Berwick Rangers: An English Club in Scotland

Good lord that's a serious intake - never seen a "golden generation" mentioned before, that's pretty cool. Could almost make an entire starting XI out of that lot!
 
LemonyFresh said:
Loving this save !! great intake !!
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PatrickLFC said:
Good lord that's a serious intake - never seen a "golden generation" mentioned before, that's pretty cool. Could almost make an entire starting XI out of that lot!
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It's a great intake but the players aren't at the greatest place to develop. The board won’t let me have any youth team coaches, our youth facilities are below average, and a lot of the players have very low determination and are refusing to be tutored. I just hope their potential doesn’t get wasted here.
 
Looks like a playoff place… Again!

This season we’ve started to grind out wins, which is a factor as to why it looks like we will once again be participating in playoffs at the end of the season. With 6 games left we’re 7 points ahead of 5th ​place Brechin.

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Once again Scott Scott has been the difference this season with 20 goals and 7 assists in 28 league games.

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Inverness, his parent club, are still bottom of the Championship, so there is a real possibility we could come up against them in the play offs and an even greater possibility that Scott Scott will be playing against us next season.

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Should look into how often a golden generation comes in? is it like the class of 92 and is it rare in the game ?
 
LemonyFresh said:
Should look into how often a golden generation comes in? is it like the class of 92 and is it rare in the game ?
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I'm not sure if a youth intake being described as a "golden generation" is a new feature in this FM or whether it's always been there. But I certainly think the quality of youth intakes have become a lot better on FM18 compared to previous games.
 
Another 2nd Place Finish

After a strong end to the season we have once again finished second in the league and therefore enter the playoffs to determine whether we go up to the Championship at the first attempt.

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Incredibly Inverness were relegated and so will be playing in League 1 next season.

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Even more incredibly, shortly before our final league game against Alloa, Scott Scott rejected the chance to join us on loan next season. He must be in with a real chance of being the starting striker for Inverness next season.

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In the Playoff semi final we face Peterhead, who were promoted as champions along with us last season. Championship side Raith face Dumbarton in the other semi final.

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We have struggled against them this season and I think it’s fair to say that they are my bogey team as I’ve only beaten them once in my managerial career.

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However we negotiated the playoffs last season, I don’t see why we can’t to do the same this year.

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With any luck if you win promotion you can get Scott Scott the Scot again, either on loan or even permanently since you'd be a league above Inverness
 
PatrickLFC said:
With any luck if you win promotion you can get Scott Scott the Scot again, either on loan or even permanently since you'd be a league above Inverness
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Agree, he's not wanting to sign again now, but if you swap leagues with Inverness then he may reconsider another tempory move, maybe even a permanent one
 
Just caught up and really enjoying this. Good luck with the playoffs.
 
PatrickLFC said:
With any luck if you win promotion you can get Scott Scott the Scot again, either on loan or even permanently since you'd be a league above Inverness
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neavie pops23 said:
Agree, he's not wanting to sign again now, but if you swap leagues with Inverness then he may reconsider another tempory move, maybe even a permanent one
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Yeah can't disagree, if we both stay in League 1 I can't see him leaving Inverness though. The playoffs are twice as important now... A place in the Championship and the signing of Scott Scott are up for grabs.
 
Playoff Semi Final

First Leg: Peterhead 1-1 Berwick

I was willing to accept a 1-0 loss in the first leg. I even took off my two free scoring strikers as they were not performing well and gave my backup strikers a run out for 20 minutes to see what they could do.

Then in the very last minute, from a goal kick no less, our 4th​ choice striker Jamie Longworth came up with the goods to put us in pole position for the second leg.

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It’s the first time my goalkeeper has got an assist from a goal kick on FM and it could be the most important assist of the season.



Second Leg: Berwick 2-0 Peterhead

It was pretty dull and uneventful in both legs but we’ve managed to overcome Peterhead and get to the final. Scott Scott put some gloss on the result by scoring in the last minute in an otherwise even second leg.

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However Aaron Murrell came off injured and is out for both legs of the final and could be a big miss.

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In the final we will play Raith Rovers after they overcame Dumbarton in the other semi final.

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Anything can happen in the playoffs, but they evidently have a far superior squad and a vastly larger wage budget than ours. They have a player on £1,200 a week when our highest paid player is on £200 a week.

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It’s a David v Goliath in the playoff final. I can’t say I’m too confident…​
 
Playoff Final

First Leg: Raith 3-1 Berwick

Raith’s quality showed and they completely outplayed us in the first leg. Once their top scorer Ryan Hardie scored 2 quick goals we were never going to get back in the game.

