erik45

November 2035. I say this is actually a quite good month even if we lost four points. In the game against Blyth Spartans we led twice but they came back both times. I think 2-2 was somewhat fair. Same can be said about the game against Wythenshawe Town, where both had a lot of chances, but couldn't score more than once. And the games against Northwhich were in the right order: I preferred winning in the league. Table. We hang on to our top spot, but there are teams who can overtake us if we keep on drawing games. xPts table. Just to back up that our form is just not about overperforming. Yes, that's part of our form, but we actually are in the position that numbers suggest. Cut link. Does this have something to do that Guernsey lost the last friendly 6-1? The yearly friendly was the only thing that happened within this partnership. Upcoming fixtures. Busy times in the league, but only one mid-week game - which might be the trickiest fixture. Atherton is the only tycoon-owned club in the league but I feel we can match their financial powers with our players.

October 2035. Great start and then the big loss against Stevenage created a little dip in form. The cup losses don't. bother too much, but the league losses... We're still playing really well so I hope the win against West Didsbury & Chorlton will bounce us back to the track of good results. Also, we got our best forward back as Adigun 32a returned from his injury - and scored! Table. Even with the two losses we are still top of the table! Blyth Spartans also lost two, it is very tight at the top. Player discussion. I hope this is not an indication how much the team believes in itself! We are top of the table and our starting mezzala thinks its not realistic to get promoted. Finances. At Stevenage there were almost 8,000 spectators so that gave us a nice little extra cash to our bank. Upcoming fixtures. Five games, twice of them being against Northwich Victoria that got relegated last season. Also, top of the table clash against Blyth Spartans, can we (or they) create a gap at the top?

Yes, I think this is a real possibility. I try to save up money if we happen to get promoted so when we do expand the stadium, it doesn't destroy us financially.

September 2035. A really strong start continues. Our 2nd XI had the first loss of the season, but otherwise it was a perfect month. Town after Town was defeated and it was made easier for us as Stockton, Billingham and Whitby Town all got player sent off. At the moment we are playing really well, but also overperforming our numbers. Table. We have a new leader: FC Isle of Man! Let's keep it this way until the end of the season? New contract. A new 2+1 (promotion clause) contract. Moore wants more. Our record appearance maker started to moan constantly about his playing time. I kinda understand his frustration, because he's as good as some of the starting defenders. It is difficult to explain to him that I prefer younger players because of their potential, so I had to let him go. International call-up. Our best CB got called up to the Scotland's U19s! I hope this is an indication of his potential, because my assistant thinks he's already almost playing to his full potential. Finances. Four home games and two away cup games = money! I was worried that the costs of our better youth level would stagnate our finances, but I think there's no need to worry! Upcoming fixtures. Another busy month! We've only once made it this far in the FA Cup (during my very first season), can we find a way to beat Stevenage?? We also have many visits to the West as we face West Auckland Town twice add West Didsbury & Chorlton once.

August 2035. Perfect start for the season against tough opponents, no notes! Table. Even with the perfect start we are not top of the league as Blyth Spartans thrashed Harrogate Town 7-0 Youth upgrades. While I was waiting for the boards answer about improving youth recruitment, they decided improve our youth rating - and accept the youth recruitment upgrade.I think this is also the reason we are now playing in a better(?) division this season with our U18s. (I forgot to update about the upgrades in the season preview) Upcoming fixtures. Now the grind starts as we have (at least) six games in September. We got somewhat favourable draw in the FA Cup, we should be able to make it through this round.

