Berwick Rangers: An English Club in Scotland

[The GallantPioneer1872]

Europa will be very interesting, Think it's cool they moved you to St James rather than somewhere in Scotland. Hopefully you can get good attendances but would be unrealistic if you got 60k fans haha.

 

[ScottT]

Great start in the SPL but a tricky Europa League group. Good luck with it.

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Europa will be very interesting, Think it's cool they moved you to St James rather than somewhere in Scotland. Hopefully you can get good attendances but would be unrealistic if you got 60k fans haha.

Yeah I think it might be slightly too big a stadium for us judging on the attendance for our first game there…

Great start in the SPL but a tricky Europa League group. Good luck with it.

Cheers mate, despite being 1st​ seeds Galatasaray don’t look very strong so we could be in with a shout of making the top two.

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Europa League Exploits

Berwick’s first ever game in Europe was at home against Galatasaray and St James’ Park was packed out… with 6,700 fans. The trains from Berwick must have been cancelled.

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Despite the ground being about 10% full we managed to defeat Galatasaray 2-1.

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I decided to give the players who got us to third in the league last year a chance and they delivered so they will continue to play in the Europa League.

After that our flawless start to the season was thwarted by Motherwell, with David Moyes still proving that he’s got it, but on the whole form has been excellent.

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102 Berwick fans made the journey to Gelsenkirchen to see the Breel Embolo show. He showed why they’re paying him £100,000 a week by dismantling us.

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And we beat Malmo 1-0 at home despite there being more away fans than home fans in the ground…

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That leaves us nicely poised after 3 games in the Europa League.

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Hibs and Rangers also look like they’re on course to get through to the knockout round.

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As for the league, we’re top but have still played one more game than Celtic and Hibs.

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Form has pretty much been down to the brilliance of George Neil. He has 9 goals in 9 league games and has almost single handedly propelled us to the top of the league.

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Our next league game is against Celtic which will give us a good indication as to how close we are to challenging them for the league this season.
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[TheBattman]

Brilliant this

 

[JamesScott2908]

Promising start to life in europe! Do you have the option/finances available to buy or extend the ground?

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Brilliant this

Cheers mate, glad you're enjoying it!

Promising start to life in europe! Do you have the option/finances available to buy or extend the ground?

I can ask the board to buy our current stadium or build a new one. We’ve got £7m in the bank but I’m not really bothered about stadium size considering we don’t even sell out our 4,000 capacity in league games so there’s no point in wasting money building a new stadium yet.

But I’m not really sure what buying our current stadium would do and if it’d be worth it. Would it then allow me to expand the stadium if I wanted to?

I think the ideal situation for me would be to remain in our current stadium for a few years, hopefully get more support so we sell out every league game and use St James' Park for European games to gauge how many fans would actually turn up if we had a larger capacity.

 

[The GallantPioneer1872]

I'd defo wait until you start selling out your ground! No point getting your club into debt for a stadium you couldn't fill and buying it just depends on how much it would cost, Obviously buying it would mean you don't have a fee to pay for leasing the stadium.

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

I'd defo wait until you start selling out your ground! No point getting your club into debt for a stadium you couldn't fill and buying it just depends on how much it would cost, Obviously buying it would mean you don't have a fee to pay for leasing the stadium.

Yeah I'm not going to worry about the ground situation until we're actually able to sell more than 3,000 tickets in a game that isn't against Celtic or Rangers. Only way we're going to get a new ground is if the board insist on it.

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Optimism

Seemingly without even trying Berwick have qualified for the knockout stages of the Europa League.

Firstly we drew 1-1 against Malmo in a game we should have won but a last minute 30-yard volley stopped that from happening.

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But in the next game Martin McCulloch scored a last minute winner against Galatasaray to put us into the last 32 of the Europa league with a game to spare.

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It almost, just almost, made up for getting sent off in the cup final last season.

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Despite being 1st​ seeds, Galatasaray were not very good in both games and will deservedly be knocked out at the group stage.

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Because we're guaranteed to finish second the kids will get a chance against Schalke at home in the last group stage game. Anything less than a 5-0 loss will be acceptable.

As for the league…

Despite getting thumped 5-1 by Celtic we’re 4 points clear at the top but have played a game more than them and Hibs.

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New signings George Neil and Ryan Christie have been the difference. Neil has 13 goals and 3 assists in 15 league games whereas Christie has 5 goals and 5 assists from just 9 starts in the league.

