This is madness! Keymer & Hassocks YA

[Areolys]

Keymer & Hassocks

After I've stumbled over the Youth Academy Challenge I was really intrigued to give this challenge a try. Should I go with a Swiss team, or should I go with an English Level 22 team? The Swiss team would be quite the challenge, yes. But opting for a team at level 22 in the English pyramid would just be complete and utter madness! Especially since I'm still a new player and lack experience and knowledge.

Yet, here I am. Ready for this epic challenge and journey. Let's see how far up the pyramid I can climb.

Now, since I will be using a custom database I'm not able to participate in the challenge itself. However, I've decided to give it a try anyways and I hope that you guys will enjoy my team's journey up the ladders of English football. (Hopefully).
SInce the challenge tells you to start a new game and play a newly promoted team I'll be going with Keymer & Hassocks (again), since they actually got promoted IRL to Division 9 for this season, so it's only fitting.

Here are my settings:

• I will be using the E22 England to Level 22 Database from @Dan BHTFC (E22 - England to Level 22 + FA & League Cups 5.0_E0740A0D-C1CA-4E89-B2C8-89CDD347AE13.fmf (27/11/16) )
• I will only load England down to level 22
• "Do not add key staff" and "Add players to playble teams" "prevent use of in-game editor" enabled - settings
• Database size is large
• Manger Skills: No license, Sunday league player.

Here are the rules for this career:

1. No transfers into the team (selling players is allowed)
2. No Loans into the team (loaning players is fair game)
3. No trails for players
4. If I get sacked I have to start back at square one. Applying for every playable team starting at Division 9, working my way up until I get a new job.
5. No Editing, no savegame "hacking"/reverting because of bad results of any sorts.

 

I will be doing seasonal updates, including a short season recap, new young players presentation, and progress reports. I may also add some odd updates here and there if something important/funny/weird/terrible happens.

 

Thanks for following and feel free to leave some comments :-)

 

[Areolys]

Career Overview

Spoiler

 

2016/2017 | 2017/2018 | 2018/2019 | 2019/2020 | 2020/2021

Spoiler

 

2021/2022 | 2022/2023 | 2023/2024

[Areolys]

Keymer & Hassocks Team 2016 / 2017

Here we go! This is our entire team including the youth squads and what we'll have to be working with this season:

And here's the first squad & formation I've selected:

 

Some more info about the club...

 

[sheldonwea]

Great challenge, i'll be waiting for further uptades, just a question, what about re-signing former players developed by your team ?

[Areolys]

6 hours ago, sheldonwea said:

Great challenge, i'll be waiting for further uptades, just a question, what about re-signing former players developed by your team ?

I would say: Once you're out, you're out. I guess I'd probably never want anyone back that I've sold myself. I hope no one will leave the team on their own, especially in the beginning where I can't bind them by contract.

If I happen to get rid of Ronaldo or Messi then it's my own fault and I might as well be punished. Yeah, I'm that sadistic to myself. 

[clarkehwbu]

What's happening to the Hassocks Lions thread?

[Areolys]

On 11/30/2016 at 11:20, clarkehwbu said:

What's happening to the Hassocks Lions thread?

I'm not sure yet. It's kinda the same story, but it's also different, so I don't know yet. For now I've put it on hold for a while. But I might get back to it.

 

Quick update:

Not doing all that well so far. I'm having some troubles with my strategy and how I want to play/train my team going forward. I'm working on it tough. You can find out more about it in my tactics thread:

I will be testing everything within the career and see how it goes. By the end of the first season I'll hopefully have a better idea as to where I want to go and what type of players I should be looking at. I want to keep it all as simple as possible.

[Areolys]

 

Season 2016 / 2017

Head Coach’s season recap

The season in one word? Struggle. Yeah, we did not do well. I were predicted to finish dead last. Well, at least we were not THAT bad. But still, I was hoping for more in the league. In terms of cups on the other hand we couldn’t have asked for much more and miraculously won the Mid Sussex Junior Cup a sweet victory indeed!

