Carlton Town's Rise to Glory

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nicknackk17

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I was just 21 when I had that fatal meeting with the first team boss at Morecambe he announced I no longer had a future at the club, I was absolutely devastated but it meant i could move back to Nottingham. I tried my hand at a lower level turning out for teams like Mansfield Town and Tamworth but after a string of injuries I decided to hang up my boots and do my coaching badges at the age of 24. After completing all of my coaching qualifications I was offered a coaching role at local club Notts County which I enjoyed but was always longing for a shot at the big job. Sitting at home with my dog and my usual bottle of red wine on a friday night I receive a phone call from my local semi-professional team Carlton Town which I had made a handful of appearances for.
"Hello, is this Nick Whiting? this is Mick Garton the Chairman of Carlton Town FC"
"Hello, how can I help you?" I responded admittedly a little confused and suprised!
"I am calling you in regards to the vacant managerial post here at Carlton Town, due to unforeseen circumstances we have had to relieve Les Mcjannet of his duties after a scuffle with a youth team player. I have had heard good words from my contacts at Notts County and I wondered if you would be willing to come down to the ground tomorrow morning at 11am to discuss possibly joining us as the new manager"
"I would be delighted to attend this meeting, I'm excited at the prospect of possibly becoming the new manager!"


Eager to impress I rushed back to my parents house and borrowed one of my Dad's best suits and arrived at the ground the following morning at 10:45 a little bit early so I could have a quick look at the facilities and meet a few players. I was in a world of my own standing on the touchline watching the coaches push the Carlton boys hard when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the chairman! I became a little bit nervous but he told me to relax and took me into a small office inside the clubs ground. There on the table infront of me lay my possible contract. "Listen son" Mick said, "I have high ambitions for this club, the media are predicting us 4th this season and I would love to be in the Blue Square Premier and challenging for football league in 4 years time." Which is quite viable as there are 2 promotions before Carlton reach the Blue Square premier. "I believe YOU are the man for the job" Nervously, I skimmed over the contract £150 p/w "you've got to start somewhere" I thought to myself. I gave the chairman a huge smile, shook his hand and said "where do I sign".

There was a small press conference to announce my arrival with two journalists attending one from the non-league paper and one from the local newspaper the evening post. I have quite and old squad to work with and a very tight budgets to work with £2.5k for transfers and £625 wages. I was ready for this challenge...
 
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Pre-Season Jitters

I had to give my first team talk to the the players. Nervous! More nervous than I've ever been than I ever been in my life I walked into the dressing room before the first pre-season friendly of the new footballing year against North Ferriby. The lads were pretty welcoming, espicially some of the older lads I mean Neil Grayson's the same age as my dad at 46! Still going strong though scoring 10 goals in last seasons campaign. I'd been at the club less than a month but i'd already brought in 8 players and released 8. One of the new boys is highly rated Medi Abalimba who was subject to interest from league 2 clubs such as Rotherham and Burton albion. Still, with so many faces coming and going I knew it was going to take a while for everything to gel so I wasn't anticipating a fantastic result for our pre-season match so I told the lads to keep calm and just enjoy themselves out there as there was a long way of pre-season to go. After just 34 minutes we'd already had a yellow card one of the new boys Alistair Asher showing he wasn't afraid to get to stuck in, but the subsequent free kick lead to a goal to North Ferriby. We went in at half time content with our performance but due to the timing of the friendly, i completely changed my first team squad to give all my boys who'd travelled a run out today. This proved successful as we managed to battle and have over 70% possession for 20 minutes of the game i was delighted thinking we could claw something back! However, a poor error from a young 16 year old right back Barry Bingham which I can only put down to inexperience lead to a 2nd North Ferriby goal. For the rest of the game I was concerned about fitness of 1 or 2 players but is still early days and we've got a lot of work to do so I brought on the 12th sub Neil Wood another new boy at 28 he's a midfield maestro and showed that by bagging a goal in the 93rd minute. We unfortunately lost the game 2-1 but it was a well battled performance. The rest of the pre-season went in a similar manner winning just 3 and drawing 2 of the 10 friendlies we took part in. However, I was extremely proud of the lads for drawing 2-2 with the big scottish side of Hearts. With Pre-Season over and a grand total of 18 players coming in and 10 going out it's going to be an interesting year...
Left to right: Grayson the new captain and Medi Abalimba making good impressions in pre-season​
 

