The Iron - A Braintree Town Story

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The Iron - A Braintree Town Story

35 year old Chris Ball is hired as the new manager of Braintree Town. It's a statement I am proud to hear as I take over at the Essex club, in what I hope will be a long term career taking them up through the English pyramid with the aim to eventually reach the promised land of the Premier League.

The club has been established for well over 100 years, but only have three trophies to their name in their entire history. Four regional league titles and a single National League South win coming in 2011. I'll be looking to change that! Our fiercest rivals are Chelmsford City, due to the close proximity of the two clubs and we will get the chance to play them in the league in my first season in charge. With regards to the club's facilities, they're not the greatest which is to be expected down at this level. I'll be looking to upgrade these as we progress the club throughout the years ahead.

Just as I'll be looking to upgrade myself as, at the moment, I only have a National A License and my previous playing experience as a local pro footballer leaves me with plenty to learn.

Luckily, expectations of the board are not high, with a brave fight against relegation expected this season, and for the next 5 years the board will be happy if we simply stay in the league. Basically, as long as I stay within the wage budget, I should keep the bosses happy.

It's no wonder the board are so lenient with their expectations, as with my appointment as the most inexperienced manager in the league, the club are predicted to finish well adrift of the rest and be relegated. Looks like I'll have my work cut out.

Although I don't think it's just down to my appointment. As I meet my squad, it's clear to see that we are seriously lacking in numbers and my first task is going to be to add some new recruits ASAP before the competitive season gets underwar. With only £500 spare in the wage budget, it's not going to be an easy task to attract any major talent to the club and I will have to be a very shrewd operator in the transfer market for sure.

Any success we will have is likely to be heavily dependent on the performances of central midfielder Alfie Payne. He is easily our best player and I'll be looking to build our team around the 21 year old!

 

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We know we're not going to get the best players to sign for this club. After a few free transfer attempts of what I'd class to be 'good' players at this level, it was clear to see that most don't want to play for me as an inexperienced manager or don't want to play for Braintree as a club that is apparently destined for the drop! So instead, we will have to turn our attention to players that are not so great (to make up the numbers) and the hope our best players can shine, or maybe some youngsters on loan that won't be getting regular football at their own club...

Kai Lissimore fits that latter bill perfectly. At 17, Kidderminster clearly don't have any plans for him this season, but he can add something to our squad and will get his chance to show what he can do for us. He has decent passing ability and the vision to pick out a half decent pass and when he plays, we'll look to him to get those through balls out wide or up to the strikers to create chances. Kai comes in on loan for the season and we won't pay anything towards his deal or wages.

Another youngster that joins on loan for the season ahead is Joe Rabbetts. He comes in from Aldershot in the National League and likely to be our number one left back. He has some decent pace to get up and down the left wing and I’ll be looking for him to whip in plenty of crosses for the front men. We won’t pay anything towards Joe’s wages for the duration of this deal.

A second youngster joined us on loan for the season from Aldershot in the form of winger, Dan Jones. The 19 year old should provide a threat down the right side and I expect him to provide a little flair to the team, getting beyond his man and whipping plenty of crosses into the box. He has the potential to get more assists than anyone this season if he can establish himself as a first team regular. As with our other loan deals, we won’t have to contribute any financials to this deal.

My next signing was my first permanent one for the club. Elliott Andrew has come through the youth at a much higher level with Nottingham Forest, but the 19 year old striker was released by them at the end of last season. I have happily snapped him up and made him the highest paid player at the club on £300 per week, hoping he will be able to be our main goalscoring this season.

Back to the loan market and our next season long loan is 19 year old full back, Huseyin Biler, who joins from AFC Wimbledon. We needed cover in the full back position and Biler was the best available on the loan market who would actually join us.

Another area we needed to improve and find cover was at centre back and we have an experienced head through the door on a free transfer in amongst all the youngsters. Michael McGrath is a good addition and will surely play a big part in our season, providing his age doesn’t catch up with him and he stays relatively injury free.

