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The expected news that I feared.... Bugger 😒

On New Year's Eve the under 18s travelled to Cullybackey Blues. I'm sure the lads were delighted to be playing a match before seeing the New Year in with a few Diet Cokes LOL! The suspended Billy Cummings and the unselected Rhys Emerson were drafted in to play for the youngsters to keep their fitness up. Both notched a goal each in a 3-3 draw. I have been keen to see Billy Cummings play in the first team, so it was good to see him score a goal in this match. He will miss the Banbridge game after being sent off against PSNI before I arrived at the club. Unfortunately the day before the Banbridge game, Crusaders from the Premiership, have put in a bid to sign him. This is a blow. He won't play for their first team, but I'm pretty sure he will be a Crusaders player come mid January. Having looked at my squad this week, and with the transfer window opening, I sent a scout out to look for a Goalkeeper and a Central Defender. I won't be signing anyone unless they have been scouted, so I'm hoping the scouts come up with something in the next 4 weeks. In preparation for the Banbridge match, I promoted 16 year old Henry McKenna (DC) as I have no central defenders on the bench and one of the current central defenders, Rhys Sharpe, is unhappy as he would rather be playing left back. I need him in the middle of the defence at the minute but I'll see if I can gradually drop McKenna in and see how he fairs. I made 3 changes to the squad from the last game. Caolan Reilly was dropped from the subs bench as he hadn't trained well enough, Mckenna took his place. In the starting 11, Harry Norton replaced Henderson in the middle of midfield, and Ruairi Duffy slotted onto the left wing in place of Jordan King. The match against Banbridge Town is the first of three away games. Here's the teams. Things didn't start well as Harry Norton brought Robb down just inside the area to give away a penalty in the 3rd minute. The spot kick was a good height for our keeper and Corrigan saved and hugged the ball to his chest. 3 minutes later we had a penalty of our own after Parker was cruelly hacked down by Banbridge centre back Patterson. Aaron Parker got up to take the penalty and slotted it home neatly into the corner of the net. Things got even better in the 29th minute. The lively Duffy ran with the ball from the half way line and was taken down from behind, 5 yards outside the edge of the box. Spencer Beattie placed the ball down and curled a free kick round the wall and past the keeper to make it 2-0! I was ecstatic on the touchline but also wary as we had blown a two goal lead in our last match. The match was effectively wrapped up though in the 63rd minute, when Stefan Lavery scored quite an audacious goal. Duffy lofted a long cross field ball over the Banbridge defence from just inside his own half. Lavery had made a run past the last defender into the penalty area. He actually controlled the ball with his left foot, without letting it touch the floor, and then his second touch was a right foot volley across the keeper into the goal off the far post. What a goal!! Needless to say that sent our 20 fans into delirium!!!! I brought the young McKenna on after 73 minutes to give him some game time, all in all this was a good day at the office. Jonathan Corrigan saved a penalty, kept a clean sheet, and went home with the Man of the Match award. Losses for PSNI and Limavady now means we have closed the gap at the bottom of the league. Next up is an away trip to 4th placed Immaculata up in Belfast. In other news.... across the water, in England, the league is like a throwback to yesteryear. 4th placed Liverpool beat the reigning champions Arsenal to get within 6 points of them with 3 games in hand. They are also pitted against each other in the semi finals of the League Cup this month. The other semi final is between 2nd placed Chelsea, and 3rd placed Man Utd. Man Utd have 4 games in hand on Arsenal and are only 5 points behind them, so at the half way stage it looks like the Premier League will be hotly contested this year. Vincent Kompany's (!) Man City are in 6th spot which is a surprise.

Be nice if someone at SI (@Jimmy Wong ?) could confirm if save games with edited files from fm23 can be continued with fm24? I've pre-ordered the game on the back of this feature and would be mighty disappointed to see it doesn't do what I thought it would do.

Ah I see, well on a positive note I've always been able to continue playing a save using an edited database after a new patch has been released. The only time I've had to re-verify a file is when starting a new save with the new patch. So as we would be continuing an old save on a new database (fm24) then I am very hopeful that we will get what we wish for.

Not sure you'd have to reverify it through the editor. If you had to it would more than likely fail because the database is different. I think there would be alot of disappointed punters if the promise of continuing a save could not be fulfilled. I am hoping that ANY save from fm23 can be continued, edited or otherwise.

