Introduction
I usually play FM as a top or mid-table team in one of the big leagues. After playing a few different careers on FM19 which all pretty much ended up with domination after a few seasons, I thought it was time to try something new before I got bored.
I decided to start in the lowest league in England on FM Touch. Being a Northerner, I couldn't bring myself to be a team in the Vanarama National League South, and so the Northern edition it was. I was looking at those the media predicted who would finish towards the bottom, and with the 'real' Man Utd having recently changed managers, I thought it would be apt to take over FC United. Could I get them to the Premier League before their big brother won it again?
At this point, I should say that I wasn't thinking about writing a story about it, and I've actually already done the first season, so this first post will be a review of what has already happened before hopefully making regular posts as we climb the English football pyramid.
Appointment
I took over as a Sunday League footballer and it was fair to say I was surprised as just how **** non-league players are. Looking through the squad there were very few players with more than a handful of attributes in double figures. Well, what could I really expect for an average wage of about £200 a week? That barely pays for Sky these days.
I'd needed to strengthen. Oh dear. £2k transfer budget. I tried selling some **** players to raise funds. No joy, everyone else knew they were **** too and nobody was stupid enough to pay money for those single-digit wonders. I couldn't even give them away for £0 to free up the wage bill. However, there were a few out-of-contract (Ctr) players so they went to get them off the wage bill.
I reduced the transfer budget to top up the wages and started to look for free transfers who would ask for less than the £250 limit on wages. Christ, they were even worse than I already had.
Finally brought a centre-back, Callum Lees, an ex-Everton youth player. His only double-digits are for heading, marking, tackling, decisions and positioning, but he'll do. Christian Hill, an ex-Burnley youth player, can play left-back and left-wing, and has double-digits for corners, crossing, dribbling, passing, marking, tackling and pace. He'll be my Gareth Bale.
I didn't bother doing anything special with the staff or training, and loaded an attacking 4231 tactic I'd been using on a Man Utd save. That would do.
First-half of season and a brilliant cup run
2018 went well, only 3 defeats in the league sent me towards the top of the league, way above expectation. Although one of those defeats was a 0-5 hammering away at Kidderminster Harriers, one of the favourites for promotion. I mainly had Kurt Willoughby (Advanced Forward) and Danny Racchi (Attacking Midfielder at AMC) to thank for my good start.
The biggest highlight was my FA Cup run. Beating Witton Albion in the 2nd qualifying round wasn't too much of a surprise, neither was Stratford in the 3rd qualifying round. Wrexham in the 4th qualifying round was a tough proposition, but after a 1-1 away, they were despatched 2-0 in the replay at home and we qualified for the 1st round proper. I noticed the replay was only a few days after the original tie and it took a lot out of the players who were blowing out of their arses by the end of October.
Our tie against Gillingham (L1) came in mid-November and to my surprise we won quite comfortably 4-2 away from home. Our league form was also ticking by rather nicely. Early December we played Swindon (L2) in the 2nd round and came away from the away tie with a 3-3 draw and then beat them 3-1 at home in the replay to get into the 3rd round. Hoping for a big boy, but instead have to make do with Bristol Rovers (L1). December was also a busy cup month as we played the 3rd qualifying round of the FA Trophy, needing a replay to get past Hereford before beating St Albans City in the 1st round. That made 5 cup games and 3 league games in December. Not good for a squad of players with mostly single digits for stamina and natural fitness.
2019
January was a funny month. After beating Bristol Rovers 3-1 at home in the FA Cup to get to the 4th round, league form started to go downhill, with a couple of losses and draws. However, we did beat Darlington in the 2nd round of the FA Trophy. The cup runs took a lot out of the players and league form suffered. Never mind, we had Arsenal at home in the 4th round of the FA Cup to look forward to.
At this point, I had started to dream. We were still fighting at the top of the league and had done much better than expected in both cups. I was therefore a bit gutted when we were smashed 0-8 by Arsenal at home and the cup run was over.
Even more annoying was the fact that it destroyed morale and the board complained about the result ("we are pleased with your performance but nonetheless are unhappy at the 0-8 loss against Arsenal and hope you can put it right"). They were also moaning about the wage budget being too high, despite the cup run (and new kit sponsorship deal) meaning that our bank balance was growing every month. I asked for more money to strengthen and they refused.
Speaking of the board, there was a weird election to appoint a new board and Assistant Manager (2 are listed on the staff members page). Still don't understand, presumably a bug of some sort. The new board also refused to invest more money so still had to rely on Free Transfers and brought in a couple in February, Liam Canavan, a 5'4" playmaker and Wealth Da Silva, a 6'3" inside forward and Nigerian U20 international. This just made the new board moan about wages even more.
