New Year New Life: The Story of a Journeyman

[LutterworthFox]

This Backstory is totally fictional!

New*Years*Eve went pear shaped, my Wife eventually found out all my indiscretions, and in the ensuing disaster I lost her, my kids, my family disowned me along with all my friends. As the clock struck Midnight I knew a change had to be made. What can I do I thought. I had nothing left apart from a bag of clothes and my National C Licence coaching badge.

After a chat with a close friend (the only one who still spoke to me) I knew I had to get out, disappear, create a new identity in a new country. When I arrived at Gatwick Airport I didn't know where I was going to end up. I went to the travel agents inside the airport and asked where the next available flight went, I only had £500 to my name and needed some spare cash when I arrived at my destination to find a hotel and then a job so it had to be as cheap as possible.

The destination? Gibraltar.

Then it hit me, why not use my National C Licence to do some good. Let's go to Gibraltar and start a journey. I hope I would never return to the UK, instead travel the world seeing all the places I had dreamed of going to, but do to that I had to earn money, I needed a job that paid enough to live, but also enough to save for the future. A career as a journeyman football manager was*the perfect choice.

As I boarded the flight I knew it was the right choice but I wanted to make it as fun as possible along the way so I needed to set myself some aims, objectives and challenges to do along the way.

On the 150 minute flight I drew myself up a list of things.

• Win the League in a nation before I can move to the next.
• I can only move to a nation that borders the nation I am in, so from*Gibraltar*I'd have to move to Spain, and so on and so on.
• If there is no bordering nation that I haven't already been to then I can move to the nearest one.
• I have to make my choices to better myself and my financial situation. If a job comes in from a club in the same nation that pays more then I can go (if I want to).
• I want to win the Champions League in all 6 continents

When I finish my journey I want the whole world to know who I am!


How will I document my journey?

• Each new club will have a post telling you about the club, location, squad, etc
• Each post will be as sharp and to the point as possible. It will be done on a monthly basis with*results and table review.
• At the end of each*season*there will be a review of the season as a whole.

I touched down at Gibraltar Airport and checked myself into the cheapest B&B I could find, when I wake up in the morning I have to go job hunting!

 

[LutterworthFox]

The First Job​

It took just short of 2 months but I eventually was offered a job role. It came in the form of Manchester 62 in the Premier Division of Gibraltar

A little bit about Manchester 62

An insert from Wikipedia

Manchester 62 F.C.[1] is a football club based in Gibraltar. The club was previously known as Manchester United (Gibraltar) F.C. in honour of Manchester United, having officially changed from the 2013–14 season. The club's crest was altered also to reflect the name change. Manchester 62 is currently a member of the Gibraltar Premier Division. The club, like all others in the territory, currently play at the Victoria Stadium on Winston Churchill Avenue.

The Club in-game


The team are currently doing terribly and with 10 games left are bottom of the League. The bottom team goes down with the 9th placed team playing in a relegation play-off

The squad itself looks OK, it's big enough to cope with the next 10 games and then at the end of the season I'll assess it more.

Both of the above players look pretty good. They are a good base to build a tactic from.

Looking at the squad overall I think I'll keep it simple and employ a 442 or 4141 formation.

Club History

The club itself has had quite a bit of silverware over the past few years. The last Premier Division win was in 1999 but came 2nd in 2014 so are one of the more successful teams in Gibraltar.

​Facilities

Not good but it's expected in such a poor League, hopefully in my time here, which I'm hoping is relatively short we can try and improve them slightly without messing up the finances

My next update will be at the end of the season, after that I will do updates on a monthly basis

 

[LutterworthFox]

2017/18 Pre-Season - Manchester 62 (Gibraltar)


To say it's been a tough pre-season would be an understatement!


Here are the outs:

A lot as you can see, we had a few players out of contract who either didn't want to stay or were rubbish. The only player on this list that I didn't want to leave was Midfielder Aaron Payas, he was the best player at the club and last season's player of the year. He refused a new contract, it'll be interesting to see where he goes


Now for the in's:

Not as many as the out's but I've tried to improve where I can, with attribute masking on it's been very hard to find good quality players. I'm currently scouting as quick as possible. The quality of players interested is also atrocious but each signing is an improvement on what I have or one for the future who I hope will improve as time goes on.
Here are the player profiles for you to look at if your interested:

• Gonzalo Fernandez Aguilera
• Chris Ramsey
• David Olmedo Cruz
• David Martinez
• Youseff Sabbari
• Ben Lee
• John Consigliero

Pre-Season results are as follows:

As you can see it was a very long pre-season but we did very very well. Only 2 defeats, the 1st friendly where were awful and a narrow 3-1 defeat to Premier Division champs Lincoln (GIB). Overall it was really pleasing and gives me confidence for the upcoming season.


