Berwick Rangers: An English Club in Scotland

ratmsm1 said:
David Syme. A couple years back, FM 15 or 16, when he was at Killie, he could develop into a beast of a CB.
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Didn't realise he was once touted for big things, just read an article on the SPFL website from January 2016 that describes him as a wonderkid. My assistant thinks he'll only ever reach the potential of a League 1 player now.
 
Ready to throw my laptop out of the window

This is going to be long post…

So firstly Scott Scott the Scot scored his first league goal of the season against us. Let’s be honest it was always going to happen, and it is annoying, but it’s by far the least of my annoyances.

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Aside from the obligatory loss to Inverness we’ve progressed to the quarter final of the Challenge Cup, beaten Dumbarton 6-0 and even kept 3 consecutive clean sheets in the league. After this good run our next two league games were against 9th​ and 10th​ placed Albion Rovers and East Fife.

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This was it… we were about to pull away and make second place in the league our own. Then this happened.

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We've beat Dumbarton 6-0 away already this season yet somehow we’ve managed to lose 4-0 and 3-0 to the worst teams in the league! I don’t know if a tactic change is needed or if that’s just football.

What’s more worrying though is that Inverness have actually started dropping points however after those results we’re only in 5th​ and some team called Cove Rangers are making a serious effort to achieve 3 promotions in 3 seasons.

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There’s more...

Our golden generation is no longer. Suddenly they’re all rubbish and will only be League 1 players at best. I don’t know what’s going on (well I do it’s a mixture of the low determination of the players, along with a lack of youth team coaches and adequate facilities) but I’ve never known such a rapid decline in potential ability to occur in such a short space of time.

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I know the under 20s squad doesn’t look that bad but 6 months ago we had about 8 players all with 5 star potential ability.

Finally, remember Marc Fitzpatrick? You probably don’t. He’s on £350 a week and by far the highest earner in the squad because we have a lot of young players who need tutoring plus we needed another central midfielder. As I mentioned in the season preview he got injured the day after he signed, for 3 months, and has only recently came back into the first team picture.

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Now, Marc Fitzpatrick was NOT injury prone when I decided to make him my highest paid player, nor was he only a 1 and a half star player like he was just before he damaged his cruciate ligaments. His Berwick career is now over after only a couple of sub appearances.

I wish I could get the £8,750 back that I’m going to spend in wages on him.
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Panic Over, Crisis Averted

So 3 games after thinking I was destined to stay in League 1 forever I've realised that I may have been a bit over the top. Fickle I know.

After a formation change we’ve won our last 3 in the league and kept 3 clean sheets.

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A special mention has to go to Michael McKenna who has come into the team as the shadow striker in my midfield diamond. Despite only being a 2 star player, he’s been in the Team of the Year for the past 2 seasons and scored the all-important goal in the League Two play offs in our first season. I shouldn’t have dropped you Michael, I’m sorry.

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Another thing I’m sorry for is being harsh on Marc Fitzpatrick and his injury. He has now decided to retire. Sorry for bringing you to Berwick and ruining your career Marc.

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On a more positive note we now sit in second place because Cove Rangers have finally started losing.

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Hopefully things are falling into place for what is now becoming a tradition of us finishing second in the league.
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Victory in the Cup and a Star Signing

We’ve performed well since switching to a midfield diamond and this was typified by a 4-0 win over bottom of the SPL St Johnstone in the 4th​ round of the Scottish Cup.

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Also in the January transfer window I actually managed to sign a decent player, here’s Joe McKee who is our highest paid player by a mile but is genuine Championship quality.

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Of course on the very the same day I signed him he got injured. If you look at the two screenshots he’s fine at 7:30 in the morning then by 16:15 he’s injured!

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Despite this with 12 games remaining we are 3rd​ in the league and already 10 points clear of 5th​. Aaron Murrell is second highest scorer and Scott Brown has one of the highest average ratings in the league.

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It looks like the playoffs await us once more.​
 
Possible Title Decider and Scott Scott Update

Our form for the last 3 months has been excellent and we were unlucky not to get to the quarter final of the cup after losing 1-0 to Falkirk. On the bright side we got around £70,000 in gate receipts.

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As things stand we’re only 4 points behind Inverness in League One and play them next.


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There are still 9 games to go but this game could decide the title, especially as they are on a bad run which continued with a 3-1 loss to Cove Rangers.

However our form against Inverness this season is the only reason why we’re not top. We’ve lost all 3 games against them.

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Scott Scott the Scot was placed on the loan market by them in January (I already had the maximum amount of loan players or else I would have).

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Of course his goal against us is still his only one all season in the league.
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Inverness Result and Youth Intake

We managed to avoid defeat against Inverness but sadly I don’t think a 0-0 will be enough to stop them from going on to win the league now.

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Soon after that we got our youth intake and here we go again, it’s a golden generation.

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I’m not going to believe the hype this time round but Josh Boyle does look promising.

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For the first time in the save we had a fan day, arranged for our game against bottom of the table Arbroath in what would obviously be a comfortable win. You know what happened next.

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Of course we lost 2-1 and with that pretty much gave the title to Inverness.

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The next post will be after the last league game when we find out who our playoff opponent will be.
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End of 2019/20 Season and Playoff Opponent

Yet again we’ve finished second in League One. In fact in every season of this save we’ve finished second.

