The Basement of English Football - A Cleethorpes Town Story.

TicTactition

TicTactition

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Hello guys, I've been away for a short while and some of you may remember me from previous years doing various journeyman saves. I've read with keen anticipation this year and finally after quite alot of FM play myself this year I've decided to write my own story. I'm writing about my own club which I played for until quite recently where the club have just grown in stature and have actually acquired some players of a great pedigree and have outgrown me.

Cleethorpes Town are plying their trade in the Northern Premier League One South with a string of recent promotions and a little investment from local benefactors the club is heading in the right direction. Most noticeably the club played at Wembley last year in the FA Vase Final against Julio Arca's South Sheilds which ended in a 4-0 defeat for the Owls.

My main aim in this save is to get Cleethorpes Town as far as I can. I am aiming to make it as realistic as possible and will be using my own tactics, none of which will be downloaded and bugged to the FM system to make me fly up the leagues. I'll be looking for the shrewd bargain aswell and looking to make as much money as I can for the club to hopefully bring through youth graduates for the club which in the future may well be sold for money if we move through the leagues. I hope that you join me on the journey and it proves a decent read as I've been away from writing stories for a while so without further ado I will crack on with the story.


Key Players

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Alex Flett

Been with the club now for 3 seasons and is probably going to be one of the most technically gifted player for us at this level. Alex possesses great control of the ball and is able to dictate tempo of games.

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Mark Gray

Mark is another local lad, coming through the Grimsby Town academy he is a mammoth of a defender and his style is in the mould of no-nonsense. His most recent club was North Ferriby in which he played in the Vanarama National for them and after their relegation he was playing in the Vanarama North. I believe he will be our rock at the back.


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Danny North

Probably a cult hero of the town to most. Again coming through the Grimsby academy, Dannys adventure has been a little more colourful. During Danny's 6 year stay with the Mariners he made 81 appearances scoring 17 times before a move to Ireland and he played for: Sligo Rovers, St Pats Athletic and Shamrock Rovers. Hopefully Danny's experience will help us and he still has legs to fire goals for us this season.



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Following. Love a low-league story. How many promotions needed to get to the Premiership?
 
Sammuthegreat said:
Following. Love a low-league story. How many promotions needed to get to the Premiership?
Click to expand...

Thanks Sammu, and the way I've seen it I think it is 9 if my assumptions are correct.

Northern Premier League Division One South/North
Isthmian League Division One South/North
Northern/Southern Premier League Premier Division
Isthmian League Premier Division
Vanarama North/South
Vanarama National
Sky Bet League 2
Sky Bet League 1
Sky Bet Championship
 
Easy! Qualify for the Champions League inside a decade then. Sorted!
 
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Pre Season

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The Owls complete a near perfect preseason going undefeated into the season.

I was just shifting around with tactics to see where my players was most comfortable and I think we fell very comfortably into a 4-4-4-2. We have some very good lads here but with no disrespect I don't think we can fathom the likes of a 4-3-3 or a 3-4-2-1 in the league due to just not being tactically inept. We make two solid banks of four to break down when defending and we commit when we are flying forward. Pre-season was made a little harder by the fact plenty of clubs are trying to poach our best players who are on non-contracts but I've managed to keep most at bay.

Below are the tactics I shall be starting off with this season.

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Bog-standard formations really.
I feel like simplicity will be the key at this level. Aslong as we can improve on our squad I believe that keeping things simple is the way forward here, I may adapt at any given time in the season but I will let you know if I choose to do so regarding changes. Obviously the 4-4-2 is going to be our tactic at home I believe we should always be challenging for 3 points at home, and the away tactic is a compact 4-5-1 to go away and make ourselves hard to break down and make ourselves hard to beat.

Transfers

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Only two acquisitions being brought in at the start of the season just to give us a little more depth.
First of all Kofi Boateng who I think will be an absolute superstar at this level. The former Norwich man has been without a club for well over a year and had welcomed the chance to get back into football. I think his stats suggest he could also be playing Central Midfield which I am currently training him to play. Graeme Venus is a young 16 year old local lad who we have managed to sign up to professional terms. He had been ripping the youth leagues apart for us so we thought we will give him a chance to impress with us.


