I recently started a Huddersfield story that I just ended up not really enjoying and on top of that lost the file for it. Since I wanted to have a story other than The King of Rome, I decided to start this save, Mission Hall of Fame.
I will essentially be using myself (Hugo Letellier) as manager and will be hoping to get to the top of the Hall of Fame in Football Manager and overtake the likes of Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola and of course, Sir Alex Ferguson and become the best manager of all time. I'll start this save unemployed with no coaching licenses and a Sunday League footballer past playing experience as a 21-year old manager.
So far, I've added Argentina, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden as playable nations but only England has the very low tiers added up, which is where I'll start my career anyway. As the current best manager of all time in the Hall of Fame is Sir Alex Ferguson, I'll limit myself to his amount of clubs which is 3. That means in my entire career, I'm only allowed to manage 3 clubs (international teams do not count as clubs) and will have to get to the top of the Hall of Fame by using only 3 clubs but I hope I'll be able to stay with my first club for as long as possible. I'll also restrict myself to managing in Europe as it's what I feel most comfortable with.
This is basically just a Road to Glory as myself, starting in the lower leagues but with as a goal to top the Hall of Fame in Football Manager and overtake Ferguson's 5016 points.
Thank you for reading this first post, more updates coming up soon!
I'm 21 years old and am finally starting to realise my dream: become a manager. My whole life I've been watching football and studying football and doing everything around football and I can finally just give myself a chance to succeed in the footballing world. I've stayed in England since this is where I finished my studies and I also feel like I can really start something here. There are a couple of jobs available that I could potentially apply for but I just started and I feel like I should wait a little bit before committing to big jobs like that. I'm not sure.
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Most of those jobs would be impossible for me to get but the ones at the bottom from England could work, I just don't know if they interest me just yet. If I'm going to be taking over at a club I want to be excited about the club and excited to manage in that division but I don't think any of those clubs really interest me yet. I'll have to wait some time I think and see if any other offers come up before the start of the season or during the season.
Living in London without a job is not exactly easy. I've had to take multiple small jobs where I work during different hours of the day to keep me going but for now, nothing at all in the footballing world. As soon as a club in the lower leagues sack their manager, someone comes in and takes the spot. I just really have no idea how all this works to be honest, I was expecting it to be much easier than it actually is and going in with no professional football experience or no coaching licenses seems like it's impossible to get a job now. I decided to go to a job centre not too far away, as I realised I never had any actual resources to check if there were any jobs in the football industry available. I took my jacket as it was freezing outside and left my flat. It was about 11:30 and I had just gotten off my morning job and I just thought I'd go and quickly check out that job centre before taking my lunch and going to my afternoon job. I live around Newham so I decided to head to Barking Road as there was a JobCentrePlus there. It should be a 20-minute walk from where I am right now so I'll try to hurry a little bit.
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This seems a lot more official than I thought to be honest, I guess that's a good thing. I was a bit nervous about going in so I waited outside for about 10-15 minutes but finally decided to go in when I realised it was already 12:15 and I had to get back to work at 1.
As I came in, there were a couple of people sitting in chairs like you'd see at a doctor's office, just waiting to be told they could go see someone who would talk to them about their personal needs. The lady at the reception told me to take a seat next to them and gave me a little card with a number on it. Looking at it, I was number 43 and up on the little electronic board above the office door it was written number 40. I wouldn't have to wait too long.
After about 5 minutes, my number popped up on the screen and I looked at the receptionist to make sure I could go in. Surprisingly, I hadn't seen anyone come out of the room yet so I was wondering how things were going in there. As I opened the door, I saw this massive corridor with a lot of little office cubes and people have conversations with what seemed to be people working there.
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I just thought it was a bit odd at first but I start walking down until I saw an empty chair and just sat down to see a man just a bit older than me finalising some details on his laptop before finally making eye contact with me:
"Good afternoon sir, what can I do for you today?", he said with a big smile on his face
"Well, I'd like to see if there are any jobs available for me today and maybe think about applying to some of them"
"Great, let's get started then; what kind of jobs are you looking for exactly?"
