erik45

January 2025. Things are going well. REALLY well! We won all the games, but on top of that we are scoring crazy amounts of goals. I'm used to scoring 1-2 goals per game in FM, this is all new to me I'm really happy not just with the cup wins, but also with the win against City of Liverpool, who were just behind us in the league. Because of our excellent form, we have not only topping the league, but also created a four point gap between us and Cheadle Town! The win against Ramsbotton United guaranteed that we passed our very first vision objective! More first time successes: Manager of the Month and Player of the Month! Kiam Reddy has been an excellent poacher for us, scoring almost 30 times in all competitions. Financially we continue gaining small profit every month. All the positive news made me brave enough to ask contract extension already in January. On top of that I also asked to start my first coaching course - and surprisingly the board thought all this was a good idea! Next month the busy schedule continues with seven games: five in the league and two in the cups. The league games will probably decide if we still have the possibility to win the league as we face teams in 3rd, 6th, 2nd, 12th, and 5th.

December 2024. And there goes the unbeaten run. Against the bottom of the league... Other than that, the month was quite okay. The xG story of the first league loss of the season was quite even, but only after our red card. We were leading the game until 80th minute and drawing until 94th, but in the end we lost. We are still holding on to our second place in the league. There's seven points between us and the teams outside of playoff spots, let's keep it this way! To enhance our chances, we also made a new signing! Dean Pinnington, born on Isle of Man, will slot right in to our starting XI (as soon he learns to play CM ) I also got the preview of our youth intake. At the moment, we just need more bodies. If the bodies are for left back, midfield or attack, even better. I had my hopes up, because sometimes at this level you get crazy good intakes for no clear reason...but maybe not this time. The first facility upgrade gave a hit to our bank balance, but we are steadily keeping a positive balance. We start the new year by heading to Liverpool. We also meet two teams from our division in cups, I'm hopeful we get to continue our good cup runs!

November 2024. Good results just keep on coming! I really don't know why, because we're playing quite well, but not that well. Ramsbottom game was frustrating, because nothing, absolutely nothing happened in that game. Look at the opposition's pass map, it tells all the action you need to know... We are steadily climbing up the table. The board expects us to finish in the promotion playoff positions and so far it looks like we have a good chance of achieving that. Next month we have no cup games, but we compensate that by having six league games. Can we continue our unbeaten record in the league? (Hint: no )

October 2024. Well, the game of the season (so far) was very much deserved loss to Harrogate Town. We concede a lot of goals, but we just keep on grinding results! Big - or tall - reason for our wins has been target man Robert Jones. Top scorer, highest average rating and most POTM awards, not bad. Comparing our results to this table, the win against Cheadle Town and draw against Glossop North End might be very valuable for us at the end of the season. I forgot to screenshot the finance page this month, but maybe the next picture tells something about the club's financial situation: We have our first upgrade, let's gooooo!!! Next month we continue with 5 league games, 1 FA Vase game and also enter the North West Counties League Cup. West Didsbury & Chorlton should be the toughest test as they lead the xG table.

Wooow, unbeaten start for the season continues! Two draws and a win in the league is good, but even better are the wins in the cups. The win against phoenix club Macclesfield was massive, and over 3000 fans got to see it! In the league we are one of the two undefeated sides. Cheadle Town is looking dangerously effective, but we have played two games less than them. Financially we are doing goooood! Over 70,000 profit in one month is crazy for a club at this level Next month the team faces this season's biggest test so far against Harrogate Town who are on top of Vanarama.

First proper games, first proper wins! Really good start, and the first cup wins are very important for our financial balance. We got lucky to get the draw against Ilkeston, let's hope we can win the replay. League table is starting to shape. As we had so many cup games, we've already played 1-2 games less than the others. We also broke first record – although my manager had very little to do with it Next month we continue in the cups + have four league games Finances were positively affected by the first cup games, let's hope the cup runs will be long!

Sorry, I should've been more specific. You should see your team's season preview by clicking the row of your team (but not the team name as that's a link to the overview page) on league's season preview

Oh, slack is... not good You can also find manager's personality from league's season preview when you click your team. There you can also find your squad's personality! I feel that doesn't perfectly correlate with the individuals' personalities, squad personality has always been quite positive in my teams (determined, professional, very professional etc.). It would be interesting to know if slack personality negatively affects your players' personalities (or maybe even your staff's personalities as they're the ones mostly working with you, but I haven't seen staff personalities change).