Season 2035/2036 preview. This is the season we are going to make it to the playoffs! I don't we are strong enough to win the league (unless we really, really overperform), but we should be good enough to get to the top 5. Board expectations. They want us to finish top half, which is the very, very minimum for me. In the cups we need to be competitive, which means absolutely nothing to me. Media predictions. Last season media estimated us to be the 12th favourite for the title, this time 11th, but with much better odds (34.00 vs 12.00). They think our best player is our goalie (I agree) and our hot prospect is also a keeper (I kinda agree, but he's maybe just a little short). Media dream eleven. We have our first player in the media dream eleven at this level as Parillon 30e is just not our best player but also the best goalie in the league! Injury. Our best outfield player is out for most of the first half of the season as he broke his foot in a friendly (because of not so friendly tackle). Bookies don't know how injuries work as they still think he's one of the major contenders for the top goalscorer. Team dynamics. It's positive that we have a good core of team leaders and influental players. But...most of these don't have a proper role in the team anymore. I'm a bit worried that if these players start to make noises about their playing time I don't know how to handle the situation. Starting XIs. There are some new faces to our 1st XI: there's Sweetser-Hawkes 34a who was amazingly effiecient last season and took the DLF place from Scott 27c. Then there's another change that I didn't plan: as Adigun 32a got injured, I needed to choose a new advanced forward. McMenemy 31f is a risky choice (he's not the most prolific goalscorer), but I hope the team is good enough to give him proper chances. The 2nd XI is just all about potential and vibes. Bartley 35d is learning to be a right back and he's also the youngest player in either of the squads. I accidentally noticed that the ultimate caretaker manager, Anthony Woodhouse, finally got his chance! Blyth Spartans have used his caretaking services on seven different occasions and now he's finally the first team manager, congrats Anthony! Pre-season friendlies. The testimonials didn't go well (Doyle didn't even play in his????), but rest of the games were quite good. My favourite win was against Guernsey, who play on the same level as us. Upcoming fixtures. It is a nice start to the season as we don't have any midweek games yet. All these teams are quite close to us in the predictions so August will be a good measure of what we are capable of this season.

Summer transfer window. This is the first summer we've had more than one offer that includes actual money - we got two offers! Dugdale 31c is our best target man, so I'm not ready to lose him and fortunately he's not interested in this transfer. But this offer is something I'm ready to listen. Phizacklea 29b has left us once before and I feel like he hasn't progressed as I hoped. He's been playing the mezzala role, and as we have multiple younger prospects for that position I'm ready to push him out of the club. As Avro was willing to offer some money, I grabbed it immediately. More transfer offers. These I wasn't ready to accept, but it shows that the class of '35 might have some real potential. There has been some offers from the professional leagues, but this summer those offers have been coming non-stop. If some of these big teams actually offer money, proper sell-on clause and a friendly, I might consider the offer. First international call-up. Tavengwa 30j is not our player anymore but as I was going through potential transfers, I noticed he had changed his first nationality from English to Zimbabwean - and got his first games in the national team! Testimonials. Two of our own had the chance of testimonial, so of course I wanted them to have that. Reddy still has some kind of role in the team, but Doyle is here just so we have a midfield player who can mentor younger players.

