A Baltic Journey

[Tony Hawker]

The Baltic States are rather unknown in terms of football, and all 3 of the nations are in the worst supported leagues in Europe.

9th - Lithuania - 701
5th - Latvia - 466
1st - Estonia - 203

So no-one is watching them, none of the nations are too great so I will rise from the bottom of the Baltic leagues and try to make something out of these backwaters of football.

​

 

[Tony Hawker]

Futbola klubs Valmiera is a Latvian football club, playing in the second-highest division of Latvian football. They are from the city of Valmiera.

Club founded in 1996. It participated in the first Latvian league (second-highest division of Latvian football). The team finished second in the league which gave Valmiera a possibility to battle with the second from the bottom team of Virslīga - Skonto-Metāls for a place in the top division of Latvian football. In the first game in Riga Skonto-Metāls won 1:0 but at home Valmiera overcame the one goal deficit and won 2:0 (I.Maļukovs, Dz. Savaļnieks), thus earning a place in Virslīga.

In the debut season in Virslīga Valmiera managed to finish 7th from 9 teams with a comfortable margin over the two weakest teams. The following season was even more successful as the team finished 5th in Virslīga, the same result was repeated in 1999. The new millennium brought hard financial times for FK Valmiera. After the 2003 season the team had to leave Virslīga begause of financial difficulties and since then has been playing the 1st league paying more attention to evolving of young talents.

Several of former Valmiera players have played in the Latvia national football team. Those include Vits Rimkus (FK Ventspils), Viktors Morozs (FC Skonto), Gatis Kalniņš (FC Skonto), Deniss Romanovs (F.C. Dinamo Bucureşti) and Māris Smirnovs (FK Ventspils).

Key Players:

The League:

 

[Tony Hawker]

2014 Pre-Season

Well what do you know, we had a good Pre-Season, some good results and I have some hope when the league starts in a fortnight.


Transfers:

I've brought in way too many defensive midfielders but here are the best transfers.

 

[Tony Hawker]

April 2014

A very good first month, we're already joint top goalscorers and hopefully our form will stay this good.​

 

[Tony Hawker]

May 2014

Rezekne are proving to be very difficult and annoying hopefully they slip up before we do, Yoo Seung-ki was the best player this month scoring 6 goals.​

 

[Tony Hawker]

June 2014

It's a definite 3 horse race now between ourselves and Rezekne on 35 points and Auda on 32 points with Metalurgs-2 being in 4th on just 20 points! No goals conceded this month which is a massive accomplishment​

 

[Tony Hawker]

July 2014

The league is just getting tighter with 1 point separating the top 3 and 4th place being 18 points behind, we had the chance to get one over Rezekne but could only manage a 0-0 draw which was the only disappointment of the month. In the cup we've been drawn against current Virsliga leaders Daugava.​

 

[Tony Hawker]

September 2014

Probably Valmiera's finest month, through to the cup final after knocking out BOTH 1st and 3rd in the league above!! In the league it's really heating up as we are still inseparable with just 4 games left!!


EDIT: Didn't realise I accidentally did it on the August post, woops!​

 

[Tony Hawker]

October 2014

UNBELIEVABLE JEFF!! Little Traffic 1. Liga side Valmiera have qualified for the Europa League! (It's not all too impossible as in real life Estonian 3rd Division side Santos Tartu qualified for the Europa League)

In the league we are still level on points and hold an 11 point lead over 3rd, 28 point lead over 4th and a 42 point lead over 5th!

 

[Tony Hawker]

Filler for the next page...

 

[Tony Hawker]

Last Game Build-up

One past meeting....a nil-nil draw.


Club Stat Pack

Disciplinary Rules Problems

And that has led to this...

Mayhem...​

 

[Tony Hawker]

End of Season 2014

A great debut season, we dominated and put in an extra show of class to topple Rezneke who still join us in the Virsliga after winning the promotion playoff.

Key Players

​

 

[Tony Hawker]

A little side job to dabble in international management.​

 

[Tony Hawker]

2015 Pre-Season

An unbeaten Pre-Season where we got some good results against much bigger teams!

 

[Tony Hawker]

The One March Fixture

 

[Kris7o]

A very nice story, keep up the good work!

 

[Tony Hawker]

A very nice story, keep up the good work!

Thanks Kris

 

[minergy]

Good story keep it up! I would recommend showing the youth intake though.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[Tony Hawker]

View attachment 347984

Estonia Under 19's

A good debut as under 19's manager, a draw against a better Poland team and a win against a lesser San Marino team.​

 

[dainis]

I'm originally from Latvia, so I'm really curious about how high you may reach with this save. Valmiera is a good city but with not a single team playing in Virsliga (irl), so it's a good choice from my sight Good luck!