In amongst all the transfer business, we have so far played three friendlies and recorded three wins. However, I wouldn’t have expected anything less as all our opponents have been from lower divisions.
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The tactic I have come up with that best suits my players and the style I want to play down at this level is a 4-2-4 wide. The aim here is to keep a solid back 4, without leaving ourselves too open, have two solid central mids to win and keep the ball. Get the ball, get it wide, whip in the crosses and the strikers score…it’s a simple theory for a team that is devoid of individual outstanding talent. We will kick off the season with a cautious approach based on who we are playing, but I will change the mentality throughout the campaign depending our opponents game by game. With such a weak side though, I predict I’ll mostly be using cautious and balanced to start games off.

We were handed the toughest possible fixture to kick off our league campaign as we took on the title favourites. When we went 2-0 down inside the opening 15 minutes, I have to admit I feared the worst and thought we might get an opening day thrashing! However, my lads grew into the game and we slowly started to take control of things in the possession department and were quickly creating chance after chances. We were back in the game on 54 minutes when Dejon Noel-Williams headed in from an Alfie Payne free kick. Alfie Payne was the provider again for centre back Kyran Clements to level things up for us with 16 minutes to go. We thought we’d actually won the game at the death when Noel-Williams hammered home with just seconds remaining, only for the linesman to rule the goal out for offside.

After the Ebbsfleet game, I was able to announce a new signing. It is another season long loan deal which won’t cost us anything as we add 18 year old striker, Kylian Kouassi to the side. He joins from Sutton United and will come here with a point to prove, having not yet made a senior career experience. His signing was essential as before he joined, I only had two recognised strikers in the side.

Our second league game provided our first victory of the campaign as came away from Hungerford with all 3 points. Dejon Noel-Williams picked up where he left off against Ebbsfleet, bagging another two goals here, and his form already looks like it will be crucial for us this season.

And we made it back to back wins as we beat Havant & Waterlooville in our next game. We were largely outclassed for long periods of this game and our opponents managed 22 shots at our goal. However, our cautious, counter attacking approach worked down to a tee and we took our chances well to steal a victory. It was good to see Kouassi getting on the scoresheet on his first start for the club.

It took 4 games for us to taste defeat for the first time this season, but if I’m being honest then I expected it to have come a lot quicker. Our game against Billericay was close though and either team could have walked with the points on the day…we certainly didn’t disgrace ourselves here.

It’s always a good test of the squad’s mental strength to see how they react after our first defeat and to be fair my lads reacted extremely well here. We dominated proceedings against Oxford and can count ourselves very unlucky not to come away with all 3 points…only a last minute worldie from our opponents denied us the victory.

Still, I don’t think anyone expected us to be in the playoff spots after the opening 5 games! A fantastic start!
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Dulwich Hamlet are one of the bigger clubs in this division and more cash rich than most, with some talented players. So going away to them, I expected a really tough game. What I didn’t expect was to give them a footballing lesson as we cruised to our biggest win of the season so far! We were awesome in every department!

Our first venture into this season’s FA Cup saw us take on lower league club, Lancing, in the 2nd Qualifying Round. We got off to a flying start with Noel-Williams handing us the lead as early as the 9th minute, when he slotted past an onrushing keeper after being put through on goal by Kylian Kouassi. Gianni Crichlow bagged his first goal for the club just before half time to double our lead with a headed effort from a corner, before scoring again with a powerful effort after the break. Then a double from striker, Elliott Andrew, off the bench sealed an easy win.

Back in the league, two set piece goals in the first 8 minutes (one pen and one free kick) from Alfie Payne put us in charge of the game against Welling early on. They didn’t offer much after that and their goal was even against the run of play.

Our flying start to the season has continued and through October it was good enough to earn me my first ever Manager of the Month award.

The Manager of the Month award is notorious for cursing a manager and his team in their next match and we hoped that wouldn’t be the case as we found ourselves back in FA Cup action against more lower league opposition, this time in the form of Kingstonian. But that’s exactly what happened as we suffer a very disappointing defeat and there will be no dream FA Cup run for us this season.

However, we quickly recovered from that defeat as we went on to record 4 wins in a row in the league, conceding only a single goal in the process.

It is a run of form that has taken us to the top of the division!

And also wins me back to back Manager of the Month awards too!

