A Huddersfield Town Story by Nathan Butler.

[NathanButler94]

Huddersfield Town A.F.C

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I myself am a lifelong Huddersfield Town fan, hence my reason for choosing them on this save. I have watched them struggle through season after season in League one and finally achieve promotion into the Championship last year. On this save I am going to attempt to take them to the next level into the Premier League and even onto Champions League glory in the future.


Background

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Huddersfield Town were formed in 1908 and bring with them an extremely successful History, albeit in the 1920's. The club won the English top division three times in a row (One of only four teams to do so) and even secured the F.A cup in 1922. As of late the Terriers have fought it out in league one and were promoted to the English Championship in the 2012-2013 season.

The Club possess Average training facilities and adequate youth facilities, which of course I will be trying to improve as I go along. A quiet recent takeover from Huddersfield fan Dean Hoyle has left the club in a secure financial position, meaning I shouldn't have any difficulties in that aspect. The clubs main rivals are Leeds United.



Database

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For my Database I have loaded all English leagues down to the Blue square North/South. This will enable me to fully scout the country and hopefully find some gems in the lower leagues. I have also selected a 'large' game database and loaded all 'players with national reputation' in North America, South America and Europe. This should give me the best chance to keep tabs on notable foreign players without slowing my game by loading several leagues which I don't intent to play in.

Season Expectations

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As for the boards expectations for the season, the least that they ask is that you consolidate a place in the league with a suggestion that relegation wouldn't even lose you the job. I believe that the squad is more capable than this however and chose to tell the board I would achieve a mid-table finish. This will gain you a £1.3M transfer budget and a higher than average wage budget.

Squad/Key Players

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As you can see, the squad is of an average size and contains some players that can dominate anywhere below the Premier League, namely James Vaughan, Jermaine Beckford. These two are both on loan, but acquiring them full-time is not impossible. The squad also contains a lot of youth prospects who can go on to be top players in the game- the most obvious are Center-Back Murray Wallace and Goalkeeper Alex Smithies. These few key players will have to carry the rest of the team unless some serious action is taken in the transfer market.

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Staff

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For now the staff at the club are more than capable and the only real thing that needs doing is to bring in an Assistant Manager- I have chosen Tony Docherty as he has some brilliant stats and works well with youngsters.



I will attempt to take Huddersfield up into the Premier League within the first two years of this save, as I believe the first year will be needed to strengthen the core of the team and improve all facilities. I will use as much of the youth setup as possible but I am not putting any restrictions upon myself to only do this.

I will try to update this thread after every ten games or so and will add one very soon including pre-season and my work in the first transfer market. I hope you all enjoy.​

 

[MrStu01]

Awesome story. Love the layout you have for FM how did you change that? Also looking forward to this post as i have recently started a Leeds United post. Not in as much detail but hoping to take it far. Good luck

 

[NathanButler94]

Thanks. The layout is the classic skin for the full football manager game. I downloaded it quiet easily after a google search. Ill definitely check out your Leeds post. This is my first but from looking at many others, detail isn't everything. Good luck to you too!

 

[NathanButler94]

A Huddersfield Town Story By Nathan Butler, Part Two.

Although I managed to finish this part of my story in an hour or so, I did get caught up watching the E3 conference so didn't have time to post it until now. My apologies.

Transfers In/Out

As I said in the last post, transfers would be vital in my fight to consolidate a place in the Championship this season. The team already had a vast amount of depth with the reserves and youth team, so I was looking more for stability by bringing in some experienced and proven players at this level. I managed to get hold of Papa Bouba Diop on a free transfer who has fantastic stats for this league. I also got Jamie Mackie on loan from QPR and Julio Arca- a very experienced midfielder who should stabilize the core of my team and come up in big matches.
As well as bringing in experience, I am always looking for the future. I managed to find a brilliant young player by the name of Andrew Shinnie. I captured him for relatively no money at all- he has brilliant stats for his age and my Assistant manager believes he can become a key player for the squad in a few years.

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Papa Bouba Diop- Signed on a free transfer and only asked for around 4kpw in wages, which I offered up happily.

Julio Arca- At 400k from Middlesbrough, Arca is a great capture with vast amounts of experience. 12kpw wages.

Jamie Mackie- Premier League quality player on loan, QPR wanting 18kpw of his wages paid. Great value for money.