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It was also no coincidence that we lost comfortably when Scott Scott’s rating was 5.9.



Second Leg: Berwick 1-1 Raith

Berwick will remain in League 1 next season.

Unfortunately we couldn’t overturn the first leg deficit and ended losing to Raith 4-2 on aggregate. It was quite gutting because we actually played very well in the second leg but it just wasn’t to be.

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It was a tall ask to get past Raith and it’s evident that there is a gulf in class between League 1 and the Championship.

The plan is to get promotion next year though, can’t accept anything less.
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Possibly no bad thing to wait a year, gives you a chance to further upgrade the squad.
 
Unlucky not getting to go up this season, hope Scott Scott the Scot can come back again with Inverness going down in the closest relegation I've ever seen score one more goal they get into the playoffs and two more they stay up
 
johnstrac said:
Possibly no bad thing to wait a year, gives you a chance to further upgrade the squad.
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Yeah think you're right mate, I discovered playing Raith that the jump up to the Championship is quite large so two promotions in a row may have been too soon for us.

ninjaskill said:
Unlucky not getting to go up this season, hope Scott Scott the Scot can come back again with Inverness going down in the closest relegation I've ever seen score one more goal they get into the playoffs and two more they stay up
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I didn't realise until afterwards that Falkirk played Inverness in the last game of the season and if Inverness won that game they would've finished 8th but they drew and instead finished bottom! And I don't think Scott Scott the Scot is going to be here next season to be honest, Inverness still won't budge and even he isn't interested still.
 
2018/19 Season Review

Here are the squad overview and player stats from the 2018/19 season. Again I’m looking forward to looking back at these when we’re champions of Scotland and good enough to beat Raith 20-0...

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Michael McKenna was in the Team of the Year for the second season running and was joined by Scott Brown (not that one) who was a free signing we made a month into the season.

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Our signing of the season was Scott Campbell who I picked up on a free from Queen of the South around February. He’s another young gem who hopefully we can profit from in the future.

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So, with Inverness in our division next year, winning the league will be incredibly tough. Hopefully we can build a squad that will be competitive in the playoffs next year.
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Unlucky in the playoffs mate, fingers crossed for next season and here's hoping Inverness dont adapt and struggle really badly!
 
2019/20 Season Preview

The transfer window has not been a great one for us, it’s very difficult to find players who are good enough and want to join. However we did splash the cash on David Syme… who cost £40.

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As Scott Scott is now firmly part of the first team at Inverness we have signed Yaw Osei as his replacement. He’s not naturally an advanced forward but was the only decent striker I could find who had some pace.

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He performed well pre season but then, typically, got injured for 6 weeks. Another signing Marc Fitzpatrick, our highest earner on £350 a week, decided to dislocate his shoulder the day after he joined so is out for 3-4 months. All together we start the season with 8 first team players either injured or suspended.

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Here’s a look at the squad, I’m still trying to get more players in but at the moment we’re going to be relying on the younger players this season.

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Our pre-season was promising, especially our performance in the League Cup where we almost topped our group.

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You may have noticed that we’ll be facing Inverness in the first game of the season. Of course it had to be Inverness. It’s kind of poetic how we’ll come up against Scott Scott at the earliest available opportunity, in my 100th​ game in charge as well.


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Inverness are still a professional side and are unsurprisingly overwhelming favourites for the league. We’re predicted to finish 4th​ and it looks like the playoffs will be the best chance for us to get promoted, as Inverness will surely prove to be too strong for this league.


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This year we’ll see how much we’ve relied on Scott Scott for the past two seasons, hopefully it wasn’t too much.
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More Transfers and 2019/20 Season Start

After all the hype Scott Scott was an unused substitute for Inverness, which just shows how strong their squad is. We lost the game against them 3-1.

I’ve also added 2 new players. The first is goalkeeper Maciej Dabrowski from Hibs who we had on loan last season.

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As well as this, we have spent £5,000 on centre back Daryll Meggatt from Alloa. We actually had some money in the transfer budget this season, presumably because of the profits we made from our Scottish cup game against Hibs last season.

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As for the league, Inverness and Airdrie are already 5 points clear and both are unbeaten after 6 games. For us, Aaron Murrell and Conor Scullion are forming quite the partnership up front and Murrell even has the highest average rating in the league.

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We’re also performing well in the Scottish Challenge Cup where we will face Partick Thistle under 20s for a place in the quarter final.

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Obviously the league is more important for us and we need to make sure Airdrie do not widen the gap between us.
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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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