Our defence is proving to be extremely solid so far this season and at the heart of that is Kyran Clements, who is proving to be an absolute beast for us with an average rating of 7.69 in all comps so far this year!

Only our very own Alfie Payne has a better average rating in the league than him!

In amongst all that action, there was another new arrival at the club. We are only allowed 6 long term loans (over 3 months) per season, but needed additional cover on the wings. I have therefore moved to bring in 20 year old Harvey Grice from Alfreton on a loan deal for just 3 months. We won’t contribute anything financially and I’m not sure how much he will play, but it is another body in the squad.
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We took 7 points from our next three league games as we stretched our unbeaten run in the division to 10 games!

Which leads us into our first FA Trophy game of the season and we were handed a draw away at Vanarama National League North side, Curzon Ashton. They are currently lying in 17th place in our adjacent division, and although we could have been handed an easier tie, this is one I still expected us to win based on our current form.

However, our cup form certainly isn’t matching our league form and we crash out of the competition at the first hurdle.

But we did immediately bounce back from that with a win against a struggling Concord Rangers side. We then followed that up with a good point away at Bath who sat just behind us in 3rd place in the division. In the league, we simply seem to keep 'doing the business'.

And that sets us up nicely for my first ever encounter with our fiercest local rivals Chelmsford. In a contrasting season to us, Chelmsford find themselves at the wrong end of the table in 19th place and we will go into the game as firm favourites to win.

Although our chances would be seriously hindered by the fact that our best player just picked up an injury days before the game...even worse than that, he'll miss over a month of action!!

We definitely missed Payne's creativity, but still managed to find the goal to win the game, with our strong and solid defence again performing well and providing the foundation for another win.

And 2 days later, we followed it up with another 1-0 victory away at Tonbridge.

Which is enough for me to win yet another Manager of the Month award.

And it's no surprise with us flying high at the top of the league. Only our closest challengers Billericay have beaten us so far this season as we continue to defy all the odds!
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Another 4 points picked up in 3 days against two Kent clubs. We've completed an impressive double over pre season title favourites, Ebbsfleet.

We haven't had a goalfest for a while, but that's exactly what it was against Eastbourne in our next game. Twice they pegged us back here, but in the end our dominance of possession and chances showed as Elliott Andrew smashed home his second goal of the game in the 81st minute with a powerful diving header, to ensure we took all three points.

We went back to tight games after that, taking four points from our next two games.

Which set us up for a big game against Billericay next. It was 1st against 3rd as we took on the only team to beat us so far this season.

This time round we played out a bore draw...

And then followed that up with another draw against Hungerford. We're not losing games, but at the same time we are dropping a lot of points with three draws in a row now recorded.

In a bid to boost our attacking prowess and hopefully turn these draws into wins, I add a new 3 month loan signing to the squad. Oli Coker joins from Southend and we won't contribute anything financially to this deal. He is a good addition that is better than some of my current options on the wings.

The arrival of Coker seemed to immediately spark the rest of the lads into life as we scored more than 1 goal in a game for the first time in 4 matches.

But it was short lived as we were quickly back to drawing ways against Welling, despite having 22 shots at their goal.

Two poor results followed as well and maybe we are experiencing our first proper dip in form this season. First a bore draw against the bottom side in the division and then only our 2nd defeat of the campaign away at 5th placed Dorking.

And our poor run of form has allowed Bath to open up a big gap at the top of the division with 11 games remaining! Don't get me wrong, if we bag a playoff place it would still be an incredible achievement, but I can't help but have one eye on a title challenge now.

 

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Our poor form continued with a draw against Hemel Hempstead, before a disappointing defeat away at Chippenham.

Although we did pretty much hand Chippenham that result on a plate with two first half sending offs and an own goal!

But we did respond in perfect fashion by giving Slough a good hiding.

On transfer deadline day, I wanted to bolster our attacking options for the run in. The first player that joins on a free transfer is winger Koby Arthur. He was at Dover in the division above and although he hasn't excelled in the National League, he could impress for us down a level.

And George Cowmeadow comes in on a short term loan from Swindon as another option up front. Cowmeadow...what a name!

And the young man with the best name in our team makes an immediate impact as he came off the bench to seal a really good win at Hampton & Richmond.