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So overall things are looking very good. We’re not a better team than Celtic but if we keep on beating the teams who we are better than then we may be able to put up a title challenge.

There I said it. Title challenge.

The next 6-8 league games are going to be very important and may shape our league season.
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[JamesScott2908]

Cheers mate, glad you're enjoying it!



I can ask the board to buy our current stadium or build a new one. We’ve got £7m in the bank but I’m not really bothered about stadium size considering we don’t even sell out our 4,000 capacity in league games so there’s no point in wasting money building a new stadium yet.

But I’m not really sure what buying our current stadium would do and if it’d be worth it. Would it then allow me to expand the stadium if I wanted to?

I think the ideal situation for me would be to remain in our current stadium for a few years, hopefully get more support so we sell out every league game and use St James' Park for European games to gauge how many fans would actually turn up if we had a larger capacity.

If im not mistaken, If you buy the stadium it means no permission from council, I could be wrong though!

 

[ScottT]

The season has gone well in all areas so far. The finances you'll gain from making it into the Europa League knockout stages will benefit you. Hopefully you can fend off Celtic, it would be a great achievement to win the title.

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

If im not mistaken, If you buy the stadium it means no permission from council, I could be wrong though!

I'm not sure how much it'll cost to buy but there's no real point in doing anything with the stadium until we get a larger fanbase. Hopefully boosting the club reputation solves that.

The season has gone well in all areas so far. The finances you'll gain from making it into the Europa League knockout stages will benefit you. Hopefully you can fend off Celtic, it would be a great achievement to win the title.

Might have been getting a bit ahead of myself thinking about the title... a good run in the Europa League will do!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

The dead rubber game against Schalke in the Europa League was a significant one as we broke Berwick’s record attendance.

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How did we suddenly get 18,000 fans at a game I hear you ask? Because 15,000 of them were Schalke fans…

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The kids actually did us proud by only losing 1-0 to a far superior team in a home game where our fans were outnumbered 5 to 1.

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Overall the group stage was a massive success for us as we finished second and qualified for the knockout rounds.

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Rangers and Hibs also finished second in their groups whereas Celtic finished 3rd​ in their Champions League group meaning FOUR teams from the SPL will be in the Europa League knockout rounds. And here is that draw.

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Europa League First Knockout Round: Berwick Rangers v S.S.C. Napoli

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So Napoli is who we’ll come up against. They won their group and are overwhelming favourites for the tie. Elsewhere Celtic got Benfica, Hibs got Tottenham and Rangers will face Fiorentina.


Everything’s looking rosy then?

It’s not.

We’re on our worst run of form in a long while.

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Hibs and Celtic have pulled away from us and all of a sudden finishing third looks like our best hope. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned a title challenge in the last post.

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Thankfully things got back on track with a win against Livingston in the cup. A place in the semi final is my aim as it means a game at Hampden Park where we’ll receive £2-3m in gate receipts. In the 5th​ round draw there was one tie I didn’t want and that was to get Celtic away.

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Great.

With a week left in the transfer window I’m not prepared to make any panic buys just yet, I’m sure it’s just a phase…
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[Hampus Silverholt]

History with Hampus

After doing a bit of research I’ve realised just how significant it is that we’ve broken a near 60-year attendance record. The previous record was set in a 1st​ round Scottish Cup game against Rangers in 1967.

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The game was and still is considered the biggest upset in Scottish football history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwick_Rangers_F.C._1–0_Rangers_F.C.

To sum up…

Part time Berwick beat Rangers, a team full of internationals, 1-0.

Jock Wallace was in goal for Berwick.

In the aftermath Rangers scapegoated two strikers and they never played for the club again (to replace them a certain Alex Ferguson arrived from Dunfermline in the summer)

Sandy Jardine was promoted from the reserves to the Rangers team after the result.

The match winner for Berwick, Sammy Reid, had to go back to his day job the very next day.

Here’s some awesome archival footage from the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kINR6w9emc

I’ve no idea how well known this is (I guess it is to Rangers fans and Scottish football fans) but as someone who knows very little about Scottish football I thought the story and significance of this game is brilliant.

Anyway that’s the history lesson over, the next update contains two games we had against Rangers. I wish we could’ve won them 1-0…
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[The GallantPioneer1872]

I'm glad this is bringing you knowledge of the Scottish game, Our game seems to be looked at as a shambles but we just don't have the funds but some teams play good football we just need the crowds to pack stadiums but sadly most people are priced out the game especially our national games as the SFA rob all the fans.