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August


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Northern Premier League Division One South

Market Drayton 1 - 3 Cleethorpes Town
North (Pen 8'), Mascall (61'), Robertson (71')

MOTM: Luke Mascall

What a fantastic start to the season.
We controlled the game from start to finish and probably should have scored more. It was pleasing to see both the strikers get on the scoresheet which I hope is a good omen for the forthcoming season. All round a good team performance which we take the spoils today.

Northern Premier League Division One South

Cleethorpes Town 3 - 0 Carlton
North (2', 4', 30')

MOTM: Danny North

What a great individual performance today from Danny North a great first-half performance sees him take home the matchball today. We always had a feeling that with Danny's experience at such a high level he may be a little bit special at this level and he proved exactly that. I'm a little disappointed we took our foot off the gas and didn't go for more but this is me looking for nit-pics of our performance.

Northern Premier League Division One South

Lincoln UTD 1 - 3 Cleethorpes Town
Robertson (31'), Flett (Pen 57'), Cooper (64')

MOTM: Liam Davis

Three on the bounce! We really are playing some scintillating stuff with the simplest of ideas. We are working hard for eachother and even after going 1-0 down there was not an ounce of doubt that crept in. We gave Mark Cooper his first start today ahead of Danny North who was carrying a slight knock from his previous game and he didn't disappoint with the opposition chasing his shadow all day. He also bullied his defender for his headed goal which shows me I've got strikers on the bench letting me know they want their game time.

Northern Premier League Division One South

Cleethorpes Town 1 - 0 Stamford
North (Pen 9'),Eze sent off (69'), Benson sent off (90+4')

MOTM: Kofi Boateng

We carry on our success but no thanks to ourselves. We was below par today and I'd be lying if I'd say we deserved a point. We scored with our only shot on target and looked very very sluggish. Saying that Stamford are favourites for the division and we've beat the bookies favourites. Their lack of discipline probably helped get us over the line after we was under heavy attack from them until their defender who was last man decided to take Danny North's legs after he was put through and it gave us the breathing room we needed. Then a further rush of blood for a rash challenge left Stamford without two regulars for their next fixture.

Northern Premier League Division One South

Cleethorpes Town 2 - 1 Leek
Robertson (45+1'), Flett (Pen 79')

 MOTM: Liam Davies

We have become somewhat specialists in gathering penalties so far this season and it was our saving grace again today. Heading into the last quarter of the game I thought it would have been two points dropped but once again we got lucky due to the recklessness of defenders at this level jumping in when they don't need too. We keep up our 100% record in the league. We also made a new signing before the game today in the mould of Ben Drennan who I think is an absolute superstar at this level and couldn't believe he hasn't got a club at Vanarama Level.

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Northern Premier League Division One South

Peterborough Sports 0 - 2 Cleethorpes Town
North (37'), Oglesby (58')

MOTM: Liam Davis

We make light work away from home against Peterborough Sports as Danny North continues his goalscoring exploits and we continue to be a force. A special mention today to the defence for the clean sheet as we defended expertly and more individually to Liam Davis who picked up his third Man of the Match award of the month with his direct running and silky skills on the left hand side.

English FA Cup 2nd Preliminary Round

Cleethorpes Town 2 - 1 Wellington
Venus (21'), Robertson (58')

MOTM: Graeme Venus

I thought this would be more of a match up for us considering Wellington are in the division above us. There was only ever one team in the game and it was us. We are defying expectations this season and what a fantastic first month its been. The shrewd additions have been key and today one of our own claimed his first goal and Man of the Match for us.

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FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round draw:

Cleethorpes Town v Gresley

A good draw for us. Gresley are in the same league as us and currently sit 5th in the table. I fancy our chances.

Player of the Month

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Liam Davis

The winger has been excellent for us this first month, contributing with some eye-catching performances and you can see why he was at Gainsborough Trinity last season for his quality. Did you know that Liam Davis is the first person to come out and openly admit that he is gay in semi-professional football.

Table

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Cannot really ask for much more than that. The boys have been faultless.​
 
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