broke into first team: Harvey Cribb, 20 years, MC/AMC, free transfer from Scunthorpe in June (last season on loan at Scarborough in VNN) and Marley St. Louis, 20 years, ST, free transfer from Leyton Orient in June (4 matches in League Two for Leyton Orient) On Deadline Day we suddenly received an unexpected £140K transfer bid for 19-year old Pat Mason who is one of our keepers in our reserve team (not even close to first team yet) from Blackpool. I had signed Pat Mason on a free transfer in December 2025 (ex-Liverpool youth player) and had him on loan at Welling in VNS the following 6 months and had him in our reserve team hoping that he could get his breakthrough but this was too good to be neglected. I negotiated the offer and ended with a £210K deal and a 45% clause regarding future transfer profits. Great for our economy but despite a promise from the Board I received zero for my transfer budget….😡 the sales price was 20 times higher than the previous club record Back to the football… in Papa Johns Trophy we have so far played two matches. A 0-2 home defeat to Brighton Reserves (almost with an empty Bulpit Lane stadium) and (like last year) managed to beat Cambridge after a penalty shootout (decisive penalty by Andrés de Gracia) Before that super-sub Youssef Yahyaoui had scored the equalizer to 1-1 in 93rd minute… In the League we had struggled a bit after the great beginning of the season. After 14 points in the first six matches we only managed to get 11 points in the following nine matches (2 wins 5 draws and 2 defeats) and dropping to 6th place but still a very satisfactory position 💪
  22. Pre-season 2026 (League Two) My transfer strategy is to sign young transfer free players (or at very low transfer fees at maximum £2,500) aged 21 or younger. Players rated 1.5 stars or less is to be sent on loan and also players rated with 2 stars if we have enough players to fill our reserve team at any time. This strategy is paying off well as the players we send on loan often come back a lot better than when they left us. This strategy meant that we could strengthen our first team squad with the following players: Zak Collingwood, 18 years, DRC, free transfer from Arsenal Ibrahim Bah, Sierra Leone, 19 years, DC, free transfer from Hull a year ago - spent last season on loan at Nuneaton Borough in VNN Richard Monk, 18 years, DLC, free transfer from Bournemouth Chris Wray, 18 years, DL/WBL, free transfer from Bamber Bridge in January (1 first team match last season - now ready for first team) Brad Gordon, 18 years, M/AM (RC) / ST, free transfer from Guiseley last year - spent last season on loan at Gloucester in VNN Michael McCarthy, Irish, 19 years, DMC/MC/AMC, free transfer from Preston last year - spent last season on loan at Braintree in VNN Luke Cooper, 19 years, AMRL/ST, free transfer from Brentford I was extremely happy about our new players. Especially in defence we looked a lot stronger than last year but Brad Gordon and Luke Cooper were also battling for first team action in the offensive positions from Day 1 in pre-season. The tough competition among the players meant that others must leave. Our former captain Joel Rollinson (27 years) left us on a free transfer ro Ebbsfleet in VNL after 132 first team appearances for Hungerford but only one appearance last season. Central defender Matt Berry-Hargreaves (27 years) left us on loan to Torquay in VNL after being loan listed as I could see that he was not going to play for us this season. Matt was one of the few players to have stayed in Hungerford longer than I (7 seasons) but with his contract running out after this season it has probably come to an end. Furthermore, Alfie Matthews (24) (AMRLC/ST) went on loan to Maidstone in VNS. I decided that Charlie Noakes (23) and Harvey Beckett (22) would stay as backup among the reserves as long as I could keep them happy in that role (probably not all season) I believe we can achieve more this season than last season and hopefully reach the playoffs. I have not shared my ambition with the Board in case my plan fail. The Board is happy just if we can survive and definitely the bookmakers do not expect us to survive Once again there were rumours concerning a potential takeover (which would be my third takeover during a bit more than 4 seasons) but our chairman is denying everything ….. 🤨 We had a great pre-season with no defeats - come on League Two we are ready!
  23. Hungerford Town FC In real life this season was a disappointment for Hungerford Town FC. Hungerford finished in the bottom of Vanarama National League South and is relegated to Tier 7 in the English Football Pyramid next season. The final standings: Sad news I hope that if any fans of Crusaders are following my career this may provide you with some consolation🥲 I’m hoping for a quick return to VNS for Crusaders 💪
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