 

I tried out different tactics throughout the season with the goal to find something for the long run. At the end I’ve finally found the tactic we’ll be using moving forward: a 4-3-3 (or 4-1-2-2-1). We will play the whole next season with it and then see how well we did at the end. No more drastic mid season changes.

     

 

          
 

Results & Tables

     

 

Youth Intake

          

 

     

 

Transfers out

A shame we lost Jarvis, he was one of our finest. But that’s how it goes.

And during the summer break we lost another 3 players. Our top goal scorer as well as a valuable man in midfield. Well, that's amateur football.

English Football Season Recap

Final Words

All in all our first season was not THAT terrible. Yeah, I was kind of hoping to get promoted, but we’ll do it next year then. The team is starting to play better together and we will only grow stronger from here on out!

[Areolys]

Guys, let me know what you want me to add/leave out of the season recaps. Not sure what you're interested in and what not.

 

Thanks!

[ManUtd1]

I enjoy the season recaps, and will be following 

[Areolys]

2 hours ago, ManUtd1 said:

I enjoy the season recaps, and will be following 

Thanks! 

[Areolys]

Di Mar-who?! Our First match in the League. I think we found ourselves a new Goalgetter. 

[Areolys]

Our new tactic seems to work...

[ManUtd1]

Nicely done, @Areolys!

[molemenacer]

I used to play in this league a few years back for Lindfield, played Keymar and Hassocks a few times

Will be following.

[Areolys]

On 12/6/2016 at 13:13, molemenacer said:

I used to play in this league a few years back for Lindfield, played Keymar and Hassocks a few times

Will be following.

 

Hehe, so you'll probably know most of the teams better than me. I've never heard from any of them before ;-)

We actually played Lindfield IV in a friendly this season. We won 2-1 ;-)

 

On 12/5/2016 at 01:59, ManUtd1 said:

Nicely done, @Areolys!

It was just a lucky punch. We lost the very next match 3-1. Still, best result I've ever gotten by far.

 

Second season is almost over. We've still in it to be promoted. Let's hope we can make it

[Areolys]

 

Season Recap 2017 / 2018

Head Coach’s season recap

Revenge. Where we lacked discipline and consistency last season we came back with a lot more focus. We got our heads down and worked hard all season long. It wasn’t easy, but we managed to surpass our goals and in the end secured ourselves the promotion.

Our last match in the league was against DCK II and with just 1 point behind we could’ve won the league. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. We lost 2-0 and had to play the second half with just 10, since one of our youngsters got sent off.

However, a few days later we faced them again in the Brain Hall Challenge Cup final. Revenge was ours as we beat them 3-0 and gave them no chance to ever get into this game.

So, next season we will be playing in Division 8 - let’s see how we’ll do there. I’m confident of our team and the effort we will be putting into every single training and match. Be it a friendly, a cup game or the deciding match of the league. We’re ready for division 8.

     

 

 

    

Results & Tables

     

 

Youth Intake

          

 

     

 

Transfers out

We lost our backup goalie in January, so we had to sign a young goalkeeper this year, no matter how bad he’d be. Other than that our team stayed loyal. Even though many offers were made (and eventually rejected).

English & International Football Season Recap

     

 

     

Final Words

Mission accomplished. It’s getting better and our tactics and strategy works really well. We’re still getting a lot of shots and don’t convert well, but that’s just some minor tweaks I hopefully can get worked out sooner or later.

[Areolys]

New Main Sponsor: Bedlam Brewery

The Bedlam Brewery in nearby Albourne are set to be the new main sponsor of the team. Today the board presented the new head sponsor as well as the new team kits for the upcoming season.

Will the team from Areolys Masterson be able to continue to impressin Division 8? They'll certainly look the part!

[ManUtd1]

Nice kits and a solid season, @AreolysAreoly! 

[Areolys]

[Areolys]

2 hours ago, ManUtd1 said:

Nice kits and a solid season, @AreolysAreoly! 