We couldn't keep the momentum though. However, despite defeat against Dartford in our next game, we have guaranteed ourselves a playoff spot with 6 games remaining! A dream I never could have imagined at the start of the season.

Although the league title now looks well out of reach as Bath are having an unbelievable campaign!

 

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The youth intake presents us with an apparent golden generation, but down at this level, it honestly doesn't take much for the youngsters coming through to be 'not far off' our current first team quality.

Lee Corness looks like the best of the bunch and he could be playing in our back line within the next couple of seasons.

As we went into our final 5 games of the season, we played out a very tight game with Bath City with them just edging us. That was before two good victories against sides in the bottom half of the table...the Chelmsford result ensured we completed a double over our fierce rivals.

A win over Maidstone in our next game would guarantee us a top 3 finish (although the title was now gone) which would mean one less game to play and a guaranteed home draw in the playoffs. My lads duly delivered.

And we finished the regular season with an away win at Eastbourne to keep the momentum going.

Which confirmed a 2nd place league finish for us. Bath City absolutely ran away with it and it was always going to be difficult to top a team that only lost 3 of 40 games all season!! Still, 2nd when we were 350/1 shots at the start of the season and nailed on to finish stone last is an amazing achievement and our season isn't over just yet.

And it would be Oxford City that we would take on in the Playoff Semi Final. We played out two 1-1 draws in the league this year, so it was billed to be a tough and tight game for us.

Again it was a close game, but it was Oxford that just got the better of us and our promotion dream is officially over. We have definitely proved that we have what it takes to compete in this division though this season and look forward to going again next year!

It was Oxford that actually went on to win the Playoffs, beating Billericay in the final.

 

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End of Season 2021/22 Review

Vanarama National League South = 2nd (beaten in playoffs by Oxford City)
Emirates FA Cup = 3rd Qualifying Round (knocked out by Kingstonian)
Buildbase FA Trophy = 2nd Qualifying Round (knocked out by Curzon Ashton)

A disappointing season for the cup competitions but we more than made up for it with our league performance and if Bath City hadn't have had such an amazing season, we might just have won the division with a points tally of 80.

The income down at this level isn't the best, but it's respectable enough for a club of our stature.

And our bank balance is in a very healthy position for such a small club! There were a couple of cash injections by the board back in February and March which boosted the bank account and we've remained very stable since then.

The squad did overachieved beyond my wildest dreams throughout the season and the main key was our defence who were solid throughout most of it. There was a decent return from our strikers with three of them making it to double figures. Kylian Kouassi hit 10 assists as well and led that chart from Alfie Payne who gave a solid performance all season and mustered up nearly 150 key passes for the team (more than 50 more than anyone else).

Sorry, forgot to take a screenshot of the squad!

Our best 11 was as expected to be honest apart from one position. Harvey Grice definitely wasn't our best left winger, but we had players come and go from the club on loan all season. Dan Jones shows as making no appearances because he has already returned to Aldershot, but he was great for us and might be worth seeing if we can get him back next year.

Kyran Clements was a rock at the heart of the defence and it is no surprise to see the fan's give him their player of the year. Alfie Payne is easily the club's best player and had a decent season in the centre of the park so again, no surprise to see him bag the best youngster.

As far as my own awards go...

Manager's Player of the Season = Kyran Clements
Manager's Young Player of the Season (U23) = Alfie Payne
Surprise Package = Everyone/The Team!
Most Disappointing = Koby Arthur (I know he only played 7 games but I really expected more in the final run in)

It's no surprise to see I have the full backing of the players after the season we have had.

Plans For The Summer

Well down at this level, there is always a lot of movement of players every Summer and this year will be no different for us. All of the loanees will return to their clubs and I'm sure we will see a few players leave on free transfers as well. However, what I do have is a very hefty transfer budget for this level of football due to our financial security at the club and I should be in a position to bring in some quality players to challenge again next season.

 

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My first signing of the Summer saw a new right back join the club and the first time I spent a monetary fee on someone. Miquel Scarlett has been signed from Woking for £13,250 and is a significant improvement on the right back position that we had covered last season. Our defence was strong last year, but Miquel's addition should make our back 4 even better!