Could you check what is your manager's personality? In the last longer save I had (in FM22) I checked "my personality" at the start of the season. They were: balanced for the first 4 years, fairly loyal for the next 4, next 14 years: casual 12 times, slack 2 times; and the last of the year of the save fairly loyal again. I stayed in the same team for the whole time, so loyalty is quite expected, but otherwise I couldn't understand the negative personalities I had most of the time. I was fairly successful, bringing a team from 4th level to the top division with youth only, but that success didn't (positively) affect my personality. I also follow the personalities of the players from youth intakes. My observation is that when facilities, reputation, coaching etc. gets better there will be less players with negative personality, but not more with positive. (My interpretation of positive/negative personalities is very subjective and I categorise many personalities as neutral). It would be interesting to find some correlation between manager's personality and personalities of players!

Yeah I think FA Cup run is the way to go to get some improvements done. At lower divisions maintaining a good youth setup is relatively cheap. But if/when I get promoted multiple times, the payments get bigger even if I don't do further improvements. I don't really understand how it works in FM, but this is my experience in earlier editions. Isle of Scilly is the smallest league, right? Two teams competing each other, at least seasons would just fly by!

Thanks! I'm a big fan of self-imposed restrictions. Last proper save I had was in the Nordics with players who are 190< cm tall. I won the top divisions in Norway, Sweden and Finland, but I just couldn't win Danish league I really like the idea of save with island born players. A bit similar is my idea to start save with Hammarlands IK. It is a club based in Åland in Finland, and in the save I could only use players born in Åland. The real twist comes from the fact that Hammarlands IK play in the Swedish system. The problem with starting a save with them is that they play in Div 7 (which is 9th or 10th level), and for now there's no proper league/data update for that.

Pre-Season Friendlies The club had arranged most of these before I came here (I added the one against Tranmere). Happy with the amount of goals scored, but conceding all games but one is something to think about. Upcoming I was too eager and already played pre-preliminary game of FA Cup... which we ended up winning! We have three league games and we go straight to the deep end as we travel to Padiham, who are the third favourite to win the league. After that, two Liverpool sides and a FA Cup tie against Sheffield – oldest still existing football club! 😮

Season Expectations Board and fans expect us to get to the promotion playoffs. It might be a challenging task as we found ourselves at 9th position in the season preview. The encouragement to reach the playoffs comes from the fact that we have four players in the media dream eleven: O'Connor, Moore, Thorpe & McCaffrey. McCaffrey is also bookies' favourite to be the top player in the division!

Squad & Transfers When I took over, these were all the players in the team (U21 & U18 included). We quickly needed some reinforcements, and that need was emphasised even more when Ryan Cooper, our only RB, broke his angle and is out for 4 months. The signings from July onwards were made by me. Only Louis Parral is going to play in the first XI as he is the replacement for injured Cooper in the DR slot. Now we have our first player from Overseas Territories!

Facilities & Finances As could be expected, the team doesn't have great facilties. My aim is to get better junior coaching as soon as possible as I see that's the most efficient way of getting players with good current ability. If we at some point go pro, I will start to switch the focus from current ability to potential ability. The bank balance was a positive surprise. If it steadily stays around 100k, I might be asking some improvements sooner rather than later.

Manager & Tactics My manager is Pherick Ramsey. Pherick is the closest Manx name to my handle Erik45 and Ramsey is both and Manx last name and a town in northern part of the island. No badges, no problems. I put all the skill points to Working with Youngsters and Determination. I chose to focus on Determination because I've noticed it has been very difficult for me to gain a positive personality for the manager in the game. The "best" personality I've had was Fairly Loyal, most of the time my managers have been either Slack or Casual... (FYI: You can the personality of your manager – and squad as well – from the league's season preview when you click your team) I have been very fond of narrow 4-3-3 tactic for some years. In an earlier FM24 saves I have tried 4-4-2 and 5-2-3 systems, but those don't feel like my systems. I try to keep things simple. A lot of players in the middle lane and a target forward who to utilize for long balls when needed. In this save, I won't go too deep into tactical side of the game (at least in the first few years, but I will update if I make major changes to the system I use.

