Berwick Rangers: An English Club in Scotland

What happened to Celtic's manager (assuming it was still Rodgers)? Was he poached away by an EPL team or something?
 
neavie pops23 said:
What happened to Celtic's manager (assuming it was still Rodgers)? Was he poached away by an EPL team or something?
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Rodgers went to Stoke in 2019 and is still there. Celtic's manager was Paul Lambert until he moved to Watford. His replacement at Celtic was Mark Hughes... who had just been sacked by Watford and replaced by Lambert!
 
Giant Killers

At the top end of the table Celtic are unbeaten in the league...

...that was until Berwick visited Celtic Park.

We ended their unbeaten streak in another crazy 6-goal game against them. Gavin Black scored a hat trick and although they played over a half with 10 men we were deservedly ahead whilst they had 11.

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It’s probably our best result to date and put us 13 points clear of the relegation playoff place. With 11 games left it’d take an almighty slip up to get relegated now.

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Immediately after the Celtic game, in true Berwick style, we lost 3-0 at home to Championship side Morton in the cup. Sunderland loanee Bob Barrett decided to get sent off early on and ruin any chances of us winning the game.

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The fluctuation in results typifies how unpredictable we are. Just a few games earlier we beat Hearts 4-0 then immediately lost 5-0 to Hibernian.

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This season we’ve lost against the bottom team at home and won against the top team away. It’d be scary to think where we’d be if we were consistent.
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Great result against Celtic, showing them what they missed out on ;) Frustrating that you can beat the best team in the league then get stuffed by Hibs.
 
neavie pops23 said:
Great result against Celtic, showing them what they missed out on ;) Frustrating that you can beat the best team in the league then get stuffed by Hibs.
Click to expand...

Very frustrating but I suppose inconsistency is what you get with such a young squad.
 
We. Are. Staying. Up.

We’ve only played 6 games since the last post but there’s a lot to cover. Firstly, relegation is now mathematically impossible.

Berwick will NOT be relegated this season!

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A pretty monumental feat considering the size of the club compared to others in the division.

The win against Celtic was actually the start of a 5 game winning streak in the league. It meant that we were very close to being in the top 6 after 33 games, which is when the league splits into two.

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The split means we can’t finish higher than 7th​ but with the amount of points we have it doesn’t look like we’ll finish lower than 9th​ so I might give the kids a chance in the last few league games. By kids I mean 16 and 17 year olds, not the 18 and 19-year-old first teamers.

The performances of Gavin Black and Dan Blake have been a massive factor as to why we are comfortably mid-table.

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Black has only played 24 league games so his goal return is pretty incredible and up until recently Blake had predominantly been used as a sub yet still has 12 league assists. Both their parent clubs, Hearts for Black and Derby for Blake, want to give them a chance in the first team next season.

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We’ve also had our youth intake and it looks decent.

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Kevin Soutar is already considered a League One player but according to my assistant is only going to improve a slight amount. Nevertheless both he and Anthony Ferguson look like very good prospects.

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Most of our ‘golden generation’ from years ago are still without a club after being released in the summer, that’s how unpredictable my youth intakes have been.

Our most successful academy graduate you may remember was John Wilson. We sold him to Dundee United when we were in the Championship. He’s now on loan at Kilmarnock in the Championship and guess who’s with him? The other player the board sold to an SPL team that year Scott Campbell.

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I bet both are glad at their moves as we sit comfortably above the relegation zone in the Premiership.
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2022/23 Season Review

In our first season in the Premiership we finished 7th​ and ended with 54 points, more than 5th​ placed Hearts!

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Gavin Black was in the top 6 for both goals and assists in the league this year. Dan Blake was the only Berwick player to get more assists and ended the season with 13.

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Black was overwhelmingly fans player of the season and I’m sure he will be in the first team at Hearts next year but it’ll be interesting to see if Blake plays often for Derby next year.

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As for the other loan signings Stuart Smith will be staying with us for another year and I’ve 99% decided that Michael Swainston will also stay with us providing he’s still loan listed by Burnley.

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After 113 appearances, all on loan, I’ve decided I’m not going to renew Steven Barbour’s loan deal for another year.

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As for next season, the budgets are laughable.

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They were announced before our prize money came in so we should be able to increase the budgets if we need to. However if the loan signings we make are good enough then I don’t see any reason for splashing the cash, it worked fine this season.

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When the prize money did come in it meant we had £2.6 million in the bank! Despite this the board would not let me increase the scouting range or improve the training facilities, which are the only two things I care about.

Here’s the full squad view.

