Letters Home. An Indian story.

[KidBlink56]

Preface: I had this idea the other night, to do a story from the perspective of letters being written home. The manager is me, instead of my current home, I live in India. I'm managing Amity United FC. This, when I did actually live in India for a time, was my local club. I guess this is somewhat of a journeyman story. Because I am starting at the bottom and I hope to get to the top. For the moment, the plan is to stay at AUFC, but that may change. As far as a db goes I'm using the standard 10.2 DB with England, Scotland, Spain, Italy, France, Turkey, several other eastern european countries and India to which I added a second division.

Now, originally I had thought about doing letters back and forth, but I decided against it. it would just be too much. The first few are addressed to my mum, but as the story goes on I may change the recipients. The idea being there that I wouldn't always let my mum know all the bad stuff and each letter would have it's own personality as opposed to ending up on this thread.

Anyway, on with the show then!

12/7/10

Dear mum,

How are things back at home? I hope they're going well. For me, life has been a whirlwind since I left.

I landed in Delhi about 6 hours ago and this is the first opportunity I've had to sit down and collect my thoughts. You'd think as the new manager of a Professional football club I'd get a nice hotel at least. No such luck I'm afraid. They have me in some ***** (sorry for the language mum, but it is sadly accurate) hotel somewhere in Delhi, from what I remember of the town, it looks like I'm in Defence Colony. They promised I'd have better accommodations tomorrow. The Radisson, out in Noida. Do you remember that place?

Hopefully, I'll be able to sit down with the board members tomorrow and make things official. When I do, I'll write.

I don't know how long these letters will take to get to you, I'm not sure about the post here and I have no net access. So, this will have to do for the time being. I'll try and send you some good news next time I write.

Love,
Ben.

 

[Kris]

Nice Idea, I look forward to your next update

 

[KidBlink56]

Dear mum,

I met with Mr. Chauhan today; he made me an offer I couldn't refuse! (Not that I would) Rs.23,000 a week or about 275 quid. Not bad eh?! So, let me introduce you to the club that your son now manages. Amity United Football Club was founded in 2005. They play at Tau Devi Lal Stadium which is just west of Delhi, in Gurgaon. They're playing in the Indian Second Division. They don't have a terrible set up here, the youth facilities aren't awful and the training facilities seem pretty fair. Though if the club had a bit more cash I might ask them to upgrade everything. But, they've turned me down once already, I certainly don't want to annoy the board this early.


Promotion odds came out today, 80-1 that Amity United gets promoted. 80-1. Those aren't the slightest bit hopeful. Hopefully my new striker, Baljeet "Rocket" Singh will help the squad. I'm also looking into signing a 17 year old attacking mid. from Kolkata, if by some miracle we sign him I honestly think we have a chance to make a push for a playoff spot. This kid is like an Indian Gerrard.
Friendlies are finished for the time being. All in all we did fairly well, 5 wins and a draw. All against teams in higher divisions. I'm pretty pleased with the progress the team seems to be making. Of course, the season hasn't gotten underway just yet so, the real test is yet to come I suppose.


Things here are very different to how we do things back home. For example, we have friendlies in June & July and then the season starts in August. Here (this year anyway) they've finished up with the pre-season in July and the regular season doesn't get underway until October. October!


I suppose I'll just have to arrange some September friendlies to build up match fitness again, but that begs the question, why not have them all in September?


Alright mum, I'll stop whining. Hope All is well.



Love,
Ben

 

[Jack Fulham]

This could be very good, I heard the Indian League system is a bit confusing, could never manage in a Country like that though, it would be offending cricket

Liked the Indian Gerrard bit

 

[stigen]

interesting story, will check every now and then,
good luck

 

[KidBlink56]

.....Liked the Indian Gerrard bit

Yeah, I thought it when I first saw him on the game, and my next thought was Steven Gerrard in an Indian Gettup and a moustache which gave me quite a laugh. XD

 

[KidBlink56]

Dear mum,

It has been a very long time since I've been able to sit down and put pen to paper. But, I hope my good news will make up for the fact that I haven't been writing.

I did arrange those friendlies in September, three of them in fact. And we got slaughtered. The combined score of the September friendlies was 12-1. A 3-0 loss to Mumbai FC was followed by another 3-0 defeat to Churchill Bros, and the cap on the terrible month that was September was a 6-1 thrashing we took from SC Goa.

Needless to say, we were less than motivated heading into the season.

But there must have been something in the curry the night before our first match. A HUGE 4-1 win over Indian Bank was just what we needed to get ourselves going. And guess what? Indian Gerrard managed to get himself on the scoresheet! And let me tell you, it was "Gerrard-esque" for sure, he left it late and he put in the top corner from outside the box. Ha! It was brilliant.
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After the big win we had a disappointing result in a 0-0 draw with Titanium. Who, at this point, occupy dead last in the league. That wasn't a great one, and I admit, my morale was pretty low.
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Luckily, the lads didn’t' pick up on it and we had a great string of results. Including a 2-0 road win over arch rivals Shimla Youngs.
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Things are going great here mum, I even got mentioned in the local footy paper! And headed into November, I couldn't be more excited for what the coming months have in store for this club.
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Love,
Ben

P.S. I got a letter from Aaron today; let him know I'll write him as soon as I can!

 

[jetika]

nice idea dude. i had thought of starting my story in india but settled for an indian player so will follow for sure.
actually having a few problems with loading my save so if I have to restart it just might start in the i-league. I've actually seen Mumbai FC play so might choose them. if you have enabled the Japanese league then you can get a few players on loan from there. you might get a few good players that way.