The Idea and the Aim of the Save This is my first career story on this forum. My goal is to get FC Isle of Man as high as possible on the English football pyramid. I will be using mostly players from the youth academy, with two exceptions: I'm also allowing myself to acquire players from all the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. I chose this island-focused framing for the save, because I was reading a book about remote islands (Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky). For some of you these islands (especially the Crown Dependencies) are not that remote, but from the pov of a person living in the Nordics, almost everything feels remote. 😀 Usually my saves go on for 20-30 years before it gets boring, but I have had some saves that go until the 2070s. Let's hope this save would be one of them! Before diving deeper into the save itself, I'll explain the name of the save. Part 1: CDs = the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiwick of Jersey, the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Isle of Man) Players born in Jersey, Guernsey or Isle of Man are available for me to use. The most well known name (atleast for me) of current football players is Arsenal/Real Sociedad fullback Kieran Tierney, who's born in Douglas (the capital if Isle of Man). I don't know if the place of birth is the best way to find these players in the game, so if anyone has better ideas, I'm happy to listen! The location of the Crown Dependencies: Part 2: BOTs = the British Overseas Territories As well as "CD players", also all the players with any BOT nationality are available for me to use (doesn't matter if it's their 1st or 2nd nationality). The BOTs are: Anguilla Bermuda British Antarctic Territory* British Indian Ocean Territory* British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Falkland Islands* Gibraltar Montserrat Pitcairn Islands* Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha* South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands* Turks and Caicos Islands *afaik, these territories are not in the game (I haven't checked from the editor) Map from Wikipedia showing UK & Overseas Territories: Most of the players in these territories have England as their first nationality. For this save it doesn't matter if the player have BOT nationality as their 1st or 2nd nationality. There are quite many players with Monsterratian, Bermudian or Gibraltarian nationality, let's hope some of those want to join my team! As the save goes on, I try to follow how players from Overseas Territories are doing in the game (and snatch the best ones to Isle of Man). Part 3: Unkindness = a Flock of Ravens The nickname of FC Isle of Man is the Ravens. A flock of Ravens is called unkindness, so that's the third part of the name of the save. FC Isle of Man is a club that was formed in 2019. They started their journey on the 10th level of the English football pyramid, in North West Counties League Div 1 South in 2021/2022 season, winning the promotion play-offs. (The original plan of participating already for the 20/21 season didn't happen as the team was suspended from the league because of covid restrictions.) After the promotion, the team has been participating the North West Counties League Premier Division. In 2022/2023 they finished 13th. This season (23/24) they are currently 14th IRL. In my save, I simulated the season and the team ended up as 16th with 56 points and a goal difference of –10. What's Next? The save starts from the beginning of pre-season 2024/2025. I have holidayed one season to get some players to the teams. I will start by going through the team, facilities, expectations etc. I've been heavily influenced by some of the great stories on this forum. @Punch had an amazing FC Isle of Man save in FM21 – and I really enjoy their current save with Guernsey. @Jimbokav1971 youth only saves have been an inspiration for me for a good few years. @Rainbowz has created Isle of Man nation database, which would create a whole new dimension to this save, but in the end I chose against using it in this save. As this is my first time posting a story here, all the comments and feedback are much appreciated!

In Amateur Division One, the third best goalscorer was K. Syrjanen, could you show his profile? I would like to know if he has Finnish background as his last name suggests. My translation for "Syrjänen" would be "a person/family who lives in a remote place" - very fitting name for a player in Highlands PS. Love the save! This has given me inspiration to start same kind of save - but in Lapland! Now I just need to choose a team from Norway/Sweden/Finland.

Just read through your journey so far, inspiring stuff! I'm struggling on choosing my next save, but your idea of starting from U19 level seems interesting! About the team roster view above: would it be possible to add a column that tells us readers which club players represent?

Ooooh, Shefki Kuqi, Kosovon härkä (his Finnish nickname, "the Bull of Kosovo")! I hope (40p) Kuqi will have as stylish goal celebration as Shefki had! Shefki had actually two brothers who played football. Njazi had an international career in smaller European leagues, being most successful in TuS Koblenz and two Greece teams. And then there was Albert, who played semi-professionally in Finland for a few years. I actually played against him in some youth level! He was a proper "big #9", strong, quite good with the ball... but very lazy off the ball. Shefki also had a short but colourful manager career in Finland! He saved Honka from relegation and got PK-35 promoted to the top division, but his last job at Inter Turku ended when he tried to fire his assistants and ended up getting fired himself