Rusty Gate
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TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
A footballing story by Rusty Gate
NOTE: After completing this project, I discovered that Infinity had dropped out of the Wessex League Division One after its ground sharing agreement with Hythe & Dibden was terminated and the club was unable to secure another suitable venue. Hythe officials said the main complaint and reason for termination was the use of racist language from an Infinity player during a game this season, and they could not let the issue slide. It is unfortunate that this has happened and add my own voice to those calling for the strongest possible legal enforcement against individuals and organizations using or supporting any form of racism not only in sport but in all walks of life.
NOTE 2: In posting this I unfortunately formatted it wrong in that it came out as eight separate posts. If you read through this thread, the entire storyline is here now, and you can ignore parts two through eight. If I could delete them I would. Thank you for those bringing this to my attention, I do apologize, and now that I know the correct formatting procedure anything I do in the future will be easier to read and follow.
INTRODUCTION
A footballing story by Rusty Gate
NOTE: After completing this project, I discovered that Infinity had dropped out of the Wessex League Division One after its ground sharing agreement with Hythe & Dibden was terminated and the club was unable to secure another suitable venue. Hythe officials said the main complaint and reason for termination was the use of racist language from an Infinity player during a game this season, and they could not let the issue slide. It is unfortunate that this has happened and add my own voice to those calling for the strongest possible legal enforcement against individuals and organizations using or supporting any form of racism not only in sport but in all walks of life.
NOTE 2: In posting this I unfortunately formatted it wrong in that it came out as eight separate posts. If you read through this thread, the entire storyline is here now, and you can ignore parts two through eight. If I could delete them I would. Thank you for those bringing this to my attention, I do apologize, and now that I know the correct formatting procedure anything I do in the future will be easier to read and follow.
INTRODUCTION
Sports simulations have been my passion since my teenage years.
Back in the 1970s and through ’80s it would be table-top card games. They included baseball, football, golf – usually made by the APBA company out of the U.S.A., and hockey, for which there was a dearth of games, so my brothers and I created our own, but being Canadian we also had the rod-hockey game. It still might be the best non-computer game ever created for its simplicity and ability to capture the essence of a sport. It is still very much a mainstay in Canadian hockey-family homes.
My own burgeoning athletic abilities and a growing family would take me away from these table-top pursuits as a young adult. Then there was the competitive competition in the real world of maintaining a professional life as a sportswriter and newspaper editor while helping my wife raising a family of five children. This would wonderfully consume my time for the next couple of decades. However, with the children turning into adults and going out on their own, I would find time for more leisurely activities and a renewing of my passion for table-top games but now they had morphed into video and computer games.
I tried my hand at dozens of such games over the next few years, landing on baseball games for a number of those years as it was a sport I loved to play, had coached and even officiated over the years. With a strong knowledge of the sports’ history, it was easy and comfortable to play but I was also on the lookout for something different to challenge my imagination a little bit more.
It was during this time I came across Football Manager. Not really knowing what to expect, I downloaded the trial version of FM2010 and was surprised by the depth of the game. Not really knowing where to start, although I had a strong knowledge of the English Premier League as all the games were shown on the sports networks in Canada, I struck out to Brazil.
Huh! you say. Well, I thought it would be good practice before I took on anything in Europe.
I got hooked right away by the way the game stimulated my mind in managing elements I was not used to, or quite frankly knowledgeable about. I remember my first game, having tried my hand at a number of simplier football games on consoles I knew goaltenders didn’t get injured so selected just one on my roster – only to have the game remind me that two is the preferred choice as less than a half hour into the contest mine got injured and I would lose badly. Also, as I remember from literature I had read, at that time it was not unusual for Brazilian teams to play double headers – two games on the same day – and my schedule reflected that as I came across it on a few occasions. I could go on-and-on about the little nuances that added up to putting a smile on my face and an itch to play this game that has now lasted more than 10 years.
I have had many high and lows with the various iterations of FM and certainly would call it a small passion waiting for the next version to come out, loving some versions more than others but always enjoying my time with each and every version of the game.
I have kept those moments mostly to myself up to now, not really engaging the community other than as a spectator through the various website forums, You Tube and more recently Twitch. This is my first foray into offering up any opinion on the game through the creation of this playing diary of a season.
As I begin this journey, we must all remember that FM is a game and so has been created to entertain – and if you let it do that you will never be disappointed. If you try not to “exploit” its short comings too badly, you will have many, many hours of enjoyment such as I have had. Although, I do have to tip my hat at those trying to “game the game” as it keeps the developers on their toes as they continue to create a most wonderful experience.
And now, I present a simple story with which I hope to offer a little guidance for those beginning their journey and maybe for those who may be having trouble learning the game. And for the rest, maybe you will find this entertaining.
PROLOGUE – FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS CAN COME GREAT THINGS
Or at least that is what I want to believe as I begin this unusual save in Football Manager 22.
I wanted to start at rock bottom after trying a few early saves in the latest iteration of Football Manager. And as I write ‘rock bottom’ I mean going as far down as I could with this data base – in this case using DanFMdatabases’s England Lower Leagues – to get to Level 10. From there it was a matter of choosing the right club. It didn’t take long for an eye-popping choice in this endeavour. At this point, I would like to acknowledge the fact that Canadian grammar is being used so the spelling of words might seem a bit different then in your neck of the world -- and being truly Canadian I am 'Sorry' if you have an issue with the spellings.
Back to the story. Catching my attention was a team called Infinity, which I thought was an interesting club name as well as maybe how long it might take to succeed with this team. I am a LLaMa at heart.
The real club doesn’t even have an actual web page – at least when I started this save – but research showed it was recently promoted to the Wessex League Division One after championing the Hampshire Premier League. It also showed it was a club that almost wasn’t.
Infinity is a nomadic team, never with a home for long, but still they posted an impressive 37-match unbeaten run during “two pandemic-shattered seasons” in the HPL according to the Portsmouth News Bulletin in May 2021. That same story noted that the team owners nearly dismantled the club because of a decision made by the Football Association in March 2020 that voided the 2019-20 season. It effectively denied one of the most brilliant lights in the far off, lower galaxy of non-league football – having posted the best Points Per Game mark over two years (2019-2021) – their due promotion. Then came the FA’s non-league restructuring plan in 2021 and Infinity tore itself away from the black hole of oblivion in hopes of shining again in a new part of FA galaxy.
And that is where our story starts.
And when I say starts, I mean with a “Big Bang” type explosion onto the scene. From nothing I am hoping to create something, and hopefully the adventure proves worthy of documentation and reading. The plan was to start the save without any staff, any players and any game plan. So, on Day One there was nothing.
As for my own qualifications, even though I have played Football Manager for more than a decade I went with the suggested badges and abilities for the level I would attempt to manage.
Also of note, in addition to the league pack and for full disclosure, I am using Daveincid’s realism pack and sortitoutsi license fixes. I will not use any premade shortlists when it comes to staff or players, including wonderkids. I expect my scouts – for good or bad – to be able to do the job for which they were hired although I did filter unsigned players in the player search field to start this game.
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