Edinburgh City - Conquering The North

[NoviceTrevor]

Greetings and welcome to my first effort at a story here on the forum. I'm not one for weaving the masterworks of literature that some on the forum put forth in these story efforts so I'm hoping that a decent premise will suffice.

Before I get to it I wanted to give a shout to dani3w whose London City FC - A City On The Rise series somewhat inspired me to give this a go.

I figured I would try and take a lowly team from Scotland's capital and see if I could turn them in to a powerhouse of Scottish football. Working my way from League Two to the Premiership, gaining dominion over the capital (Overtaking Hearts and Hibs) and eventually swatting Aberdeen aside and taking a run at dominating the Old Firm.

I also wanted to give a shout to TotalFootballFan9 whose DEMOLISHER ! tactic I'm going to be using for this effort.

I also wanted to point out that the pacing for this is going to be rather fast as I didn't want to spend pages and pages updating on how my 1-0 win over Forfar went. As I (hopefully) reach higher up the ranks I may go in to more of the day to day of the club but for now I feel dedicating too much time to my negotiation with John Smith over his £5 appearance fee might be a bit dull!

The format for this series will be mostly Youtube videos with a few screen grabs dotted here and there as well as some text narration here on the forum.

Now that's all out of the way, lets get started!

Episode Zero - The Premise

Episode Zero pretty much highlights what I've set out above, taking charge of Edinburgh City and the quest to dominate Scotland with a lowly team from the capital, setting out that this series will be far more fast-paced a broad than the day-to-day events I go in to with my other series on the channel. Non-essential viewing but it's there if you want more of an insight in to my live thinking as I was starting up the campaign.

[video=youtube;XtopXFXkB78]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtopXFXkB78[/video]

Episode One - Starting The Season


Episode One is a review of the beginning of our season which has some tough games against bigger teams in the League Cup competition. The League Cup in Scotland underwent some changes for this season and now contains a group stage where keen lower league sides can be resoundingly battered by much stronger sides and we did nothing to buck this expectation getting absolutely smashed in these games. Our fortunes in the league were much brighter though as we win 3 of our first 4 league games to start off on a very optimistic note for a side expected to finish bottom of the pile.

[video=youtube;9tONglnLk6E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tONglnLk6E[/video]


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[NoviceTrevor]

Episode Two - Building A Streak

In this episode we review our next group of fixtures and, putting a defeat against Stirling Albion to one side, we get ourselves a nice unbeaten streak going which could certainly help our chances of finishing at the higher end of a league where consistency is hard for a lot of teams to come by. This episode is the first time I entertained the notion of finishing towards the higher end of the table this season.

[video=youtube;glbABAGa4J4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glbABAGa4J4&t=1s[/video]

Episode Three - Maintaining The Streak

In this episode we stretch our streak out to the end of the calendar year and give ourselves a real chance of gaining promotion to League One as long as our form doesn't collapse. We also claim our first higher-league scalp as we take out Stranraer in the Scottish Cup.

[video=youtube;Zxv5T455_ws]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxv5T455_ws[/video]​

 

[NoviceTrevor]

Episode Four - The Big Pay Day


That cup visit to one of the big boys I was talking about came to fruition as we drew a trip to Tynecastle out of the hat and with it a chance to fire a warning shot in our quest to take the capital for our own. Unfortunately we don't quite have the fire power at this moment to bring Hearts down but a spirited 3-2 away defeat was much more than I was hoping for and the over 17,000 fans that turned out for the game was a massive help to our coffers. Our league streak sadly ends in this episode but it lasted long enough to all but secure the title in a league where consistency is hard to come by for most teams, leaving them miles behind after our amazing unbeaten run.

[video=youtube;LfWFlyZAmhA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfWFlyZAmhA[/video]






Episode Five - Season In Review


At the end of season one we look back with quite a bit of pride at what this side has accomplished, predicted to come rock bottom of the table they've risen to the task and finished miles ahead of the competition to grasp what is hopefully the first of many promotions in our immediate future. There's some squad building to be done for sure if we're to compete in League One but that's a worry for the first episode of next season, for now the boys get to enjoy their success before half of them are released back to their jobs in Tesco...