@Dagenham_Dave if I upload my save file to mediafire, you can download it and tell me if it works on your fm23? I am using tonnes of edited files.

Thanks for the interest in the thead. Mr Murphy, the Chairman, got back to me about my request to study for my first coaching badge. Initially it was flatly rejected, as he was concerned the training would fall behind. I ended up having to promise that all training areas would be covered and no coaches would be overloaded with too much work to do. Mr Murphy said that he will monitor how things go in the next 4 weeks, if he is satisfied that I have kept my promises then he will allow me to start my coaching badge. This wasn't really how I planned my initial request would end up going, oh well!! So matchday arrived and here are the line-ups for my first match. Unusually for me I decided to watch the full game in a speeded up version. We started off brightly and took the lead after Parker was pushed over in the box. He got up to score the penalty for his 5th goal of the season. Parker was the provider 11 minutes later with a delicious through ball to Stefan Lavery who fired in from the angle of the 6 yard box, also for his 5th of the season. By the 68th minute I had got bored of watching the full 90, as I was struggling to keep tabs on things, so I switched to comprehensive highlights. Things went wrong after that, I suppose it was inevitable, all my fault! An 80th minute free kick swung into the box met the head of an unmarked Ballymacash player, who laid the ball neatly to another unmarked Ballymacash player! With 5 minutes left to play they broke down the left and whipped in a cross which was met superbly on the volley by Man of the Match, Ferguson. Corrigan had no chance in goal as it rifled past him into the back of the net. I thought we had won it in the 88th minute when Henderson lobbed the ball over the Ballymacash defence for Aaron Parker to run on to and put it into the goal, only for the linesman to flag him offside. It was a very debatable offside, and he looked on to me. Not happy about it. Final Score 2-2, and the points were shared. In the grand scheme of things we actually managed to gain a point on the three teams above us, as they all lost. A tough match awaits us next week as we travel to 3rd placed Banbridge Town. (I kept my counsel in the press conference when asked about the referee!!)

What tier level is the Belfast & District level? Wikipedia only showing down to tier 7. I use the file mentioned above, and it's a good one.

Thanks @oche balboa. The skin is from @keysi, but it was one he didn't release this year. This is one of his earlier versions and he was kind enough to let me use it. I changed the font to be like his fm22 skin. I find his skins very easy on the eye.

So my tenure as manager has begun. Here is my profile. In a very surreal FM moment, I discovered that I actually know 2 of the staff at this club. The Assistant Manager, Alex Clifford, is a coach in women's football over here, and he has coached my daughter when she was younger. Also one of the first team coaches, Mickey O'Neill, was a player at Irish league level, and I played with him at a lower league team in the last few years of my footballing days. It's very strange seeing his picture come up as he is in my face pack. I'm not sure if I'll keep them both, as it just feels weird LOL!!! Anyway, back to the non reality of my game.... I asked the assman to select the squad for the first match. There's already a couple I may change as the stats seem to back them up, but for the meantime I'll go with his choice for the first match. I have successfully managed to upset all the players, yes the whole squad, with my first meeting with them. I dared to suggest that they were good enough to avoid getting dragged into a relegation battle, and also promised them strengthening the defence and goalkeeping areas. Well now I have apparently heaped too much pressure on them. Great! My first press conference went without hiccups, and I have settled on my usual 442 formation. Players to note are a 19 y/o midfielder, Harry Norton, who has got better tackling and interception stats than Alex Clifford's choice of Gary Henderson in the middle. There's also a 17 year old Scottish striker, Billy Cummings who has 3 goals to his name and could prove competition for the experienced Stefan Lavery up front. Lavery is joint top goalscorer with 4 (yes FOUR) goals, with 16 year old Aaron Parker. Parker has impressed the staff by the looks of it this season, and has much potential. Overall the squad is thin in places but seems to have a healthy blend of youth and experience. I'm hopeful, that with a few additions we can get ourselves out of trouble. I have a transfer budget of £1 😊, but that is life at this level. I've also put an early request to study for a coaching badge, and will hear back in due course. And so our first match is 2 days away and is the last of the calendar year.

You can use an edited j league database. It's in the fm23 download section. I don't think FM24 will have it as they're only saying FM is now supporting the Japanese language. Konami rule the roost still.