"I'm currently working two jobs but those are just temporary. I actually just got a license to become a football manager and that was three months ago and I just never really had the opportunity to see if there were any clubs or just anything available for me right now."
"Hmmm I see. Give me just a second to see if we have anything in our database for that at the moment but I should find something for you."
I waited nervously for a good 2 minutes while he was quickly typing things on his laptop and could just feel myself sweating inside my jacket and shirt, which I found very uncomfortable especially considering it was 3 degrees outside.
"Alright, so I found two small clubs who put out statements saying they were looking for a new manager after sacking their former one. One is calleddddddd, let me see... Boreham Wood? They're currently competing in the Vanarama Conference. And the other one is Bradford Park Avenue in the division below that, Vanarama Conference North. Does that sound good to you so far?"
As soon as I heard he had actually found something I was ecstatic but now I had to figure out if I wanted to apply to both or just one or none. He was just staring at me on the other end of the desk waiting, so I just answered him without taking any chances:
"I'll apply to both! This is such great news!"
"Hahaha great then, I'll get the application forms ready for both of these clubs and we'll get started! You know, it's not often that we get people coming in saying they want to apply for a job as a manager, I wish you the best of luck, it's hard out there."
His comments made me rethink about what I was actually doing and if it was really worth it but I wasn't going to let a job centre staff member tell me what to do with my future. I mean in a way he kind of was because he was finding the jobs for me but still, you get my point. He came back just about a minute later and we got started on the applications, which were surprisingly short and didn't really include a lot of very deep questions. I guess clubs who look for managers really end up deciding based on interviews they have with their different applicants. After around 20 minutes, I was done with both the applications, I had paid the fees and had said goodbye and thank you to the man who had helped me and made my way out. I had about 5-10 minutes before my afternoon job started and I wasn't sure I was gonna make it on time. It didn't really bother me I mean, I had just applied to two football clubs! Hopefully the applications would come back positive, as the guy who helped me out said I'd get an email from either himself of the clubs I applied to within the next week or two with their decisions. Let's hope for the best now!
As I opened up my laptop in the morning for work, I logged into my email and saw this:
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I started nervously shaking at this point. I usually get an email from my boss in the morning telling me what to do at work but it couldn't be from him could it? I had seen him about 2 minutes before opening up my laptop and he had already told me what to do so who could it be? It had only been 5 days since I had applied for those football jobs and the guy at the jobcentre told me it would take at least a week or two. I was confused, I didn't want to press Inbox but I felt like I had to. As I clicked on Inbox (1), this is the first message that opened up:
View attachment 167883 Oh my god!! What??? Already?? I thought it'd take a week! After seeing that email, I was absolutely buzzing! I just jumped off my chair whilst all my coworkers were looking at me wondering what on earth I was doing just jumping off a chair like that. I was so excited! Today was the 14th of October, so I decided I'd leave tomorrow to go to the interview and hopefully get a job! A car ride would take me about 4 hours and a half and a train ride only 2 and a half. Given the cost of gas that comes with a 4 and a half hour car ride, I decided I'd just get a train ticket for the next day, which I immediately did online.
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What a start to the day! ****. With around 4 hours of work left, I was wondering if I was going to be able to contain my excitement until lunch, but then I remembered that this was only an interview and I had no idea if I was going to get the job or not. That calmed me down a little but I was still really excited. Bradford, here I come!
I arrived yesterday in the beautiful city that is Bradford. I looked around and visited the city and it honestly seems like a great city to live in. I saw a couple of banners for Bradford Park Avenue but obviously in terms of football, Bradford City is the biggest club here.