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Jordan Reid had a good season chipping in with 13 goals in all competitions and it’s good to see our young midfielders Farrell, Snorrason and McCulloch all get 30+ appearances in the top flight, which will massively help their development. McCulloch has also been called up for the Scotland Under 21 squad at the Euros.

However Joe McKee will be leaving the club when his contract expires in the summer. He was our best player in the Championship for 2 years in a row. Sadly after 104 league appearances for the club he is no longer good enough for us. Love you Joe.

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I’m not sure what will happen this transfer window but expect a lot of loan signings again. Hopefully none of our promising youngsters want out and we’re able to keep them for another year at least.
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2023/24 Season Preview

Our summer started off with the news that we were finally able to scout anywhere in the world.

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However with £300,000 to spend there was little use scouting far and wide. Even when we did find an amazing regen, as I did in Africa and South America for instance, they were still too expensive for us.

Because of this we’ve had a similar transfer window to last summer, where we’ve acquired loan signings from English clubs and picked up some young, cheap Scottish talent.

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One of these youngsters is Johnny Soutar who is our record signing yet still may go out on loan depending on any further business we do.

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Other notable permanent acquisitions are Stephen Humphrys and the highest paid player in Berwick’s history Anthony Evans.

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At one point I was going to spend a large chunk of my budget on Tommy Caffrey who helped us gain promotion to the SPL whilst on loan from Celtic. Instead he opted for Dundee despite me being one of his favoured personnel. It’s fine Tommy. It’s not as if we made you. It’s fine.

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Another former striker of ours, John Wilson, has joined Bradford on a free after Dundee United decided not to renew his contract. On 6 grand a week as well! It’s worked out all right for him.

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Here’s what the squad looks like. We’ve got a lot of players with potential; two of who came through our youth system last season and are already good enough to warrant a place on the bench.

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I still want to bring in a quality striker and quality centre back then I think our business will be done.

As for the objectives for the upcoming season, the board wants us to avoid automatic relegation and the season preview thinks we’ll end up 10th

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I think we have a decent starting XI that is good enough achieve a mid-table finish like last season. We’re definitely a better team than Morton and Ross County despite the season preview suggesting we’re on par with them.

Pre season has been a very good one for us and it looks like we’re going to progress in the League Cup.

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I think the realistic aim is to avoid relegation again considering we just don’t have the financial muscle to compete with half the teams in the league. A significant cup run would be nice too.

We’ve gone from League Two to the Premiership in 5 years and in all honesty it might take another 5 years to go from a mid-table SPL club to a leading SPL club.
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End of Transfer Window and Early League Form

I wanted another quality striker… so I’ve brought in an attacking midfielder! Christian Antoniazzi has joined us permanently from Aberdeen for £80,000.

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He was one of our star players in our first season in the Championship whilst on loan and also scored goals for Aberdeen last year in the Europa League. On his second debut for Berwick he made an instant impact by scoring after 30 seconds.

We’ve also got Portuguese centre back Ismael Loureiro on loan for the season. He'll be backup to our first choice centre backs.

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Not bad back up at all.

I’ve also decided that I downplayed the significance of last year’s youth intake. Anthony Ferguson and Kevin Soutar attracted attention from English clubs in the transfer window and are both good enough to be back up players in our squad at the age of 16.

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We progressed from the group stages of the League Cup and an almost fully rotated side impressively beat Hibs in the second round. In the quarter final we’ll play away at Dundee.

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League form has also been good. Very good. After 5 games we’re in third.

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On reflection I’m very happy with the squad. We’ve got a tactic that works and players that fit the roles in it very well.

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A 3 star player is good Premiership quality so we’ve actually got a squad as good as teams such as Hearts, at least on paper. When you look at the star ratings of Hearts players we’ve arguably got the stronger starting XI.

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However, unlike previous seasons, we actually have strength in depth and have Premiership quality players ready to bring on.

We could be in for a decent season here.
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Doing awesome man! hopefully you can push on quicker than expected. Has anyone else won the league yet or has it been Celtic every year ?
 
Cheers mate, a top half finish could well be on this season. And Celtic have walked the league every year. Hibs were 15 points off them last season and that’s the closest any team has come since I started the save.
 
Europa League Here We Come?

There’s no close games with Berwick, we either win or lose by a comfortable margin. Despite this, after playing every team once, we are third in the table.

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Unfortunately we lost to Dundee in quarter final of League Cup but have picked up good wins in the league against Hibs and Hamilton. Hibs are through to the Europa League group stages and the AI have no idea what squad rotation is so we thumped their tired team 4-0.