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Achieving the target set by the board of finishing in a playoff place has seen me awarded with a contract for another year.

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Despite this we haven’t won in our last 3 games so form is not great heading into the semi final against Cove Rangers. East Fife will play Championship side Livingston in the other playoff.

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Cove have performed amazingly this season, they were expected to go straight back down to League Two and are looking for their third promotion in 3 years. However I am confident of progressing to the final, as they do not have a particularly strong squad.

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A downside however is that our best player Joe McKee is out injured for the playoffs (he’s already becoming too injury prone for my liking) otherwise we have a full strength team for the first leg.

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We’re playoff veterans now, surely we have enough to get past Cove.​
 
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Playoff Semi Final 2020

First Leg – Cove Rangers 1-0 Berwick

So the first leg did not go well… both teams only had one shot on target and Cove’s goal came from a corner. We’ve now not won in 4 games. Please FM, not like this!

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Second Leg – Berwick 2-0 Cove Rangers

Phew! We’ve scraped past Cove in the semi finals and have Yaw Osei to thank for scoring with one minute to go. He’s done next to nothing all season but that goal has redeemed everything.

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Victory however has come at a price. 2 key players, Tom Grivosti and Scott Campbell, picked up injuries. I’ve decided to give Campbell an injection so he can play in the first leg of the final as we’re running out of midfielders.

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So in the playoff final we will play Livingston, who finished 9th​ in the Championship this season.

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It will be a career low for me if we were to lose against a team that plays at the Tony Macaroni Arena...

Thankfully I think it’s an easier opponent than Raith Rovers, who we had in the final last year. Despite this they still have a strong squad and we did not look convincing against Cove at all.

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Their best player Martin McCulloch has only just come from their most recent youth intake, he’s surely going to be the next big thing for Scotland and we might be seeing plenty of him if we progress up the leagues.

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That’s a big if though, we might be spending another season in League One if he plays well.
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Playoff Final 2020

First Leg - Livingston 1-4 Berwick

You read correctly, unbelievably we managed to beat Livingston 4-1 away from home in the first leg. They had a tired and presumably low on morale squad and we managed to capitalise on that, with John Wilson (who was in our first youth intake) opening the scoring and Aaron Murrell grabbing a hattrick.

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I think that’s justification for playing at a stadium called Tony Macaroni.

We’re all but in the Championship now… surely?






Second Leg - Berwick 2-0 Livingston

Berwick are promoted to the Championship

No bottlejob here. We’re promoted to the championship! It’s incredible that the semi final turned out to be trickier than the final.

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Turns out we didn’t miss Scott Scott the Scot after all!
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It was obviously Scott Scott holding you back all along 8-|
 
Season Review 2019/20

Here’s the Player Stats from the 2019/20 season.

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Our striker Conor Scullion, who has always played second fiddle up until this season, won League One Player of the Year. He’s on £70 a week. Hero.

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We also have 3 players in the League One Team of the Year including Scott Brown for the second year in a row. Incidentally all 3 players are considered to be leading players for League 2 sides and so will probably be back up next season.

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Third choice right back Callum Davidson, who made 4 appearances and will be leaving when his contract expires in the summer, was our signing of the season... obviously.

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We have a £4,000 wage budget next year. I imagine that’s a lot less than other teams in the Championship.

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So the next post will be the preview of our first season in the Championship. We’ll be entering a league with professional teams who have a lot of quality players so it could be a struggle.

Some wheelin' and dealin' is needed.​
 
Good luck! Difficult challenge not made any easier with those budget restrictions! Any decent loan signings available?
 
2020/21 Season Preview

So we’re 1 of 3 teams in the Championship who are still semi-professional and don’t have enough money to upgrade either our training or youth facilities. I think a 9th​ place finish is fairly realistic.

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However I’ve upgraded my staff to pretty much the best backroom team in the league and we have made some decent-ish purchases.

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Lee Farrell was a steal for £5,000 and for the first time in the save I actually have a first choice keeper who is not on loan.

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We may need another striker, as John Wilson is demanding a move to Hibernian. He was in our first youth intake and only broke into the team at the end of last season.

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Here’s a look at the squad in full, a 3 and a half star player is well suited to Championship football.

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For some reason a friendly was arranged during preseason against Chelsea. I thought we did quite well to only lose 5-1 and it was probably worth it for the gate receipts.

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Our first game of the season is against St Johnstone who were relegated from the SPL last season. We did however beat them 4-0 in the cup earlier in the year.

Anything other than relegation will be a success this season.
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Shaky Start and More Transfers

After 5 games things are not looking great as we sit bottom of the table.

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There were positive signs after we drew our first three games but we’re now winless in six and have a habit of throwing away leads which was typified when we lost 3-2 to St Johnstone in the cup after going 2-0 up.

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Our next two games are against the two other semi-professional teams in the division Ayr and Stranraer. We need to pick up points against them throughout the season if we are to stay up.

We also bought in Nicky Clark as a replacement for John Wilson… who ended up staying at the club when Hibs ended their interest in him.

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Lastly, after denying all of my request for improved facilities, affiliate clubs, and more scouts the board actually decided to do something… by accepting a bid from Barnsley for our young midfielder Josh Boyle.

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£240,000 is not bad and he wont move until he is 18, but we could’ve got a far better deal and won’t actually have the money in the bank until he leaves in 2022.
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