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It was about 9 am and I went to get some breakfast at a local breakfast place, it was really great. I was starting to feel a bit nervous obviously as the interview was just an hour and a half away but I had time to get comfortable with the city and just really make sure I knew where I was going and stuff so that was good. After about half an hour, I went back to my hotel room to get some of my stuff and just hit the road. The stadium was about 30 minutes away but I wanted to get there early just in case. As I was walking down the street, I walked past the Bradford City AFC stadium, Valley Parade.
View attachment 167865 It'd obviously be the dream to manage there first but hey, one thing at a time. I just stopped to look at the stadium and thought about how maybe I'd end up here, or maybe I'd manage Bradford Park Avenue and we'd come play here. I took that time to take my phone out and quickly check how long it'd take me to get to Horfsall Stadium. If I walked there it would take...... an hour and a half. ****. I called an Uber as soon as I saw that message especially when I saw that it would just be a 20-minute ride from here. As the Uber arrived about 5 minutes later, it was 10:25 and I had to get to Bradford Park Avenue's stadium as fast as possible.
Phew. 10:50. It took a bit longer than I thought it would but I made it just about on time.
View attachment 167860 Certainly not as impressive as Valley Parade but it's nice enough to start with! I walked around to see if I could find an office, somewhere to go and finally found it next to the stands and the running track. It really was a small building and I mean, given the status of the club, it's understandable. I entered and a couple of men were there waiting; I recognised one of them but I wasn't sure who he was. He came over to me and introduced himself:
"Hi there, you must be Hugo. I'm John Dean, the chairman, I emailed you the other day to invite you here. Let's get started shall we? You're right on time, I'm liking this already!"
Good thing I didn't go up to him to ask his name.... How could I forget he was the chairman, the man who even offered me this interview. What a great start....We entered a small conference room as some other people from the board sat down with us and I sat opposite of the chairman for the interview. I figured he was the one who was going to ask me the questions and the rest of the board might come in and ask a few as well so I kind of sat at the end of the table to be able to make eye contact with everyone. "So Hugo, welcome! Thanks a lot for joining us today I know you came all the day from London. Did you just get here?"
"Oh no not at all! I arrived yesterday morning, I wanted to see some of the city and just settle a little bit before this interview! It's a real honour to be here thank you so much for giving me this opportunity."
"Hahaha, no worries. Now, you've probably seen that the club has been underperforming a lot as of late. The media predicted us to finish 10th at the beginning of the season and clearly we wanted even more than that but so far we're sitting in 22nd, so the first question I'm going to ask is obviously: do you think you can get us to where we want to be?"
"I'd like to think so yes, it'll be my first job as a manager and I definitely want to impress. It might not be easy at first but I think I'll be able to do a good job here for sure despite my young age. I like to think of myself as very determined and versatile in terms of what I use in my work and how I use it and my relationships with people. So to answer your question, yes, I definitely think I can get this club to the next level."
"Great. You mentioned the fact that this will be your first job as a manager. From what we've seen in your file and the reports and application sent from JobCentrePlus, you've applied to other places as well. Should we take that as a hint that you might not be extremely loyal already?"
"Not at all John. It's the opposite actually. I've applied to many different jobs because I'm so eager to get started and show everyone what I can do as a football manager and that obviously starts with a club, which is something I do not yet have. I want to show that I'm determined and ambitious and want to start as soon as possible which is why when you were the first to reply to my application, I already knew in my head that I would take this job if it was offered to me."
"That sounds good. Now in terms of finances, we're doing okay at the moment but some better performances would obviously be appreciated and as you said you'll be capable of doing that, do you think you can handle the eventual better finances of the club?"
"I actually studied football business in college so this is my area of expertise I'd say for sure. I'll definitely be able to look after those finances and make sure we're spending in the right places to get some money back and really take the club to a better financial position but also general position in the table."