Season 2034/2035 review. This season we ended up in the same position as the season before, but our game was much more balanced and positive than before. If we can keep this team together and players keep on developing, we should be in the promotion spots next season. I'm happy Winterton Rangers won the promotion playoffs as they're tycoon owned and now both the tycoon owned teams are out of this league (the other being Curzon Ashton). BUT, there's a new one coming as Atherton Colliers finally got promoted from level 8. They actually just got a new chairman at the end of the season (promotion from within) so I don't know if they're going to keep thei 1m€+ wage budget. xTable. We scored a little more than xG suggested, but overall we were performing basically just like the expected numbers thought we should. But as it seems like the trend, the luckiest teams do better and there were four teams below us in the xPts table who got more real points. These were fine margins, we just need to be better and more consistent (and maybe a bit luckier, as we are not that good). The most overperforming team was Curzon Ashton and but I think actually the luckiest was Whitby Town who managed to escape relegation even though the numbers suggested they were by far the worst team in the league. Progress tracking. This was our 3rd season at this level and the second time we finished 9th. Media prediction was closer to the reality this time, so others are starting to recognise our quality! In the cups we are doing okay. We still haven't managed to better in the FA Cup after the first season when we got the last qualifying round, but both in the league cup and the FA Trophy we managed to go furthest so far. Best XI. The best XI is our 1st XI with one change: Scott 27c is left to the bench as club icon Reddy took his spot in the best XI. In the bench there's one player who caughts my eye: Sweetser-Hawkes 34a. He scored 12 goals in the cup, which is just ridiculous. What will happen next season is that he will take Scott 27c place in the 1st XI. As Scott 27c is on a non-contract he might just leave if he gets unhappy about being benched, but I'm not too worried atm. Players by minutes. Parillon 30e is a machine when it comes to availability. I think this is the third season in a row that he plays all the games. He's a leading player at Vanarama North/South level, so he's not going to stay with us for long. He's contract is up in the summer of 2036, I need to think if I want to keep him or sell him before that. Adams 30c was my absolute favourite for substitutes as he made whopping 39 appearances from the bench! Players by goals. Adigun 32a was predicted to be in the battle for the golden shoe. He was our best goalscorer, but not close of being best in the league. His goals/90 is only the 4th highest. As he is our #1 advanced forward I would hope he would win both these categories with ease. Players by assists. Somehow Adigun 32a is at the top with this one too. Tbh, I'm quite disappointed that our DLF (Scott 27c, 7 assists) or TF (Dugdale 31c, 7 assists) are not on the top of the lists. What I am happy about is that our CM (Blake 32b, 12 assists) delivered as we've struggled to get assists from the midfield. For the next season I would like to see our left wing-back Gould 33i to get even more assists, although 7 is not too bad for him. Players by progress. I feel most of the players have progressed only modestly (as we don't have good facilities), but there are some exceptions. I chose to put Hayward 32k as the DLP in our starting XI and he really progressed while making the position his own. I'm also satisfied with Codling 32j's progress as I felt choosing him for the 1st XI was the "wild card" option, but he played and progressed relatively well. During the off-season I need to think what to do with Harris 34c. He practically hasn't played for us. Could he make it all the way to the 1st XI or is it enough for him to continue progress by choosing him for the 2nd XI? Parillon 30e's progress is still amazing and it is really useful for us as his CA is so much better than the rest of the team's that it helps the star rating to actually show differences between players. Tax bill. As we didn't do any major moves with our facilities, we got hit with the tax bill. I will be asking for youth recruitment upgrade because for the last couple of intakes we haven't got that many 5 star PA players. .

April 2035. Now that we had practically no chances of making it to the playoffs we decided to start playing really well. King's Lynn Town will hate us as we won both games against them with combined score of 11-2. Even if we had won the Hyde United game, we wouldn't have made it to the playoffs, BUT we would've been sixth in the table. Final league table. 9th last season, 9th this season. In the season review I till show why I still feel that we made a lot of progress and next season we can really be promotion contenders. Team of the Week. This is here just because I think this is the first time we've had so many players in the team of the week. April Fools' Day. I knew I was playing FM on April 1st, I knew I was going to go past April 1st in the game and I knew there is always some kind of surprise in the game for this date, but this still surprised me for a moment (He's fine, freak injury specialist made the injury go away )

March 2035. And there goes the last hope of making it to the playoffs. We just imploded when it mattered. We fought bravely against big money teams Curzon Ashton and Winterton Rangers, but after that there was no positive response. We should've won the games against Blyth Spartans and AFC Fylde, but our star goalie scored game ratings of below 6.0. Just look at this: Table. Curzon Ashton are already crowned as champions, but it is all open who is going to make it to the playoffs. I can tell who isn't: FC Isle of Man. Upcoming fixtures. We have a theoretical chance of making it to the playoffs if we win all the games, but what makes the challenge even trickier is that there are four teams between us and the playoff line. At least I want to finish higher than last year (9th).

Youth intake 2035. At first glance it looks like we have quite decent top prospects, maybe too many wingers, we don't use them in our narrow 4-3-3. Let's take a closer look. So here are all the players from the intake. What I see here: All the good players are from Isle of Man None of the top players have a top personality (I'm fine with Jovial and Light-Hearted) The winger prospects have either some knowledge of playing in a position we use or have a good skillset to be utilised in a new position Determination values are really low (average of 8,44) The top prospect is a a short goalie (183 cm) I see multiple players with a future in our team: Green 35b, Forth 35c, Bartley 35d (as a RB) and Gaul 35e Youth intake tracking. As said, the average determination of this batch is very low, the second lowest in the save so far. On the other hand, rest of the key attribute averages are quite good! These players have the skills to run and work together, but they just aren't determined to do that I need to find a way get less negative personalities, as we don't have many senior players who can mentor.