Andrew Shinnie- 400k to prize him away from Inverness, but looks like a great future prospect. 4kpw in wages.

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At the start of the game, Huddersfield have a lot of players that need to be shipped off as they just don't cut it at this level. People will have different views on Lee Novak and whether he should be sold but he didn't really fit into my plans. With the formation I am using, I don't need three out and out strikers, especially when half of my midfielders are willing to fill in that gap if need be.

All in all, 500k spent to bring in four great players, all of which will greatly improve my squad. I will leave my decision about what to do in the January market up to how well the season is going at that point.


Tactics

I have chosen to use two separate tactics, which I will constantly chop and change to best suit my opponent. I have found that having a set tactic will not help in the long run on Football manager 2013 as it did in the older versions. Tactics have to be adapted along the way based on team reports of opponents and on your own squad. But for now I have two core tactics that I will use to start with, and build upon from here.



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I believe that these two tactics work best with the players at my disposal. I have worked them on the basis of playing the 4-3-3 tactic in games which I believe I have an edge and can control the game. The other 5-2-1-2 tactic is obviously more defensive and will be applied to games which I believe I am the slightly worse side, and also in tights games where I am the away side.


Pre-Season

With these tactics in place, I had a very enjoyable Pre-Season, albeit against a very poor set of teams. I don't mind this however, as I believe pre-season is solely about gaining fitness and team cohesion. I managed to pick up five solid wins and one draw, conceding just one goal in all.

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Facilities

As promised, I pressured the board from very early into making improvements on the facilities at the club. As they are in a very secure financial situation they were more than happy to say yes, and development is underway to improve both training and youth facilities, at a total cost of 3M. Finances will be a huge task for me as I think it is vital to keep the club in a healthy position. I will not be going over the top in the transfer market and will always check the finances to make sure we are making a profit on a monthly basis.

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I will try to update this story every ten matches or so, and will be as quick as I can going about this. Enjoy.​

 

[NathanButler94]

A Huddersfield Town Story By Nathan Butler, Part Three.

As I hit the ten mark game in the league, I am pleasantly surprised at what has been achieved by the the team up until now. I was expecting a very tough start and thought any win that came my way would be a solid 1-0 or scraping a victory out of the hands of defeat. But, due to constantly shifting my tactics, and the transfers brought in, I am sitting pretty in 7th position in the league with just two defeats.

I started out by hiring two more staff members, a goalkeeper and a fitness coach. Both have great stats and have vastly improved my training program.

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As well as this, a major chance in tactics was needed from early on. I quickly realized that my 4-3-3 tactic wasn't right for the players in my squad. I scrapped it completely after a crushing defeat in the first round of the Carling cup to York City. I reevaluated and created a new tactic that better fit my squad and so far has given me fantastic results in the league.

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Overall, I have gathered some fantastic results so far, against much better sides most of the time. I managed to beat Cardiff 2-1 in my second game, crushed Burnley 4-0 and conceded just seven goals in ten games. The transfers I brought in have done brilliant and I wouldn't be where I am without them. Shinnie has become a regular first team player already, kicking Oliver Norwood out of his place. Papa Bouba Diop is a solid midfielder who is yet to have a bad game. Mackie has been scoring at will with even a hat-rick performance against Millwall. On top of this, James Vaughan has been scoring at will, in tandem with great performances from Anthony Gerrard. Overall, the team has reacted very well to a new manager, new signings and completely new tactics.

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As you can see, I had a very poor performance against Blackburn and I thought that it was only downhill from there, but thankfully the team responded brilliantly and professionally. Obviously Jordan Rhodes came back to haunt me- I fear not for the last time- with two goals and an excellent performance overall from Blackburn led to a shattering defeat.

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If I had to pick a key player it would be between Shinnie and Vaughan, but I think that James Vaughan just edges is this first quarter as he has smashed in some crucial goals and even one in the last minute to salvage a point against rival Sheffield Wednesday.

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Overall, the board are very happy with me apart from the performance in the Carling cup. Although disappointing to myself, it does give me more of a chance in the league as there are less games to compete in. I believe that the results will falter later on in the season as fitness drops and injuries are undoubtedly picked up but hopefully this brilliant start to the season is enough to keep me afloat at the end.

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Thanks for reading. I hope there are some people keeping tabs with my story. Please like and any feedback is welcome. I will be along with the next section of my save very soon. Thanks.​