The interview went on for another 10-15 minutes, as they kept asking about how I would handle the players and the club and if I had any strategies in mind and if I was comfortable with public speaking, etc. At the end of it, I shook everyone's hands and thanked them very much for the opportunity once again and made my way out. I thought the interview went pretty well and unless they just preferred another applicant, I don't feel like I could've done much better. Now that the interview was over, I had to catch my train going back to London and wait for a response from the club. I was a bit nervous but still so excited about the whole opportunity. It'd be incredible to get started already and I just really wanted to be able to start now. Bradford Park Avenue, please take me on.
The hard life of an upcoming manager. Bradford Park Avenue never got back to me so I've just been going out with friends trying to get over it, going for more interviews, getting rejected again and just going out again. Some of my friends were actually worried because I just started drinking for no reason, it's been all going downhill lately. I didn't think it would be this hard, especially because that Bradford job looked so promising and I thought everything went so well. It was a real heartbreak. Today's the 4th of February 2016 and it's been 7 months since I became a manager and nothing. I just get rejected or offered ridiculous deals. I've now told myself that the next job offer I get, I'll accept. I've got nothing to lose at this point to be honest with you.
3 days later...
"Hugo? Dude, it's Mark. Wake up honestly you need to see this!! Legit, right now!! Get up!"
First words I heard in the morning as I woke up. I sat up in bed and looked outside my room to see him in the living room, scrolling through stuff on my laptop. What the **** was he doing on there anyway and why was he in my house? I had been feeling really sad and depressed because of all those rejections but he just seemed way too happy. He was usually way more concerned about me.
"What is itttttttt? Why are you waking me up at 8 dude it's way too early."
"Yeah I don't think you'll be saying that once you see this! Just come here seriously!"
As I walked over to him, I saw that my email was open and just like the first time I received an email from a football club, there was a new email in my inbox. I was using that email specifically for business stuff, football related things. I never got new emails but there was one right here. From Stockport County FC. I remembered going for an interview in Stockport but I didn't remember it going too well. But there it was, my first ever offer to become a manager. I was way too sleepy to even react, way too shocked to have any reaction whatsoever.
"You did it!! Finally man! You got an offer you're going to manage a football club! In the Vanarama Conference North! Come on what's wrong with you! You've been waiting for this your whole life dude! And Stockport are by far one of the biggest teams in the division you can so easily get promoted! You have 14 games left I just checked! Come on!!! We need to call everyone here for your first game dude, it's in 2 days!! Against Nuneaton as well they're above you in the league! Why aren't you excited I don't get it."
I didn't say anything to him, I went back to the bathroom, had a quick shower, put on jogging clothes and just ran off my flat and went for a run; I was sprinting the whole time, I couldn't believe it! I'm a football manager! Finally! After about 30 minutes I just went back and Mark had printed the email telling me to come to Edgeley Park to sign the contract immediately. From London, we had to go all the way to Stockport next to Manchester so we needed to leave straight away. Wow!!
I moved to Stockport the day I heard I got the job. Finally! I got a small apartment about 10 minutes away from the stadium to make my life easier; it wasn't as nice as the one I had in London obviously, but still pretty decent for the price I paid for it. With my first game in charge tomorrow, I went to the training ground, Park Road Stadium, to meet all the players and the staff and get a training session in.
I met all the different coaches, who were very welcoming and told me how things worked around here. This was all new to me so I was really wondering how different the system was from a Premier League side's and football-wise I guess it's not that different but the fact is most of the players don't play football full time, so I can't expect them to give as much as Ibrahimovic or Jamie Vardy would give in training. I met the captain, Sean O'Hanlon, who's about 12 years older than me and had been here for the whole season already so he might not know as much as a player who had been here for ages but knows the players well. He told me who was who and who he thought was our most valuable player (Gareth Roberts) and all that. The training session that followed went quite well I interacted with most of our players, who are almost all older than me, and just had a good time for our practice. I reminded them that we had a game tomorrow and I hoped they'd show up on time and once the session was over, told them all to go home and rest.
Before joining the club, I looked up a bit of its history and it's quite impressive to say the least. In fact, they kind of suffered a fall from grace as they were in the Championship for so long.