My first attempt at doing kits in FM. 

Thanks for commenting

[ManUtd1]

3 minutes ago, Areolys said:

Thanks for commenting

Of course, it keeps the passion going, to see that genuine interest 

[phnompenhandy]

Loving your logo and sponsors - graphics genius we have here 

 

I told you elsewhere the first season would be a struggle and you'd get it together in the second season, and so it turned out. The level of opposition doesn't really improve through the amateur leagues, so you should get up a head of steam now. Good luck!

[Areolys]

12 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

I told you elsewhere the first season would be a struggle and you'd get it together in the second season, and so it turned out. The level of opposition doesn't really improve through the amateur leagues, so you should get up a head of steam now. Good luck!

 

Yeah, you totally called it.  Glad you were right! Let's see how it'll go next season. With even less games this year we'll have to make sure we bring our A-game every time!

[Areolys]

 

Season Recap 2018 / 2019

Head Coach’s season recap

Rollercoaster. The whole season was an up and down. We had a terrible start, but managed to turn things around. At the end we had to first fight off relegation while still having a mathematical chance for promotion. It wasn’t meant to be, and we finished in 4st spot. All in all still not a bad result, and the team will be back next year, hungry for promotion.

 

Financially the club took a huge gamble in the future by investing in the youth and making sure our youth ranking will be improved. Currently, our financial situation is grim, but with good results we hope to slowly pay back our debts.

 

     

 

 

     

Results & Tables

     

 

Youth Intake

          

 

     

Transfers out

 

This season was the season of some quite big losses. We lost our previous and future goalscorers as well as one of our top midfielders. We were lucky to find fantastic replacements with our new youth intake, so in the end the losses were not as bad as they seemed at the time.

You gotta deal with those punches as amateurs, right?

English & International Football Season Recap

     

 

     

Final Words

Oh my. Will I ever learn? We changed way too many positions and players at the beginning of the season (8 players in total). Not 100% sure if that was the problem, but I think it was. We only got 1 point out of 6 games... However, it was good, since it was the introduction of a new selection system that will stay for a while. In the future we should not have as much changes anymore. And if we do, we'll introduce them one by one over a period of games. I've also now selected a fixed bench of players that will be our subs as long as no one is injured.

The new system has rankings for each position based on stats, but I may put too much focus on stats and too little focus on actual performances. Since my previous FB R had a better rating than my new one, that's supposed to be better. Maybe he'll just need some time, maybe my system is not as good as I thought it was... Who knows...

Additionally, I've finally got to the point where I realized how insane my plan is. I won't reach the premier league before 2050, if ever. The time each season currently takes this will most likely be over a year, so chances are slim that I'll ever make it. I'll still try, but currently I also feel like creating a second save with a top team in another league and not just play with terrible players all the time, but for now I'll stick to this save and get forward. It's frustrating, fun and horribly stupid all at once. It's how I like it
(I only want to play a top team to see if it's me, the tactics or my players. And to actually play and use current known players. Plus, I kind of want "my club" to finally make it in Europe. But I don't want to give up this save and I want to advance further, so for now, I keep myself from starting another save.)

[Areolys]

 

Season Recap 2019 / 2020

Head Coach’s season recap

Upwards. The team was ready and hungry since game one. We managed to stay up top for the bigger part of the season and only lost one game in the league this season. Our good form gave us plenty of chances to test out small tweaks here and there and surprise our opponents with a new twist to our tried and tested 4-3-3 / 4-1-2-2-1.

Divison Seven: We’re ready, are you?

 

In other news, the club has successfully improved their youth level to category 4. We're excited to hopefully see new great talents emerge from this push. The financial situation will remain somewhat insecure for the near future.

 

     

 

 

     

Results & Tables

     

 

Youth Intake

          

 

     

 

Transfers out

 

This season we only lost out WBL. Not too bad considering we found a decent replacement for him in this years youth intake.