Here are the season odds and expectations:

As expected we are forecast to end mid-table, the board expect us to avoid relegation. When I had my team meeting I said I expected a mid-table finish and it didn't go down well! No one was confident and it sent morale plummeting. Hopefully with a decent start that'll turn around.




Next update will be at the end of October as there are only 2 games in September.

 

[LutterworthFox]

September/October 2017

A really good start to the season, all tight games but we looked solid in defence and created numerous chances, just our finishing let us down. The only slip up was against the best team in the League.

2nd place is amazing, let's hope we can keep this up!

 

[LutterworthFox]

November/December 2017

6 games, all very tight but we played very well. The only real poor results was the 1-0 defeat to Mons Calpe.

10 points from the 6 games has slipped us down to 4th but as you can see it's very very close

 

[LutterworthFox]

January/February 2018

Amazing! Defensively stunning and created so many chances. We look stunning. The only defeat was in the cup which I wasn't bothered about. The final win pushed us up to 2nd place in the League

Even though we have had an amazing run we are still quite a way behind Lincoln (GIB) who as you can see are still unbeaten. 9 games left in the season and we have a good chance of getting 2nd place which I think is a Europa League place.

We also made 1 signing in the January window. A left-back on a free transfer

 

[LutterworthFox]

March/April 2018 + Youth Intake

It's been a tough few months but we are still doing really well overall. A couple of poor victories put pay to trying to catch up Lincoln (GIB)

With 2 games left Lincoln have ran away with it and now it's down to ourselves and Europa Point for 2nd spot.

We also had the annual youth intake:
Here are the 2 best players that came through out youth intake, both are as good as out 1st team so will go straight into it! All the others were signed but not good enough currently and will be monitored as they play in the reserves

The next update will be an end of season review including the final 2 games of the season

 

[LutterworthFox]

May 2018 + End of Season Review

We bottled it!

2 defeats lost us 2nd place which would've meant Europa League football next season, but overall it's been a brilliant season.

I have no idea how we are going to catch Lincoln (GIB) up, maybe they might lose their manager and I'll get the job! In all seriousness, it's gonna take a fluke or us to have an amazing season to overtake them.
Here is the end of season review:

And here is the squad overall and our 2 best players profiles:

Some good news is that although we are well in debt I have managed to slow the losses down, we currently have a bank balance of -£78k, this is an increase of £24k from where we started the previous season mainly due to the £17k prize money, but it's good news and hopefully keeping all my players on non-contracts means by the end of next season we might be even closer to being above £0.




Season | Team | Nation | Position | Notes and Achievements2016/17 | Man 62 | Gibraltar | 8th | Took job with 10 games left2017/18 | Man 62 | Gibraltar | 3rd | None

 

[LutterworthFox]

Big news! Lincoln (GIB) have parted company with their manager as he refused a new contract! I'm 100% applying for it, I said at the start I'd do what I thought was best for me and this is certainly what's best, I'm not expecting to get it however! I want to move on as quick as possible so taking this job will pretty much guarantee me moving nations quicker than I currently can

Stay tuned for more details if anything arises

 

[LutterworthFox]

Didn't even get an interview!

 

[LutterworthFox]

2018/19 Pre-Season - Manchester 62 (Gibraltar)
I'm not gonna lie it's been a ****** struggle of a pre-season, I never expected to get the Lincoln job but got my hopes up when the job became available and then shot down. when I didn't even get an interview! The main struggle has been finding decent players, there is just none interested in joining me, so I've had to scout, scout, scout endlessly to find players that half fit the bill and are an improvement on the rubbish I currently have! So in total I've signed 4 players, 2 of them to coincide with a switch in tactics from 4141 to 4231, the change because of the lack of goals scored last season. It does seem to have had a very small effect in pre-season but only slightly.
Ins

• Mark Ballester
• Lamine Sherriff
• Stefan Moreno
• Angelo Lavagna

There we no real out's of note just a few players released who were just taking up space.