I am now the new manager of semi pro outfit, Armagh City. I was offered £250 per week but I managed to negotiate it up to a whopping £325 per week! My contract will last until May 2025 so hopefully I will get the time to turn things around. In between the job interview and being offered the role, the team beat relegation rivals PSNI, so the gap at the bottom is only 3 points now. Out of the 4 cup competitions we had to be competitive in, we have already been knocked out of 3 of them! Our next match is 4 days away where we are at home to Ballymacash Rangers. A brief look about the club shows we are financially screwed, with a club debt of £-48,580. The debt graph is only going in one direction, a bit like the team at the minute. We have a large squad that has only 1 goalkeeper, no reserve team, and 10 players in the under 18s. The youngsters are not in a league this season, and so will only be playing friendlies. It looks like I am going to have my work cut out.

Thanks @Sizeman21, I am looking forward to this! Armagh City have offered me an interview. They currently sit bottom of the Premier Intermediate League, which is the 3rd tier of Northern Ireland. They want me to avoid relegation, and be competitive in the cups, and get to the latter stages of the Mid Ulster Cup. I agree to everything including working with a Director of Football. I await their decision. I have added and removed some nations, and they will kick in between January and June. In other news, England hosted the Club World Cup, and the Final was played at the London Stadium. Real Madrid beat Flamengo 3-0 to retain the trophy they won last season.

I've spent most of the last 10 months using the editor more than playing a save in FM23. I've now finally settled on my database and found this forum. I've sometimes dropped in to have a read, so I'm hoping that posting here will maintain an interest for me and to help me "get into" my save. So I will give this a go and if I put any steps out of line then please put me right. The world that my save will be set in is one that harks back to the 1980s. I thoroughly recommend the trilogy of books by Steven Scragg, one of which, is where I have stolen the title of this thread! I will be using my 80s database which reverts back to the old style European Cup, European Cup Winners' Cup, and the UEFA Cup. I am also using my 6 team Club World Cup, as I hate the new format being introduced by FIFA. It's the same format as the 7 team version just minus the hosts. I have removed the compulsory Wembley FA Cup semi finals so that club grounds can be used again, and replays are present in every round including the FInal. To make the old ways complete I am using an enjoyable file from @Tonton-Oni, which does away with the new formats of International football and rewinds the clock back 15 years. To complete my world I am using the Around the Globe megapack by @DaveTheEditor, and most of the files from @Daveincid's Increase Realism megapack. Also Northern Ireland, and England have been extended so that lower leagues are active below what the vanilla game offers. My play will not be high speed, so don't expect me to zip through the seasons at pace. I plan on carrying this save into FM24 if the new feature works as it promises to. I have many leagues loaded and the countries active will change each season, with 9 permanent countries. Active countries are all dependant on what nations have representatives at certain stages of continental competitions. Each nation's divisions will be active, and I will have the top division and the top domestic cup competition on full detail, along with full detail for all the continental and international matches. See why I told you my seasons won't fly by 🙂. At the end of the day, I am looking to get a realistic game-world. Well, as realistic as I can by replacing most of the modern day competitions!! I always start with no coaching badges, and a Sunday league reputation. Northern Ireland is where I begin, as this is where I have lived for the last 21 years. Unemployed of course, and looking for a job in the 3rd tier. The countries i have begun with are as follows: I holidayed for one season to September 2023, to bring me to around now. Here's a little bit of background of what happened in that season. Germany are the World Champions, defeating France 1-0 in extra time. Real Madrid did a treble, winning the European Cup, La Liga, and the Club World Cup. Real Betis beat Liverpool 2-1 to lift the Cup WInners' Cup, but were soundly thrashed 7-0 by Real Madrid in the Super Cup in August! The UEFA Cup final was an all English affair with Tottenham defeating Man Utd 2-0 on aggregate to finally give Harry Kane a winners medal!! Something of interest in the UEFA Cup was the quarter final clash between Tottenham and Arsenal. 2-2 after both legs saw Spurs triumph on penalties. Can you imagine the atmosphere around North London that evening?! Arsenal won the Premier League with a 90th minute winner at West Ham, when the title was otherwise going to Anfield, reminiscent of the 1989 Michael Thomas "it's up for grabs now" moment. Inter, Bayern, PSG, Benfica, and Feyenoord won their respective leagues, and will all be representing their nations in the European Cup next season. And so, with me up to date I am now on the lookout for a job. Every 19th December* I will be using the add/remove function, and by the June the next year some countries will come and go. I won't remove a nation I am playing in, but my only rule is I can only apply for a job in an active nation (ie I won't add a nation unless they have met my own qualification criteria). Once I get my first job in N Ireland I will allow myself to move anywhere in the world. I am English, by the way, so that is my nationality in the game. * (the exception is this first season as I missed my imposed deadline as the save overwrote itself. It's ok, in Dec 2023 I will add new nations, and things will revert to normal the year after.) Game date has now reached 18th December 2023, and a job has become available in the N Ireland 3rd tier. I have applied and await a reply. Tomorrow's game date is when I will add new nations to this save. Thanks for reading this far!!