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Also Kevin Kane, our 18-year-old striker on loan from Newcastle, picked up a full cap for Scotland after a good start to the season with us.

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He came through Falkirk’s youth system and will definitely be a top player in the future but a full cap does seem a bit premature.

However a situation is developing with our best player Sindri Snorrasson.

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In the summer I had the opportunity to give him a new contract but it included a non-negotiable release clause of £2.5 million so I decided against it. Now he is wanted by a number of clubs and will not even enter contract negotiations.

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I’m not sure what to do. With just over 18 months left on his contract it looks like we’ll have to sell him at some point but the board are notorious for accepting small bids for our best players.

Apart from that it’s all looking good. 5th​ place would get us into Europe as Scotland has massively risen up the coefficient rankings.

Is it too early to mention European football?
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Just Sign the Contract Sindri

We’re only 18 games into the season but have firmly established ourselves in third behind Rangers and Celtic.

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We’ve won 6 out of the last 8 games, which included a lucky 2-1 against Rangers; our first ever win against them. That lucky win was countered by an undeserved loss at home to Motherwell, which prevented us from winning 5 straight league games.

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Also the draw for the 4th​ round of the Scottish Cup has been made and, unlike last year, it’s been kind to us. We will come up against Dunfermline.

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The Sindri Snorrason transfer saga continues. Firstly, after being linked with teams such as Porto, Arsenal and even PSG, he made it known that he wanted to join Malaga…

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Lee Farrell soon sorted him out. Whenever a player wants to talk to me I just get him to intervene and everything gets resolved...

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...however he’s still not willing to sign a contract.

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In other news Scotland have qualified for EURO 2024 after finishing top of their qualification group.

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Elsewhere Hibernian finished second in their Europa League group, as did Celtic in their Champions League group. This will have done no harm to the coefficient points Scotland gets. Currently Scotland are 12th​ in the nation club coefficient table.

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More importantly this means a third place finish in the league would send us straight into the Europa League group stages.

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It looks like we’re becoming one of the better (English) sides in Scotland at just the right time.
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January Transfers

The rumours were circulating everywhere; Sindri Snorrason looked like he was going to PSG.

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I was thinking of what we could do with £6 million then, after our game against Dundee United at the end of December, this came up in my inbox.

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I mean who wouldn’t choose Berwick-upon-Tweed for Paris?

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Incredibly Sindri Snorasson actually signed a new contract with us. We’re no longer little Berwick if we can keep him at the club. It’s a 4 and a half year deal with no release clause and easily the best deal of the transfer window, although there was some competition… I’ve been regen hunting.

4 players came in during the January transfer window, the most impressive being Pape Samb from Diambars FC in Senegal for £5,000 and Simon Sangare for £30,000 from ASEC, the go-to team in the Ivory Coast for regens.

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I also picked up two freebies. Firstly there’s Javier Chanduvi who I found without a club in the Peru under 20s squad and Franck Ndongo from Coton Sport in Cameroon. Again, the go-to team for regens in that country.

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I can’t remember when Brexit came into the game but clearly it’s having no issues with the work permits here.

The transfers signal the start of a long-term project at Berwick. Having the ability to scout worldwide means plenty of these kind of players will be coming into the club, providing the board give us a decent budget.

On a completely unrelated note, David Moyes has just been announced as Motherwell manager.

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Me neither…
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Pape Samb. My Hero. My Mate.

The January transfer window concluded with the sale of young striker Kyle McIntyre to Newcastle for £500,000.

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We have a plethora of young attacking talent already at the club and the transfer included a 50% of profit from next sale so I’m quite happy with the deal, especially as we got him for free in the summer from Queens Park.

Elsewhere our good form continued in January. We’ve now only lost 1 of our last 12 league games.

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We’ve also progressed in the cup but have been drawn against Celtic in the next round.

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After being 2-0 down to Dundee in our last game new signing Pape Samb came on as a halftime substitute and turned the game around with a second half hattrick. Needless to say that means he is now our starting striker.

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I suppose 5 goals in your first 3 games (2 of which were as a sub) is not too bad...

The victory against Dundee also resulted in us moving up to 2nd​ in the table.

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Dundee United and Rangers don’t tend to drop points so we need to keep up the good form if we want to have a chance of getting that Europa League group stage spot.

But it’s not as if finishing 4th​ will be a travesty. Or 5th​.
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Such a fan of this game! I have got my Albion Rovers into the Championship finding the gulf in talent a bit harder potential year of stability at this level then kick on. So many teams are trying to scum bag me with bids of £500 quid for player's which are getting rejected instantly.
 
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