Full Squad

English & International Football Season Recap

     

 

     

Final Words

What a season! We couldn't have done a much better job! And what a relieve after the rollercoaster of the past season. It looks like we're finally getting things together. Let's hope we can continue our run next season in division 7. Will we be able to get our first back to back promotion? We'll see. As long as we won't get relegated it's all good. We've got time, don't we? ;-)

The only concern is the financial situation. As long as we keep improving and keep getting more and more fans to come to the games we should do fine, as of now it's our only way to make any income.

[Areolys]

[phnompenhandy]

Well done, although exactly as I foretold. Divisions 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 are all much of a muchness, so once you conquer Division 8 the next few seasons should be plain sailing.

Financially, well you've just gotta suck it up. There's no money in cup runs at this level and you can't sell players for profit, so just leave it to the chairman to stress out about the losses, and keep hassling him to improve facilities as these are the bricks and mortar for the future when you do meet better quality opposition.

After a few games in the new league with your strongest starting 11, you should find yourself in the comfortable position of being able to bed in a couple of intake kids each match and still win. This way you can give all your squad sufficient first team experience. Take the cup games seriously - don't play all your intakes in one game - the longer the cup run the more first team experience the players get, and if it means losing or drawing the odd league game there should still be enough in the tank to win the league.

Good luck, you should be flying now. But keep looking a couple of moves (ie seasons) ahead to make sure you have strong foundations for long-term success.

[Areolys]

On 12/14/2016 at 03:48, phnompenhandy said:

Well done, although exactly as I foretold. Divisions 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 are all much of a muchness, so once you conquer Division 8 the next few seasons should be plain sailing.

Financially, well you've just gotta suck it up. There's no money in cup runs at this level and you can't sell players for profit, so just leave it to the chairman to stress out about the losses, and keep hassling him to improve facilities as these are the bricks and mortar for the future when you do meet better quality opposition.

After a few games in the new league with your strongest starting 11, you should find yourself in the comfortable position of being able to bed in a couple of intake kids each match and still win. This way you can give all your squad sufficient first team experience. Take the cup games seriously - don't play all your intakes in one game - the longer the cup run the more first team experience the players get, and if it means losing or drawing the odd league game there should still be enough in the tank to win the league.

Good luck, you should be flying now. But keep looking a couple of moves (ie seasons) ahead to make sure you have strong foundations for long-term success.

 

Thanks for your encouragement

Will follow your suggestions. Up until now I've always found better youth players that could play in the first team straight away, but this year I'm starting to ease them in a little slower since they're about the same attributes wise and I give priority to the players who've proven themselves in the past.

But I've come to believe that attributes don't mean that much and it's much more important to have good morale, good form and tactical knowledge. Or maybe it's just pure luck.

[Areolys]

Is there even a chance to disappoint the board this season?

Call me crazy, but we'll still be pushing to win the league!

[phnompenhandy]

13 minutes ago, Areolys said:

Is there even a chance to disappoint the board this season?

Call me crazy, but we'll still be pushing to win the league!

Oh that's interesting. According to discussions above and my own experience what ought to have happened is that your promotion triggered a club reputation bug, which should make you favourites for promotion. Wonder why that hasn't happened to you. It's all to your advantage mind you, as you're under less pressure but should still achieve the same result.

And you're right about attributes. More important is morale, YOUR tactical knowledge - and the kids' personalities. Not luck!  (form fluctuates due to low consistency attributes; maybe there is an element of luck in how many have an off-day at the same time).

[Areolys]

Takeover

We managed to keep the job and it seems that our financial problems solved themselves as well. All in all looking good - for now.

[Areolys]

 

Season Recap 2020 / 2021

Head Coach’s season recap

Downhill. The season started so well. We were up in contention for promotion up until the middle of the season. We also did quite well in the cups. But after a bad series of games we had to burry our hopes of promotion for this year.

Once again, we didn’t manage to get a back to back promotion, but at least we managed to stay well away from relegation this season. We’ll have to give it another go next season and hopefully make it happen then.

     

   

Results & Tables

     

 

Youth Intake

          

     

Transfers out

 

Our first two players to retire.