My next signing bolsters the central midfield where we were very short last season in numbers. Adam Lovatt comes in on a free transfer from Kettering Town where he played 30 times in the Vanarama North last year. They were relegated but Lovatt was their stand out player throughout the season and deserves to stay at this level.

There was a new deal on the table for me as well, which naturally I was more than happy to sign.

After a whole year of trying to encourage my board to set up a senior link with another club, they finally gave in and our new parent club is Southend United. Hopefully, they will prove to have one or two youngsters worth bringing in on loan.

Time for our first season long loan signing of the Summer and it's 19 year old Eastleigh striker, Bright Amoateng. We will have to pay all £400 per week of the striker's wages to bring him here, but I have a feeling he could prove to be worth it!

Talking of loans, I extended Joe Rabbetts for another season from Aldershot. he was a really good player for us at left back last season and well worth retaining.

As I did with Kylian Kouassi. I mean, how can I not after he reached double figures on both assists and goals last season.

And then another permanent deal as Jonathan Wafula joins on a freebie from Grantham Town. He had a good season for them in the regional divisions last year getting 8 assists and 6 goals and he will act as a good squad player for us.

There were a lot of clubs looking at Sutton United's Kai Tanner for a loan deal including Billericay and Dorking who both finished in the top 4 last season, but he has opted to come to us for the season ahead and I'm hoping he can make an impact and show both of those teams what they're missing.

We needed more cover at centre back and Joe Davis is a great addition to my back line, having joined in a freebie from New Saints in the Welsh Premier League. He'll make us stronger and harder to break down for sure!

Another player that is likely to initially act as a backup, but still has the potential to worm his way into the team is Lewis Johnson. He comes in on loan from MK Dons for the season.

 

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I still had no extra cover at left back with only one player in the whole squad being able to play that position. So the season long loan signing of Ben Siggers was absolutely necessary.

Our pre season went well for the most part with a single defeat to Salisbury amongst 5 wins, but that can be forgiven as we had a player sent off in the first half.

Thought I'd take a snapshot of the squad as we head into the new season. I have to say I feel a lot more confident than I did last season with this crop of players, so hopefully we can have another good campaign.

The bookies certainly seem to think we will.

Last year we kicked off the season with a draw against Ebbsfleet on the opening day. This season we started against the same opposition with the same outcome.

Although looking at the match stats, I'm at a loss as to how on earth we didn't win this game!!

However, there was nothing wrong with our finishing against Welling!

That was before a goalfest against Hampton & Richmond which saw us lose for the first time this season!

But we quickly recovered from that defeat by recording 2 wins in 3 days against a newly promoted Enfield side and Slough who were yet to put a single point on the board this season.

Tonbridge Angels have also made a less than promising start to their campaign, coming into the game against us with a draw and 4 defeats to their name. So it was no surprise to see us give them a thrashing!

Alfie Payne; I just love this kid...fair to say he has started this season in sensational form. All of our play flows through him...just look at how many passes he pulls off per game!

Again, Payne was in fine form recording a match rating of 8.3 as we romped to back to back 4-1 wins.

Before we found ourselves out of sorts against Havant & Waterlooville.

Which leaves us 6th in the table after the opening 8 games. A long way to go yet, but it's been a decent start to our campaign.

 

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I really want us to do better in the cup competitions this year and our first venture into the FA Cup would see us take on lower league side, Witton Albion. We made things incredibly hard for ourselves going 3-1 down in this game...which I'm really annoyed about. Fair to say my lads got a kick in at half time, but they did respond well in that 2nd half turning the game on it's head to win 4-3!

Lee Corness who came through the club's youth intake last season, was introduced at half time and became the club's youngest ever player.

Back to league action and Dover came down last year and are expected to have a decent season down at this level, but we made light work of them here.

Also recently relegated Torquay are the hot favourites to win the division this season, but it can be argued that they got a bit lucky against us here nicking a goal to take the 3 points, when we deserved at least a draw from the game.

We dropped out of the FA Cup at the 3rd qualifying round stage last season to lower league opposition last season! Thankfully, there was no such embarassment this year!

And we made it through to the FA Cup proper after beating Hitchin in the 4th qualifying round as well. Sandwiched between the two FA Cup games, there was good league victory over Maidstone as well!