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Not really any major trophies won in their time, apart maybe from the League 2 title they won in 1967. Hopefully I'll change that! After talking a bit more with the staff, I decided to go back home and try to figure out what system to run and how to handle my first game tomorrow. I stayed up until almost 1 am so after a big first day, I got some much needed sleep to have energy for tomorrow's game against Nuneaton, who are currently 6th in the league (3 places ahead of us).
Game day. My first ever game as a manager, the one game I'll look back to and say: this is how I started my managerial career. We're going up against a strong Nuneaton side who are above us in the table, but we can definitely get a victory today. Playing at home gives us an advantage but also puts some pressure on me to do well and impress the fans.
I decided to go with a 4-1-3-2 formation and really focus on keeping possession of the ball. We've got some of the best players in the division by far and we should really be able to just play around in their half until we get a goal. The players know that I want them to try and attack as hard as they can in the beginning and then maybe sit back if we're clearly dominating. A win today would make it three wins in a row for the club; I want to keep that good run of form going and make sure we get the three points today. Let's go Hatters!!
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We reached Edgeley Park at about 6 in the evening just to make sure we'd be able to kick the ball around and have a little team-talk before the game. The players were looking good, I wasn't sure if it was a good thing and they'd get over confident or not but so far, they're looking ready to go all fit and healthy.
Around 7, I called the boys in the dressing room for the first team-talk of my career:
"Alright boys, first game with me in charge today. Now listen, it's clear that the results have not been good enough at this club so far and today's the chance to redeem yourself. Today is the chance to show that we're a new club and we are going to get that playoff spot, we are going to get that promotion. I want you to go out there, control the game, have your chances, score some goals, and have fun. Once you've done all that, then and only then you can sit back and relax. You all know what to do, you all know what your role is so I won't say any more than what I already have. Don't disappoint me lads, it's my first game in charge and I wanna impress as much as you do so let's get out there and grab that win against Nuneaton Town aight? Come on boys let's go! Huddle! 1! 2! 3! Hatters!!!"
I think that went alright to be honest, I felt in control and I felt like they were listening to me. It might only be their part-time job but I could tell they were taking it seriously. The game was starting in about 5 minutes so they all got their boots on, shinpads on, pulled their socks up and got ready to go. It's showtime.
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Well how was that for a first game!!! You should have seen me on the sidelines almost crying every time we scored! We were 4-0 up at half-time! I couldn't believe it. I had told the players to do me and themselves proud and **** they did. We could've done a bit better with possession but had so many chances and scored so many goals as well! I was absolutely buzzing and literally ran on the field when the referee blew the final whistle to celebrate with the lads. It was one **** of a game that I'll never ever forget and I'm so happy that we got all 3 points. I never expected such a great victory but in the end we got that and it's more than I could have ever asked for. My friends were in the stands and my girlfriend was too, all watching my very first game. She doesn't really like football but came to Stockport because it was her birthday 4 days ago and I told her I wanted her to be there as a little birthday present. I'm pretty sure she'll be thrilled by a 5-1 win! If there's anyone I need to thank for this win though, it's the man of the match.
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Paul was by far the best player on the pitch today, getting every tackle perfect, making amazing passes and getting 3 ASSISTS!! What a performance from him and you know what I've been worried about the fact that our squad is very old but if they manage to perform like that, I'll definitely keep them until we reach at least League 2!! That's my goal right now as a manager for Stockport, to get out on non-league football and become a professional club. Hopefully that'll all happen soon but with a team as good as Stockport, I'm pretty sure we can ge back-to-back promotions given we work hard enough. After an incredible day here in Stockport and the end of my first game as a manager, I decided to go home and get a good night of sleep and some amazing dreams before getting up early tomorrow to go and kick the ball around at our training ground. The players won't be there because I gave them a day off, but I just wanted to play around with the ball. As I was walking home, I got a text from the chairman Mark Smith congratulating me for the win and saying he was extremely pleased with how we played today. Yesssss!
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