February 2035. Our form is not on the line with my idea of battling for the promotion. I was very happy with the double win over Trafford, but the rest of the month was just meh. Neither Matlock or Leek Town deserved to win us by such a big margin, but sometimes it just happens. Table. Our chances of making it to the top 5 are slimmer than before, but it's not an impossible task. We just need to be more consistent, but that's easier said than done as the team is so inexperienced. Defending set pieces. Just look at this... we don't have a set piece coach, but I would guess any coach could tell that it is not wise to leave to opponent unattended in this kind of free kick. The taker just passed to the one furthest left and he shot...and scored Upcoming fixtures. Busy month after another. All the focus in the league, but it would be a nice touch if our 2nd XI can make it to the league cup final. The Curzon Ashton game will be the toughest, and we've struggled in the past with many of these opponents. If we want to fight for the promotion until the end, we need 12, preferably closer to 15, points.

January 2035. Not the best start for the year. I feel like we play better if it's a team that are favourites against us. Maybe I need to change tactics because in the games against relegation candidates we just give them the ball and hope to get something out of counter attacks. That's not the plan I've tried to create, but it happens almost in all of these kind of games. What made this month trickier than expected was the injury of Dugdale 31c who was the Player of the Month in December. We have no other good target men. I used Broe 31d who's a tall striker but that's maybe the only positive about him. He managed to score three times, but he's still slightly underperforming his xG. Table. We are still in promotion playoff places, but it is getting tighter. Curzon Ashton is cruising to the championship, but the rest of the top half of the league is really even. xG Table. I wanted to show this not because I feel we should be higher in the table but because I feel we need to get luckier if we want to make it to the playoffs. Look at the difference between us and King's Lynn Town. We've outscored and "outdefended" our xG and xGA, but performing worse than our xPts suggests. Then there's King's Lynn who don't know how to convert their chances and also concede more than they should - but they are four points above expectations. Maybe they just know how to manage games better? Transfer out. This is not a big loss to our team as Smith hadn't been playing much in the past few seasons. It just shows why it is difficult to get players from Gibraltar (or other Overseas Territories) to join us. If a backup's backup can get 625 €/w in Gibraltar, why would he want to join us for 30-100 €/w? Player development. We have our first player who is at Vanarama North/South level while playing for us. Parillon 30e has contract with us until the end of next season, and he's not willing to renew it. Should I sell him during the summer if there are teams interested in him? He's an amazing goalkeeper, but his bad days are so bad that we lose points because of him. His achilles heel is shooting from distance. But on the other hand he can be amazing on another day Also, look at his kit: it's so ugly that I love it! Upcoming fixtures. We need to find our groove to stay in the promotion contest. In the league cup our 2nd XI get their chance to show if they can get us through to the semis.

Yes, and what makes it even more impressive is that they are not tycoon-owned like almost all the other teams that have been promoted multiple times. What helps them is the community around the club. For example, we've faced them twice, during my first season, and in their home game they had almost 3,800 spectators at county league level (9th level). Now they average 7,000+ attendances at League 2

December 2034. Alright, alright, we found our rhythm! Even Christmas dinners didn't slow us down as our 2nd demolished Hyde United (and Sweetser-Hawkes 34a continued his amazing goal-scoring form with a hat-trick). It would have been a perfect month, but the goalless draw against Alfreton Town made a little dent to our record. Table. Good results = good position. Player of the Month. Our target man Dugdale 31c has been a really good form, scoring in the first three games of the month. Upcoming fixtures. Five in the league + one league cup game. Both 1st and 2nd XI will be needed. December was an excellent month, could January be at least close to the same?

Youth intake preview. A fine prospect in the attack, but other than that, this looks like a disappointing batch of youth players. I would really love to have a good CB and RB, maybe a target man as well. But as a reminder for myself: The preview is more about the positions than how good the players in those positions will be - and this still is a 5-star intake!

Sell-on clause. We have two players who we have sold for actual money. There's Stewart 31a who we sold last summer and there's Fagan 29a in the summer of 2030. Both players have a sell on clause (40 % & 50 %). Fagan 29a been starting striker for Bury for four seasons and is even the captain of the team! We don't know his current value, but previously it has been up to 2,5 m€. Bury has been promoted four times during this save and are taking steps towards a fifth promotion, I would guess his value is more likely to go up rather than down. It would be a nice boost for us if Bury end up selling him. The only problem I see is that his contract is up at the end of the next season. Fingers crossed that they sell him before that - or at least get him a new contract!