League One side Rotherham will visit us in the FA Cup 1st Round and that will prove to be an immensely tough game!

Before that, we had 4 more league games to play...won 2 and lost 2. Our performances against Billericay and Dulwich away left a lot to be desired and we must do better!

So then it was time for our FA Cup encounter with Rotherham. We come into the game as rank outsiders, but came so close to pulling off a major upset...just 8 minutes away in fact! Unfortunately, Rotherham turned up the heat and overpowered us in the final minutes of the game, but it was a brave effort from my lads.

In the league we turned in a great performance against Concord, showing excellent character to fight back from 2-0 down and win!

So we're 16 games into the season now and we are very much in the mix at the right end of the table as we approach the half way stage.

 

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Four wins from our next five league games and progression in the FA Trophy, with 13 goals scored in the process. We are finding some great form at the moment and keeping ourslves firmly in the promotion race once again this season.

After a relatively slow start to life at Braintree, Bright Amoateng seems to be finding his feet now and is now up to 9 league goals for the season.

We even gave National League side, Grimsby, a good run for their money in the FA Trophy and were probably unlucky to go out!

Back in the league, we record a good win over Hungerford with an excellent defensive display after going down to ten men early in the second half.

Going into our game with Hemel Hempstead, we had a bit of a defensive crisis with 3 of our back 4 missing through suspensions!

And our opponents took full advantage!

And we followed that up by playing out a 0-0 draw with Ebbsfleet just as we did on the opening day of the season.

Across our two games with Ebbsfleet this season, we have had a total of 49 shots at their goal without scoring!!

On the plus side though, I got a new deal to keep me at the club for at least another year.

I still had a bit left in the wage budget to add another player to the squad for the second half of the season and I'm delighted to bring in a bit of experience in the form of Nicky Wheeler who joins us on a free transfer from Borehamwood where he wasn't getting any game time in the division above.

Wheeler was ever present for our next 5 games which saw us take 13 points from an available 15. Big wins over Welling and Enfield were the highlights in this little run.

We remain 4th in the league as the teams above us also continue in good form. Dover have opened up a gap at the top of the table and are in prime position although there are still 16 games of the season remaining. We do have a game in hand that could bring us to within 5 points of them and we're very much in this title race.

 

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A draw against Havant and a win over Tonbridge came before we had a massive game away at league leaders, Dover!

A game where we came so, so close to recording a massive victory! A late, late penalty for Dover saved them a point and it was a bitter pill to swallow for me and my team!

It was a result that did move us into 2nd place in the table though, but our next game would be just as tough and just as important...Torquay at home!

Massive game...massive result!

And we followed that up with another great result at Maidstone. We're now 11 games unbeaten and staking a real claim as genuine title contenders as we approach the final quarter of the season.

Our recent form was enough for me to lift my first manager of the month award this season.

I always dread the first game after winning that **** award though as I'm one of these superstitious people who thinks it might just be cursed...and again, my theory was backed up as we fail to win immediately after it.

Although we quickly put things right with a massive win over 3rd placed Billericay...Elliott Andrew hasn't reached the same heights he did last season, but the hat trick here did take him to 14 goals which again is a half decent return and he does seem to be coming into some form for the run in.

Andrew only needed the last 10 minutes off the bench against Gosport to get on the scoresheet as his purple patch continues.

As far as the league table goes, we are still 2nd behind Dover, but us two are starting to pull away just slightly from the rest of the pack. There are only 9 games remaining of the season now and we know we'll at least be in the playoffs again from here.

 

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On paper, one of the most difficult games we had left this season would be against Dulwich. And it proved to be exactly the case as they inflict a painful defeat on us that allows Dover to open up a 4 point gap at the top!

It was important to immediately bounce back from that and we did against Concord Rangers who definitely had the potential to be another banana skin. We followed that up with a narrow win over Chippenham...we dominated the game through but it took an 84th minute pen from Alfie Payne to secure the points!

But our title bid then took another major blow as we drew with Chelmsford and lost to 6th placed Dorking.