Yeah the thing you'd need to look out for is where teams have gone bust or leagues change structures. It's all fixable but can be a pain when it comes to verifying.

Hi @AgrathoSam, this might save you a few headaches.... https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/574073-80s-style-european-competitions-v3-now-valid-for-the-final-234-update/

I have holidayed up to 2098. I'll update the link at the top of the page and people can make their own mind's up. I think it is better for realism sake. I'll share with you some of the movers and shakers in the holiday save. Bear in mind that it is a save that only had one nation as playable (N Ireland) and the rest was the top division in each league in Europe on view only. So the results will only be going on reputation rather than AI squad building and proper full detail matches. I also had other editor files in place that I use. The European Cup had lots of English winners, with periods of Spanish and German dominance. Newcastle, Liverpool, Man Utd, Real Madrid, and Bayern feature alot. There was quite a large variety of runners up teams which was good to see. There was more of a mixture in the ECWC, I noted that Freiburg and AFC Bournemouth were amongst the winners. The UEFA Cup was dominated mainly by English clubs. Delving into a few selected nations...In Italy the big surprise was that Spezia Calcio became a major force from the 2050s onwards. It all sort of began with a runner up position in the ECWC in 2049, and won it in 2055. They ruled Serie A for decades, and were runners up in the EC in 2068, 2069, 2071, 2076, 2078, 2080, 2084, and 2085. They eventually won it in 2092 and then again in 2097! France saw PSG fall away after 2042. Nantes and Nice were quite dominant. Man Utd ruled England in the 40s and 50s, and then there were lots of Newcastle, Liverpool, and Man City wins, with a sprinkling of other teams littered about. Real Madrid ruled Spain, with Barcelona only winning the league twice during those 75 years. Athletico, Mallorca, Elche, and Huesca were the only other 5 teams to win La Liga at various times between Real winning. Unfortunately I couldn't really dig deep into the finances of clubs due to NI teams filling up the rich list as they were the only detailed league. But with 2.5 billion less euros being dished out in prize money each year there is bound to be a difference. This has whet the appetite for me to fire up a new save, and hopefully it might inspire others as well. Have fun if you do.

Thanks to @getzisch and after re-reading the post from @Lord Rowell in my 80s 23.1 version thread, I admit I agree with your points raised. I have decided to re-do the finances so that they are more in line with UEFA's current distribution of funds model. It is not exact but basically the purse is now 2.04 billion euros as opposed to the 4.5 billion euros I had originally distributed. I am running a test save and am interested to see how the winners of the competitions pan out and if there are any big differences. Once I'm happy with things I will update the file at the top of the page.

Hi @getzisch. Thanks for the feedback! Yes you make good points regarding the money, and I have responded here in another thread for the reasons I chose the finances I did. Whilst I have focused on what each individual club receives, I haven't really looked at UEFA's overall purse where the money is distributed from. Maybe I should have done! This is an area I would probably revise in future releases.

Yes, even when you click agree, that triangle stays there.

I am banking on this being the case. I am reluctant to do anything in the editor* until after the final SI database release. *disclaimer, I reserve the right to go back on this if I can't resist the temptation to meddle.

Have a read of these

It's what database they're compatible with when you start a new game.

Best putting your comments in here. It'll stand a better chance of getting read. https://community.sigames.com/forums/forum/842-pre-game-and-in-game-editor-requests/

And SEGA support directed you here! That's amazing! You could load up the editor as if to create a file, and then save it and see where the directory to save it takes you to. If it's different to where you expect it to go then you may find where the source of the problem lies. Still getting my head round the support you received from SEGA!