"Evo-Stik Northern D1S Kicks off"

"It's finally here" I said to the lads, "The first game of the season, We've got to get out there and show this league we're up for the fight this year." A roar went up from the boys, excited for this match against New Mills away. I gave them the team news, there were a couple of disappointments to only be on the bench but they were content with proving themselves. I was also without my hottest prospect Medi Abalimba who took a knock on the training ground and wouldn't be back for another week and combative midfielder Emexca Orwubiko had fitness doubts but passed a late, late fitness test. We've been working most of pre-season on our 4-1-2-2-1 formation and our attacking movement was focused on heavily aswell.
TEAM NEWSGK: Grant Hartley
RB: Alistair Asher
CB: Ashley Kitchen
CB: Ashley Hodgkinson
LB: Zak Martin
DM: Emexca Orwubiko
CM: Neil Wood
CM: Ben Gill
RW: Terry Hawkridge
LW: Fraser Toms
ST: Neil Grayson (c)
​
My Bench included a young 16 year old Barry Bingham, which I have spoken of before and I think this boy can go far. Along with fellow hot prospect William Kadzidlo who can play anywhere up top, I had a fairly inexperienced bench. Warm-up over, talk over. It's now time to walk the walk.

It's a fiery start, young Ashley Hodgkinson flying in with an early tackle getting himself a yellow card after just 2 minutes. Clearing the free kick from just outside of our penalty area, Hawkridge breaks free and only has the keeper to beat! GOAL! 1-0 after just 3:31! I couldn't believe it, it was a dream start! After this early boost we controlled the game for a further 30 minutes before New Mills pounced on a defensive mis-communication and pulled it back to 1-1 with Daniel Douglas-Pringle bagging the goal. The game was end to end before the half time whistle, I brought the lads back in to the changing room and told them to keep going and they could win this easily. Grayson rallies the troops and the lads are back out for the 2nd half early waiting to destroy the opposition. We go in to the 2nd half with some fire about us, 75% possession for the first 10 minutes winning nearly everything. A fantastic long ball from Orwubiko through to grayson on the edge of the box, the veteran striker turns....SHOOTS, GOAL! what a strike from the 46 year old!! He ran straight over and celebrated with me, he's the leagues oldest goalscorer! Pleased with how the lads are playing I decide to hold back on the substitions, my decision is repayed after 62 minutes when Grayson's racing into the box (where he found pace at 46, I'll never know!) causes a defensive panic and Grayson happily scored his 2nd and our 3rd of the game. 3-1! by this point i'm absolutely ecstatic. We have total control of the game, Orwubiko is playing his socks off but he is starting to look tired, I get my boys warmed up readying up Barry Bingham, Taser Hassan and Scott Bridges when I hear the shout from my physio that Orwubiko's gone down, I was worried hoping it wasn't a nasty one. Managing to get him off the pitch walking I made the triple change, Grayson was abit upset I replaced him on a Hat-trick but I had a bit of a joke with him telling him he took too long. 85 minutes on the clock, I was hoping we'd hang on at 3-1 but disater struck, a poor back pass from Kitchen lead to New Mills racing in on goal and making it 3-2! The Panic was setting in, I was thinking we were going to throw it away. 90+4 I was correct. I was enraged by the referee deciding to play on from a blatant foul on one of our players but New Mills passed it around us and scored a third leaving the game all square and leaving us regretting 2 points dropped.

FT: New Mills 3 - 3 Carlton Town Attendance: 157
Referee: D Norris


View attachment 239356
A well battled performance from the lads​
 
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