Downturn in form and recovery
The bad run in the league continued in February, and I was also knocked out of the FA Trophy 3rd round after taking Dagenham & Redbridge to a replay. Morale was **** and fitness was an issue. Being out of both cups in March meant just one game a week, so I rested players as well as organising friendlies against smaller teams, a 'cheat' I use regularly. It enabled me to get some players up to 100% match fitness as well as improve morale by spanking some minnows at the same time as getting some gate receipts (including a 10-0 victory against St Helens). I also went back to basics with a simple 442. Even Guardiola couldn't get these lot to players fancy tactics like you can with the big boys.
View attachment 26510
Champions
The boost in confidence and change in tactics worked as I went through March and April unbeaten, becoming Champions of the Vanarama National League North with 92 points from 42 games. Much of my success was due to Willoughby (43 goals in 51 appearances), Racchi (14 goals and 13 assists in 43), Crawford (9 goals and 6 assists in 39). My new signing Canavan (I call him Caravan) also produced with 11 goals in 10 games and was a major reason for the upturn in form. Full-backs Tattum and Lonsdale also contributed well with 7 and 8 assists respectively.
View attachment 26511
View attachment 26509
Current state of play
Most of the squad are out of contract. I've tied the key players down to another year, but at the moment will only have about 5 players. Allinson, my keeper, is being an **** and won't sign a new deal. The board have finally made money available. I'm certain there are bugs in this part of the gaem.
I was making money every month and ended the season with a balance of £1.1M. Despite this, they didn't give me an extra penny to spend on wages or transfers. As soon as I won the league and the next season budget was released, I have £0.59M transfer budget and £8.5k per week wages (compared to the current £4.6k wage bill). I'm not sure, but I presume this is a lot for this level of football.
View attachment 26508
Looking forward
This is where I am up to. I'm planning on holding a full root and brach review. Getting rid of the **** and bringing in better players. Trouble is, I don't know what standard players you can expect in the National League. I'll be scanning all the squads to get an idea (hopefully some players with more double-digit attributes!). I'm also going to try and get better staff (completely neglected up to this point) and start to work more on training and set-pieces. I've no idea what kind of step up there is between the National League North and the National League.
However, in this first season, it was generally quite simple to get promoted with a relegation candidate so I'm hoping the AI at this level can be quite easily out-smarted by a human manager.
I usually play FM as a top or mid-table team in one of the big leagues. After playing a few different careers on FM19 which all pretty much ended up with domination after a few seasons, I thought it was time to try something new before I got bored.
I decided to start in the lowest league in England on FM Touch. Being a Northerner, I couldn't bring myself to be a team in the Vanarama National League South, and so the Northern edition it was. I was looking at those the media predicted who would finish towards the bottom, and with the 'real' Man Utd having recently changed managers, I thought it would be apt to take over FC United. Could I get them to the Premier League before their big brother won it again?
At this point, I should say that I wasn't thinking about writing a story about it, and I've actually already done the first season, so this first post will be a review of what has already happened before hopefully making regular posts as we climb the English football pyramid.
Appointment
I took over as a Sunday League footballer and it was fair to say I was surprised as just how **** non-league players are. Looking through the squad there were very few players with more than a handful of attributes in double figures. Well, what could I really expect for an average wage of about £200 a week? That barely pays for Sky these days.
I'd needed to strengthen. Oh dear. £2k transfer budget. I tried selling some **** players to raise funds. No joy, everyone else knew they were **** too and nobody was stupid enough to pay money for those single-digit wonders. I couldn't even give them away for £0 to free up the wage bill. However, there were a few out-of-contract (Ctr) players so they went to get them off the wage bill.
I reduced the transfer budget to top up the wages and started to look for free transfers who would ask for less than the £250 limit on wages. Christ, they were even worse than I already had.
Finally brought a centre-back, Callum Lees, an ex-Everton youth player. His only double-digits are for heading, marking, tackling, decisions and positioning, but he'll do. Christian Hill, an ex-Burnley youth player, can play left-back and left-wing, and has double-digits for corners, crossing, dribbling, passing, marking, tackling and pace. He'll be my Gareth Bale.
I didn't bother doing anything special with the staff or training, and loaded an attacking 4231 tactic I'd been using on a Man Utd save. That would do.
First-half of season and a brilliant cup run
2018 went well, only 3 defeats in the league sent me towards the top of the league, way above expectation. Although one of those defeats was a 0-5 hammering away at Kidderminster Harriers, one of the favourites for promotion. I mainly had Kurt Willoughby (Advanced Forward) and Danny Racchi (Attacking Midfielder at AMC) to thank for my good start.