Yes, I've had the same experience. My coaching and scouting staff has always been the best in the league. I'm yet to find very good physios (and the board doesn't allow me to have sport scientists )

November 2034. 7 games, 21 goals scored! The loss against Blyth Spartans hurt, as we didn't deserve it, but I don't mind too much because the rest of the month was so, so good. The best player from last spring's intake, Sweetser-Hawkes 34a, showed that on top of his potential he already has the skills to make a difference as he scored 4 goals against St. Helens! It was also the very first time that we achieved more than 5 xG in a competitive game. Table. Even with the quite good results, we don't climb up the table. But... pointswise we are really close to the promotion places Upcoming fixtures. No cup games to disrupt our rhythm in the league, but still a busy month. We face this season's rival Wythenshawe for the fourth time!

October 2034. Excellent results in the FA Trophy... and then not-so-excellent in the league. Yes, the away games were very difficult, but I thought we could've been in a fight for draws. I would've preferred to win against Wythenshawe Town in the FA Cup, but this is a nice payback. Table. After a difficult month in the league, we slowly move towards mid-table. But I have a feeling we've faced most of the most difficult opponents of the first half of the season, so maybe things will get better. Upcoming fixtures. Another busy month as we continue in the FA Trophy + start our League Cup journey. The season before last we made it to the quarter finals, could we do better this time?

Thank you! This save has been a real training for patience. As there are close to 0 good players who want to join us this has been much more youth only style of save than I predicted. But I'm happy with the progress, especially with the facility and youth training upgrades. I haven't thought about the stadium thing, thanks for bringing that up! We have enough seats (800), but the overall capacity is too low for the National Leagues (2790 vs. 3000). Let's hope that if (and when) I get promoted, we have enough money in the bank and a wise board who are ready to expand the capacity a little bit. You've really been flying through the divisions, you've had an excellent momentum! Hopefully you stay in the PL so you can start to put money towards facility upgrades. Are you actually allowed to play PL home games at the FC Isle of Man stadium? It seems way too small for the league Good luck with the relegation fight in the PL!

September 2034. A heartbreaking exit from the cup! In the first game we were in 2-0 lead until the 86th minute. Then they scored in 87th and 88th minutes... In the replay I chose to use our 2nd XI. They defended really well until Wythenshawe got a penalty on the 85th minute. After that, an acceptable loss against Worksop Town before we found our shooting boots (and goalie gloves ). I'm happy with all but one league result. Check out these stats from the Squires Gate game: Table. Good results mean that we climb up in the table. Curzon Ashton looks like an unbeatable force in the league, but the rest of the league is very even. Finances. The cup games made this month one of the financially best months. My plan is to get a youth facility upgrade next, but it will take 1-2 seasons to have that kind of money. Upcoming fixtures. Only one home game, but we have a chance to get a revenge from Wythenshawe in the FA Trophy. We also face one of our rival-ish opponents, Trafford, and end the month against big favourites.

August 2034. Well, this is just a very boring start to the season. We won what we deserved to win, but we should've gotten a point against Silsden. Table. I want to get closer to the promotion playoffs. As we've played only three games so far, no need to worry (yet). Upcoming fixtures. Our cup starts against Wythenshawe Town who are in the same division with us. They've started the league strongly with 2 wins and a draw, so this is not the easiest game. After that, so many league games that there will be chances for both the 1st and the 2nd XI.

Thread update. As this has been the first save I've been posting about to this forum, I made two targets for myself when I started the thread. The first target was that I get three full pages of posts. As I'm a person who starts things and never finishes them, I needed some achievable target for the amount of posts. Now I'm almost at the end of the fourth page. First target: achieved The second target was to get at least 3,000 views to my thread. I achieved this target earlier this week. I had no idea how many people would actually be interested to see a forum newcomer to learn how to make an interesting story, but I'm happy to see that some people are still reading this! Second target: achieved I'm planning to continue posting as long as this save feels enjoyable to me. At the moment I really, really enjoy this save, so I'm not expecting to stop posting anytime soon. Thank you for the views and comments so far, they really mean a lot to me! <3