And that all but hands the title to Dover as they open up a 7 point lead with just 4 games remaining! We're now playing for 2nd/3rd so we don't have to play the extra playoff game!

Before we get into the final few games though, we had the youth intake, which again is described as excellent, but I'm left a little underwhelmed if I'm honest!

Connor Matthews may make it as a first team keeper one day, but I'm not convinced about any of the others.

We finished the season well, taking 10 points from 12 available and scoring 4 goals in 3 of our games!

Unfortunately for us, Dover replicated our form and keep up their 7 point lead to win the title! Again we finish 2nd and will have the playoffs to contend in an attempt to get promoted!

However, this right here is going to hugely help us progress next season whether we go up or not. Braintree will be a professional club!

We'll play Dorking in the playoff semi final...a team that beat us twice in the regular season! Needless to say, I felt pretty nervous going into this one and didn't fancy the draw.

However, I had absolutely no reason to doubt us as we absolutely breezed through to the playoff final with an easy win.

Dulwich Hamlet are all that stand in the way of us and the National League now. Again, another team that beat us twice in the regular season! Can we pull off a surprise result again...

No, no we can't!! Bitterly disappointing for a couple of reasons....firstly, their pen was never a pen as our player clearly got the ball in the challenge! Secondly, they had a man sent off at 1-1 and still went on to beat us as we failed to take advantage of our numerical advantage. It will be National League South football again next year for a 3rd season!

 

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Unfortunately this save has to come to an end and to be honest, I'm really annoyed about it as I was enjoying it a lot!!

It seems that turning professional has completely b*ggered us!! The season came to an end and I let half my players leave at the end of their contracts as I aimed to bring in better players. This left me with a first team squad down to the bare bones (7 first teamers left). This was fine as I knew I could rebuild in the transfer market with freebies and loans....

However, the club turned professional and gave me a wage budget of £5,500 (decent). I also had a transfer budget of £25k (again not bad for this level). Looking good. However, I went to sign my first player and realised I could only offer a salary of £110 maximum! WHAT!!! So I looked at the wage budget and realised we were already spending over £6000 per week....I couldn't work it out as we had stripped the squad down. Apparently turning pro meant that every player in our youth had to be paid the league minimum of £150 per week and all of a sudden I had 18 players being paid £150 per week in the youth....no problem I thought as I can just release them all on free transfers....however, when I tried to do this, each player needed a £7,500 payoff to vacate their contract and the board blocked me doing this with anyone!

So based on all of the above, I don't see any way I can continue the save with 7 first team players and no ability to sign anyone! Absolutely gutted!

 

[Enrico Pucci]

Bummer about the wage problem. It would be interesting to see how you would do playing your kids.

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Unfortunately this save has to come to an end and to be honest, I'm really annoyed about it as I was enjoying it a lot!!

It seems that turning professional has completely b*ggered us!! The season came to an end and I let half my players leave at the end of their contracts as I aimed to bring in better players. This left me with a first team squad down to the bare bones (7 first teamers left). This was fine as I knew I could rebuild in the transfer market with freebies and loans....

However, the club turned professional and gave me a wage budget of £5,500 (decent). I also had a transfer budget of £25k (again not bad for this level). Looking good. However, I went to sign my first player and realised I could only offer a salary of £110 maximum! WHAT!!! So I looked at the wage budget and realised we were already spending over £6000 per week....I couldn't work it out as we had stripped the squad down. Apparently turning pro meant that every player in our youth had to be paid the league minimum of £150 per week and all of a sudden I had 18 players being paid £150 per week in the youth....no problem I thought as I can just release them all on free transfers....however, when I tried to do this, each player needed a £7,500 payoff to vacate their contract and the board blocked me doing this with anyone!

So based on all of the above, I don't see any way I can continue the save with 7 first team players and no ability to sign anyone! Absolutely gutted!

really weird that this happened - honestly hate it so much when a completely unrealistic bug like this ruins your save!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

really weird that this happened - honestly hate it so much when a completely unrealistic bug like this ruins your save!

Tell me about it! I was livid mate...so frustrating when the board wouldn't let me offload anyone as they didn't want to pay the compensation fees! Even though we had nearly £1 million in the bank and it would have cost less than £150k to offload all the youth team.