The biggest highlight was my FA Cup run. Beating Witton Albion in the 2nd qualifying round wasn't too much of a surprise, neither was Stratford in the 3rd qualifying round. Wrexham in the 4th qualifying round was a tough proposition, but after a 1-1 away, they were despatched 2-0 in the replay at home and we qualified for the 1st round proper. I noticed the replay was only a few days after the original tie and it took a lot out of the players who were blowing out of their arses by the end of October.
Our tie against Gillingham (L1) came in mid-November and to my surprise we won quite comfortably 4-2 away from home. Our league form was also ticking by rather nicely. Early December we played Swindon (L2) in the 2nd round and came away from the away tie with a 3-3 draw and then beat them 3-1 at home in the replay to get into the 3rd round. Hoping for a big boy, but instead have to make do with Bristol Rovers (L1). December was also a busy cup month as we played the 3rd qualifying round of the FA Trophy, needing a replay to get past Hereford before beating St Albans City in the 1st round. That made 5 cup games and 3 league games in December. Not good for a squad of players with mostly single digits for stamina and natural fitness.
2019
January was a funny month. After beating Bristol Rovers 3-1 at home in the FA Cup to get to the 4th round, league form started to go downhill, with a couple of losses and draws. However, we did beat Darlington in the 2nd round of the FA Trophy. The cup runs took a lot out of the players and league form suffered. Never mind, we had Arsenal at home in the 4th round of the FA Cup to look forward to.
At this point, I had started to dream. We were still fighting at the top of the league and had done much better than expected in both cups. I was therefore a bit gutted when we were smashed 0-8 by Arsenal at home and the cup run was over.
Even more annoying was the fact that it destroyed morale and the board complained about the result ("we are pleased with your performance but nonetheless are unhappy at the 0-8 loss against Arsenal and hope you can put it right"). They were also moaning about the wage budget being too high, despite the cup run (and new kit sponsorship deal) meaning that our bank balance was growing every month. I asked for more money to strengthen and they refused.
Speaking of the board, there was a weird election to appoint a new board and Assistant Manager (2 are listed on the staff members page). Still don't understand, presumably a bug of some sort. The new board also refused to invest more money so still had to rely on Free Transfers and brought in a couple in February, Liam Canavan, a 5'4" playmaker and Wealth Da Silva, a 6'3" inside forward and Nigerian U20 international. This just made the new board moan about wages even more.
Downturn in form and recovery
The bad run in the league continued in February, and I was also knocked out of the FA Trophy 3rd round after taking Dagenham & Redbridge to a replay. Morale was **** and fitness was an issue. Being out of both cups in March meant just one game a week, so I rested players as well as organising friendlies against smaller teams, a 'cheat' I use regularly. It enabled me to get some players up to 100% match fitness as well as improve morale by spanking some minnows at the same time as getting some gate receipts (including a 10-0 victory against St Helens). I also went back to basics with a simple 442. Even Guardiola couldn't get these lot to players fancy tactics like you can with the big boys.
View attachment 26510
Champions
The boost in confidence and change in tactics worked as I went through March and April unbeaten, becoming Champions of the Vanarama National League North with 92 points from 42 games. Much of my success was due to Willoughby (43 goals in 51 appearances), Racchi (14 goals and 13 assists in 43), Crawford (9 goals and 6 assists in 39). My new signing Canavan (I call him Caravan) also produced with 11 goals in 10 games and was a major reason for the upturn in form. Full-backs Tattum and Lonsdale also contributed well with 7 and 8 assists respectively.
View attachment 26511
View attachment 26509
Current state of play
Most of the squad are out of contract. I've tied the key players down to another year, but at the moment will only have about 5 players. Allinson, my keeper, is being an **** and won't sign a new deal. The board have finally made money available. I'm certain there are bugs in this part of the gaem.
I was making money every month and ended the season with a balance of £1.1M. Despite this, they didn't give me an extra penny to spend on wages or transfers. As soon as I won the league and the next season budget was released, I have £0.59M transfer budget and £8.5k per week wages (compared to the current £4.6k wage bill). I'm not sure, but I presume this is a lot for this level of football.
View attachment 26508
Looking forward
This is where I am up to. I'm planning on holding a full root and brach review. Getting rid of the **** and bringing in better players. Trouble is, I don't know what standard players you can expect in the National League. I'll be scanning all the squads to get an idea (hopefully some players with more double-digit attributes!). I'm also going to try and get better staff (completely neglected up to this point) and start to work more on training and set-pieces. I've no idea what kind of step up there is between the National League North and the National League.
However, in this first season, it was generally quite simple to get promoted with a relegation candidate so I'm hoping the AI at this level can be quite easily out-smarted by a human manager.
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