Season 2034/2035 preview. This is the 11th season of me being in charge of the team. We've achieved two promotions. To be honest, I expected more when I started the save but I love how challenging this has been! I've been lucky with the board as they haven't had any unrealistic expectations in the competitions. Fingers crossed it will stay that way as we just got a new chairman through voting! New contract. I was feeling self-confident, so my first interaction with the new chairman was to ask a new contract for me. The board was happy to give me one. My salary hasn't gone up once in this save, but again I got two year deal with option for one more if promoted. Facility upgrade completed. This is going to be the last upgrade for a while, but I'm happy that we've gotten such good academy settings at this point of the save. Reputation update. Even if we have one of the highest average attendances in the league, our reputation is one of the lowest in the league. Better reputation should help us get better players from youth intakes (and it would make it easier to lure new players to the team, as it is almost impossible right now), but otherwise I'm not too interested in this topic. Friendlies. Two losses (one against our rich rival Stalybridge), one draw and 8 wins, that's a nice record from friendlies. My favourite results weere the win against Edinburgh City (they're in League 2 in Scotland) and draw against Notts County (League 2). There was also our first testimonial, for our centre back Moore, who has made the most appearances for the club. He was the backbone of our defence for several seasons, so I think he really deserved this testimonial. He's never been very good, but sometimes it is enough to get to the starting XI that you have more experience than others. Board expectations. Cup expectations are as ambiguous as they can be, but in the league we have a clear target: avoid relegation. I think that underestimates our team. My minimum expectation is top-half. I think our ceiling is somewhere between 3rd and 5th. It won't be a disaster if we don't make it to the playoffs this season, but I would be a bit disappointed. Top goalscorer odds. I think this is the first time our striker has been in this list, at least this high. Last season Adigun 32a scored 13 goals in the league and the top scorer got 26 goals. So he needs to double his tally to be in the contest for the golden boot! I don't think it's impossible, but he's yet to be that consistent to get to those numbers. Media predictions. During the pre-season our odds were all over the place. At one point we were as high as 5th in the odds table, and at some point we were as low as 16th. Our odds at 34.00 are better than ever in this league, so that's tells something about our progress. Curzon Ashton are clear favourites, and almost as clear 2nd favourites are Winterton Rangers. They are the only teams with wage budget of over 1m€, rest have 450k€ or less (we are just above 100k€). The journalists have identified our GK Parillon 30e as our best player - and I agree. He's so good that he's actually pushing other players' star ratings down. I think the best player is usually spot on, but the hot prospect can be anyone with 5 star potential ability. This time it's Clarke 34b. He can play anywhere in the middle and has nice base attributes, but I just don't know 1) where to play him and 2) if his personality will hinder all the progress. Starting XIs. 1st XI pictured above, 2nd XI below. 1st XI will play during the weekends, 2nd XI during weekdays. I made some changes to the starting lineups. Lennon 32f, Codling 32j, and Hayward 32k got promoted to this level. They all spent the previous season on loan and I got the feeling they have something to offer for the first team now. Our midfield is not the strongest and for some reason midfield players haven't been progressing too much - I hope this changes soon. We rely on our quality attacking trio and our star goalie. If they deliver results consistently, we have a good chance of getting close to promotion spots. The achilles heel of the team is the central defence, I hope they take it seriously when I instruct them to take fewer risks. The 2nd XI is selected purely on potential ability and vibes. Goalie is the same, but that's just because I loaned out our 2nd best goalkeeper. My highest expectations are on Lewys Lewis 34d (love the name!), Sweetser-Hawkes 34a and McMenemy 31f, who's been on loan for the last two seasons. Parillon 30e and Adigun 32a are the stars of our show and their profiles are already in this post, but I wanted to show a couple of more. Dugdale 31c has been fans' player of the year two times in a row and fans' young player of the year three times! Last season he got 14G+8A in the league and I hope he can continue on that path. I also have high hopes on Gould 33i who's been getting better and better. He has an important role as WBL as he's basically in charge of that side alone. Upcoming fixtures. We start our season relatively late as our first league game is in mid-August. Three games, all should be winnable, but I guess there will be some surprises for us