Full Squad

English & International Football Season Recap

     

 

 

     

Final Words

Not again… It was really frustrating to lose one place after the other and to drop down and out of the race for promotion. I don’t know if there’s much that I could do to help it, but to me it doesn’t look like it… Try again.

[north_london_fan]

Hello Areolys. It is an interesting idea combining the youth academy challenge with a lower league save. I will follow your progress. Best of luck.

[Areolys]

On 12/17/2016 at 22:57, north_london_fan said:

Hello Areolys. It is an interesting idea combining the youth academy challenge with a lower league save. I will follow your progress. Best of luck.

Thanks! I hope I'll perform well in the future and get some great results to keep this save going as far as I can

[Areolys]

 

Season Recap 2021 / 2022

Head Coach’s season recap

Uphill. And up we go! The first half of the season was very tough. We managed to get many draws and close wins, but only by working extra hard and staying patient. In February we decided to go a new route and to change our tactics. At the end of the season we started to see the first results of the tactical change, and I am certain that it was the right move looking forward.

     

     

 

 

Results & Tables

     

 

Youth Intake

          

 

     

Transfers out

 

No big losses this year, Collins wasn't fitting into our new formation and Lee Dixon didn't play regularly for the past few years.

Full Squad

     

Our club is steadily growing. We've got 22 players in the first squad and another 11 or so in the second squad. I hope that now our AssMan will schedule more U23 friendlies so that all our players keep a decent fitness throughout the season.

(Currently set to schedule a match if 11 or more players are not fit. Might have to change it to schedule one each week if it's not working otherwise...) 

English & International Football Season Recap

     

 

     

Final Words

Phew! We managed promotion. We're now playing a 4-4-2 since we had too much trouble with our old formation as we were too reliant on our IF and couldn't get any results against teams with a heavy defense. Now we play wider and with more variety. We'll see how it goes next season! 
oh yeah, and we'll get better training facilities soon too! (After asking for nearly a year)

[ManUtd1]

Congrats on the promotion!  What level does that put you at?

[Areolys]

9 minutes ago, ManUtd1 said:

Congrats on the promotion!  What level does that put you at?

Thanks!

We're now at Division Six / Level 19, so still a loong way to go

I still hope we'll one day get back to back promotions going. One can dream, right?  

[Areolys]

[ManUtd1]

Sometimes, that's all we can do!

[Areolys]

We'll see about that...

[Areolys]

Halfway through... Cloud this be the season we manage to get promoted straight away?

[phnompenhandy]

Have you got your new training facilities yet? My first upgrade was ready at the end of October. I expected the increase to go from 1 > 2 but in fact it's leapt to 4, which should see me sweet for 3 or 4 years, I reckon. It put my finances massively in the red mind you; having said your finances were sorted, what are they like with the costs of the upgrade included?

[Areolys]

Santa came a day later this year.

I'm just about to start January.

 

Financially we're doing fantastic. I don't know how, but we're quite rich for a division six team:

We still got a bank loan of 127k that runs for another 8 years from our first upgrade (Youth level up to 4), but the training facilities were all paid for by the club itself.

 

We'll see what we will be upgrading next. I keep asking the board to upgrade training or youth facilities or to buy the stadium to get a better field condition. Whatever they say yes to next will be upgraded first  

I guess the sooner we get this sorted the better. We're currently predicted dead last for the past 3 seasons and we're almost always supposed to lose any game we enter. I don't know how the media prediction and the odds are calculated but I don't think they're that accurate to begin with.

But I've seen that we're slowly getting taken over by the other teams in the team comparisons. Hopefully the better training facilities will help up to get some improvements from our players. Currently, they don't develop much (if at all!)

 

Coaching wise I keep improving my license. For now I don't like to send anyone else from the team to courses, since they usually leave right after they're done with their studies.  Once we got them under contract then we'll expand coaching and send them to the courses too.