Napoli is a great tie to get, Didn't really matter who you got it would always be tough but take each game as it comes!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

I'm glad this is bringing you knowledge of the Scottish game, Our game seems to be looked at as a shambles but we just don't have the funds but some teams play good football we just need the crowds to pack stadiums but sadly most people are priced out the game especially our national games as the SFA rob all the fans.

Napoli is a great tie to get, Didn't really matter who you got it would always be tough but take each game as it comes!

I’m a Villa fan so refuse to take seriously a league where Scott Sinclair won player of the year haha.

Obviously didn’t get the result you wanted today but just seeing how there was 50,000 fans at Ibrox, and there are week in week out, makes me annoyed that all the money is going to the Premier League and teams like Swansea, Stoke, Brighton, Bournemouth etc.

As long as there’s TV money it seems the gap between English and Scottish teams is only going to widen despite Celtic and Rangers having some of the highest attendances in Britain.

 

[ScottT]

Ouch you've really fallen away in the league... never mind! Napoli will be a massive challenge but who knows what could happen. Mon the Rangers (Berwick Rangers that is...)

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Things Can Only Get Better

There was a bit of a fuss at the end of the January transfer window with Sindri Snorrason. He wanted to leave however once Sunderland ended their interest in him he miraculously wanted stay.

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With this I’m able to offer him a new contract but it has a non-negotiable release fee in there of £12.75m.

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Should I offer him a new deal with that release clause in there? I think £12m for him is a bargain so might hold off from doing so.

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No transfers were made in January, which I think I already regret but we’ll get to that later.

Form had picked up with two straight wins but then we saw a continuation of what has become a yearly tradition of throwing away a comfortable lead against Rangers.

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Because of the way the fixtures fell we actually played Rangers two games later in the league. We performed remarkably well in that game by only bottling a two-goal lead rather than a three-goal lead…

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In-between those two Rangers games we lost 3-2 to Hearts and as a result have fell back to fourth in the league.

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The defense has been the major problem this season, we’ve got too many average defenders rather than star defenders and in all honesty my defensive transfers in the summer were not great.

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Josip Zeljkovic was bought to be THE star defender last summer but has arguably got worse since he joined us, he’s now only a 2 and a half star player. In fairness I don’t know why I thought he’d be the next Maldini when he has 10 heading and 10 marking.

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It also doesn’t help when our best centre back Aidan Wilson is averaging 6.78 in all competitions.

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Next season we need to invest in 2, perhaps even 3, quality defenders. In order to do that we need money. To get money we need to advance in the Europa League and Scottish Cup.

We just had the small task of facing a Celtic side in the 5th​ round of the cup that had equaled the biggest win in SPL history a few games earlier.

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No big challenge then.

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I mean a 2-1 loss isn’t that bad, but once again we lost the game after being in a winning position. My defense are spineless. Or they’re just *****.

For our season to be an improvement from last year it was looking like we’d have to progress in the Europa League. Napoli stood in our way in the 1st​ leg of the first round knockout game.

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It’d be great if we could stop conceding late goals. Still, at least we didn’t lose.

Without George Neil’s goals we’d honestly be about 10th​ and would have finished bottom of the Europa League group.
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[Hampus Silverholt]

Europa League Result

32 Berwick fans made the journey to Naples for the return leg. Unfortunately they did not witness one of the great European upsets as we undeservedly lost to 2-1.

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Napoli only had 6 shots but in the end it was just two that mattered. Arkadiusz Milik’s 25-yard volley ended up being the difference. I wonder if we’ll ever be paying players £90k a week like Napoli are with him.

Rangers, Hibs and Celtic all got knocked out at the same point as us but getting 4 teams to the knockout stages of the Europa League means Scotland is on course to rise again in the coefficient rankings.

We’ve also had our youth intake.

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John Cook is the stand out player and could be in for a bright future.

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Form in the league has still been rather average.

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We’ve dropped 18 points from winning positions in the league and throughout the season have conceded 12 goals after the 85th​ minute. Consequently I decided it was time for a tactic change. We went from a 5-2-1-2 to a 5-3-2. Revolutionary I know.

However I still wasn’t satisfied and I don’t really like playing conservatively. So for our game against Aberdeen we used a formation with 4 at the back.

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The thinking behind it was that our defenders are rubbish, so lets play less of them… We won 5-1.

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So with 5 games left and the league now split into two we sit 4th​ in the league.

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With nothing to lose I’m going to see how the 4-3-3 fares against the big boys.
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