[video=youtube;w_ffkkeMsSc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ffkkeMsSc[/video]​

 

[NoviceTrevor]

Episode Six - League One
After a sensational first campaign in League Two we're looking to continue the good times as we take a step up to League One level. We're competing with the (relative) big boys, St Mirren and Queen of the South, who have come down from the Scottish Championship and we'll do well to stay in this league and consolidate for next term. With that in mind we take a look at our first couple of fixtures in the league as well as the often ill-fated League Cup group stage to start off the season!

[video=youtube;0vbdywTAcLM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vbdywTAcLM[/video]​

 

[NoviceTrevor]

Episode Seven - Consistency(?)

In this episode the spotlight is on our next set of League One fixtures as we try and establish ourselves as a legitimate presence in this league, having been expected to finish rock bottom (as we were last year) we've done well to avoid defeat in the majority of our opening games and pick up a win on opening day. However, in recent times we've began making a name for ourselves as draw specialists, we seem to be able to score no more than our opponents, if we're firing blanks then we'll be solid at the back but when the strikers hit form and bang in three then our defends decide to down tools and we let in three ourselves. Carving out a nice place for ourselves in lower mid table was probably the best case scenario when we came up but even showing a tenacity to avoid defeat, the overwhelming number of draws has us dangling a little close to those relegation places currently!

[video=youtube;auQOJlQpSYc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auQOJlQpSYc[/video]​

 

[NoviceTrevor]

Episode Eight - Solid if Unspectacular

In this episode we have another group of League One fixtures to review as we press on towards that solid mid-table finish in our season of consolidation. After a solid away win against fellow promoted side Forfar, we crash at home to lowly strugglers Brechin and get unceremoniously dumped out of the cup by East Stirlingshire in stark contrast to our battling defeat at Tynecastle last season. However, we show some good mentality and come back from this to win four of our next six games, gaining a credible draw against St Mirren and only losing to top side Airdrieonians in a smash and grab 4-0 if such a thing can exist. A comfortable mid table position after twenty games is probably all we could have asked for at this point with an outside shot of going up via the playoffs a welcome reward to chase.

[video=youtube;S0w-cCHvzaY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0w-cCHvzaY&feature=youtu.be[/video]​

 

[NoviceTrevor]

Episode Nine- Learning Our Place

As the rather pessimistic title of this episode would suggest, it appears we're going to be stuck in the mid table position we've called home for most of this season. While it would have been considered a good result before the season started, I would be lying if I said there weren't results during the course of this season that made me hopeful of sneaking in to a playoff spot, however, that dream is now 7 points away and with only 10 games left to close that gap I'm not confident that we'll be able to make it. I guess we just have to accept, as we go in to the last set of fixtures, that anything we get other than mid-table stability is purely a bonus at this point. As for this set of fixtures, we've had a fairly solid period picking up a few wins over Peterhead and Stranraer but losses against the relative powerhouses of Queen of the South and St Mirren has probably brought us back down to earth and cemented our position in this league.

[video=youtube;5xvqXztOTYY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xvqXztOTYY[/video]​

 

[NoviceTrevor]

Episode Ten - Rounding Out The Season
In this episode we review the final set of fixtures in our debut season in League One, we needed a herculean effort to avoid anything but a solid midtable finish and we almost managed it with an excellent sequence of results to finish off the season. Grabbing four wins in our last six games we almost managed to sneak in to the playoffs but in the end it was asking too much as a draw with St Mirren on the final day of the season saw us finish just two points behind the team from Paisley in fifth place. We have every reason to be proud of our efforts this season, once against tipped by the bookies to finish in 10th place we've managed to give a strong account of ourselves and have every chance of doing better next season with a couple of key additions to the squad. In the end it is probably best that we have this extra season in League One before going to the Championship, promotion this season would have left us woefully unprepared for the challenges at that level of football, we'll come back next season and with a few new boys we'll be gunning for promotion!

[video=youtube;MzrATVoQDn0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzrATVoQDn0[/video]​