Here's the squad for the season, kill me now!

Pre-Season Results

The first few games of the pre-season were played with the good old 4141, as you can see goalscoring again was an issue, I then switched and you can see the difference for a couple of games then the same old issues came back to haunt me, I just don't know what more I can apart from putting everyone upfront! I always like to have a friendly against the best team in the League to see how we have progressed and as you can see we lost, not good!
Odds and Expectations

So after ending 3rd last season we are forecast to end 8th! A place lower than last season's prediction and also our odds are longer. Very strange. The boards expectations have risen from "avoid relegation" to "mid-table". Optimistic!!
See you in a few months!

 

[LutterworthFox]

September/October 2018

After a ****** shocking first game we have turned it around and won 3 straight. Amazing! Especially that final game against the favourites to win the League (yes above Lincoln), we destroyed them! The 4231 is working a treat, although not one striker has scored a goal yet, my leading goalscorer? My right-sided IF!

Lincoln just stroll on and on, that's now 32 league games unbeaten, god knows how we will catch them!
In other news we had a clean sweep of the October awards, manager of the month and RW Garcia player of the month, he also picked up goal of the month to boot.

A good start to the season, 2nd will be an amazing season but I really wanna win it!

 

[LutterworthFox]

[FONT=&quot]November/December 2018[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To say it has gone very well would be a massive understatement BUT strikers, OH STRIKERS! Where are they? Good question, actually there are no strikers, I decided to completely bin them from the Lions game and play a 41320 formation, what's the point in Strikers anyway? Especially the **** we have. It has worked a treat, 6 goals in the 3 games and my AMs are scoring for fun[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]But the big question is have Lincoln lost yet?![/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]No they haven't, but as you can see we are only ****** top! We don't even need them to lose a game if we keep winning, there is a long way to go however and lots of twists and turns to go.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]No awards in either month somehow, 2nd in both for Manager of the Month[/FONT]

 

[LutterworthFox]

January/February 2019

]

A couple of small blips but overall a fantastic few months, Lincoln (GIB) losing meant we could afford to lose to them and still stay top.

10 games left and 1 point clear, can we keep it up? It's gonna be tough but we are in good form, if we come 2nd I'll be gutted but it'll still be an amazing season.

 

[LutterworthFox]

March 2019 + Youth Intake

Another good month, defensively fantastic as always, goalscoring still a struggle but I'll take anything at the moment! We have also progressed to the semi-final of the Rock Cup where we will play Lincoln (GIB)!

Lincoln have also dropped a few points with a couple of draws which means we are still 1 point clear, we still have them to play at home, it could be the decisive game. 6 to go!
We also had the youth intake and it was pretty poor as always, 2 players stood out who could make a difference 1 of them being a striker.

 

[AldoKemp-1]

good luck, saw lincoln red imps playing Celtic in the champions league this year! tough team to beat but the fact they never even interviewed you should spur you on to destroy them! id like to see you in the Champions league with Manchester 62!

 

[LutterworthFox]

good luck, saw lincoln red imps playing Celtic in the champions league this year! tough team to beat but the fact they never even interviewed you should spur you on to destroy them! id like to see you in the Champions league with Manchester 62!

Im trying my hardest matey but as you will see in the next update it's near on impossible to beat them!

 

[LutterworthFox]

April 2019

Just call us bottle-job 62! When we went into the Lincoln (GIB) game we were 3 points clear of them, even a point would've done but we didn't show up. A now with 2 games left we are level on points but behind on GD, we need them to slip-up but I doubt they will. And to add insult to injury they knocked us out of the cup as well!

One huge piece of news though is against Europa FC I played a striker and he scored!!!!! Not only that, he scored 2, yes 2 goals!! Shame he hasn't scored in the next 3!

So 2 games to go, they have to slip up, wish me luck!

 

[AldoKemp-1]

they are a good team man! and they also have funds from Europe which will make it harder to challenge also, you should maybe try and snap up any summer signings they are chasing before them, that way they can't get any of their first choices!

 

[LutterworthFox]

they are a good team man! and they also have funds from Europe which will make it harder to challenge also, you should maybe try and snap up any summer signings they are chasing before them, that way they can't get any of their first choices!

Hopefully they go on and win the cup as well which puts us in the Europa League, we need some funds from somewhere, im constantly scouting their players and trying to sign ones who don't play but so far none want to join. Maybe challenging them so close might change that