[north_london_fan]

Good job on getting promoted. I hope you can do it again this season too. Have you been offered any job interviews from any big clubs by any chance? If so what was the biggest team to offer an interview?

[Areolys]

8 hours ago, north_london_fan said:

Good job on getting promoted. I hope you can do it again this season too. Have you been offered any job interviews from any big clubs by any chance? If so what was the biggest team to offer an interview?

Thanks! We'll see if I can do it. So far we've never gotten a back to back promotion and always had to give it a second try, so it would be sweet if we manage to do it this time round.

Yes, do I get quite some job interviews. The best team that wanted to hire me was FC United of Manchester. They're currently in the Vanarama National League. Would have saved me years and years to just take them on, but I'll stay strong until we manage to win the Champions League at least once. After that I might move to another country and do it all over again ;-) (If I'll ever get that far...)

Luckily it's not as many job interviews as with my previous save where I've gotten hundreds of interview offers - literally 20+ a week, every week. That was kinda annoying.

[Areolys]

 

Season Recap 2022 / 2023

Head Coach’s season recap

What a season! The team is finally coming together and we seem to have found our formation - for now.

We managed to do the impossible: Get promoted back-to-back. But not only that - We managed to do it when nobody believed in us. The media predicted us to finish dead last twice - and twice we proved them wrong winning the league and getting promoted!

Oh, and this year we actually got a double, winning the Malins Challenge Cup too!

The boys worked hard and earned their success this year. But after the holidays we gotta come back and work even harder. The competition keeps getting better and better and if we want to go anywhere we need to be one step ahead of them. All day, every day.

     

     

 

Oh yeah, we also kinda smashed some records while we were here. Might as well, right?

In other news, this season we improved our training facilities, we bought Adastra Park and we managed to convinced our board to relay our field, it was in a terrible state and we just had too many injuries.

Results & Tables

     

 

Youth Intake

          

 

     

Transfers out

Best. Season. Ever!

Full Squad

     

English & International Football Season Recap

     

 

     

 

Final Words

Finally! Now that we’re on a roll let’s keep this going and move on up.

After all, it’s (still) a long way to the top.

[phnompenhandy]

Well done! I'm still bemused about your major infrastructure expenses - where on Earth do the board find the money? Did you give yourself  sugar daddy?

I can understand your reasons for not investing in coaching badges; however, I've been monitoring this closely and am amazed at just how much in terms of CA a coach leaps after a course. For 600 quid you sure get your money's worth - I'd say so long as you know the coach hasn't peaked and can benefit, give him a long contract, bump up his wages and get him on a course. If you lose him you make a tidy profit from the compensation.

[Areolys]

41 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

Well done! I'm still bemused about your major infrastructure expenses - where on Earth do the board find the money? Did you give yourself  sugar daddy?

I can understand your reasons for not investing in coaching badges; however, I've been monitoring this closely and am amazed at just how much in terms of CA a coach leaps after a course. For 600 quid you sure get your money's worth - I'd say so long as you know the coach hasn't peaked and can benefit, give him a long contract, bump up his wages and get him on a course. If you lose him you make a tidy profit from the compensation.

 

Yeah, it seems a bit odd.

They don't always grant me what I want, but I've been granted my wishes twice now, after stressing how important this upgrade is. 

We did have a takeover, so we might have been bought by a sugar daddy, but I don't have the editor and did not add it myself.

We currently have two bank loans of a total of 500k/ 446k remaining. But we've also got nearly 250k in the bank so we should be good for a while.

Let's see if they're still up for investing further in the club now. But first I want to see if we actually make our money back each month.

 

About the coaching: As soon as we'll be semi-pro I'll send them all to courses, but right now can only sign them "for fun" as we're still an amateur team. 

[phnompenhandy]

23 minutes ago, Areolys said:

But first I want to see if we actually make our money back each month.

 

It's not possible. You're not in the FA Cup or any competition that could bring in a big gate, and you can't sell any amateur players. Your gate income must surely be a tiny fraction of your monthly loan payments. Where did 250K come from?