Yeti01

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Who exactly. I barely even knew. When I was a teenager all I had wanted to be was a professional footballer. I trained and trained and trained. Now look at me, sitting in my room at my parent’s house in Gravesend that I'd lived in my entire life. Washed up at 22. A victim of too many ACL injuries and now I was going to have to find a job. I was staring up at the roof with a soft cast around my leg – it still ached. This was the 3rd​ time I’d done this knee. The first two times were when I was on the books of Charlton Athletic as a schoolboy. That had led to my release when I turned 16. From then I had bounced from non-league club to non-league club finally settling on a part time contract at Ebbsfleet but my most recent knee injury had put pay to my playing career.


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The surgeon had said last time to forget about it and I had pushed through. There was no coming back this time. Thankfully my manager Daryl McMahon had seen my passion for the game but also been honest with me enough to tell me frankly about my limitations as a player. He had insisted that I go obtain some coaching badges and to date I have picked up a National C Licence. I knew I wanted to stay in the game but I will just have to see what my new agent can find in the way of a managerial position…

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It was almost a week later that my agent finally decided I was worth a call. He told me about 3 job openings that I might want to consider. There was the La Berrichonne job going in Ligue 2 although that would be hard to get given I didn't speak a lick of French and it was in a decent league. There was also the Niki Volou job in the Greek Superleague but it was something of a longshot also and finally there was the Stenhousemuir Job in the Scottish 1st division.

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The only job I made it to the interview stage for was Stenhousemuir. I studied up a bit on them on the train to Scotland. They were expected to finish 9th this season in the ten team competition so if I got the job I would be up against it. They had attracted Paul McMullan on loan from Celtic and there other key player was striker Pal Sludden so I would expect that a two striker system would be the best to get the most out of the squad.

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As I shuffled in on my crutches into the interview with Chairman Bill Darroch his first question floored me. He wanted to know why I had applied for so many positions. I wanted to reach over with one of my crutches and clip him on his head! I'm 22 who is living at home with a bung knee that needs surgery and its a 9 month wait on the NHS at my local hospital!! Instead I went with telling him how, at this stage of my career, I just wanted to do everything possible to get it going. The remainder of the questioning was more aligned with what I was expecting and I felt I handled it pretty well. I got my answer soon enough that I must have done ok as they offered me the job!

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Now the contract is only for 250 pounds a week but they will work out some accommodation for me so I don't have to worry about that expense. Dad managed to find me a 2nd hand Nissan Micra online through Autotrader for 500 quid and I packed up all my belongings (read: a bag of clothes) and made my way on the approximately 430 mile journey up to Stenhousemuir.
 
Nice one, just started a similar save and throwing the story up very soon.

Note, however, with that 9 month wait for surgery the NHS would actually put you through Private health care to get it sorted I believe! :D

Good luck, love stories based around Scotland - depending on how long you spend there!
 
Nice one, just started a similar save and throwing the story up very soon.

Note, however, with that 9 month wait for surgery the NHS would actually put you through Private health care to get it sorted I believe! :D

Good luck, love stories based around Scotland - depending on how long you spend there!

Aha so they do. I cherry picked a few articles I googled that talked about longer wait times but they must have been dated as they didn't reference the '18 week promise'!
 
First day on the job and I decided to ask my assistant manager Brow Ferguson to set up an intra-club trial. It wasn't long before my suspicions were confirmed. We had a team full of central midfielders and strikers whoever the guy was that had been manager here last had zero idea about squad balance. I remembered when I had been at Ebbsfleet we had a similar problem one year and we have overcome it by playing a narrow 4-3-3. After the game I gathered my management team together and explained how I wanted to play and asked for their opinions on the players.

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To be honest I was quite happy that they felt this would be best also. Following that meeting I got dragged in to the Chairman's office. I know I'm young and all but let just me do my job old man, Geez! Anyway, he wanted to outline his expectations again. I love how they say 'we expect you to be competitive' in a competition. I mean competitive is a completely subjective criteria! If I'm competitive for one match is that enough? How about half a match - we were competitive for a while right? What if what I consider competitive doesn't line up with your ideas!! I've only got to put up with this guy for a year I guess. If I'm still here in 12 months I'll consider that a failure. All I want to do here is get runs on the board to help get another job. No offence to Stenhousemuir the town - it seems nice enough. I just don't think its for me long term.

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Thankfully my first game in charge was coming up to give me something else to focus on. As the game kicked off my palms were a bit clammy. I took this to be a good sign as, although it was a reasonably warm August day, it still wasn’t that hot - I guess I must really want this. My nerves weren’t exactly helped when Hodge bundled over Husband with only 15 seconds having been played. We managed to deal with that free kick easily enough though and then began to settle down.

Our narrow formation began to work as, although I’m not expecting our guys to be the Barcelona of Scotland, I do want them to focus on keeping possession. We began to gain the upper hand and were recycling the ball well. We managed to carve out a nice opportunity for a cross in the 11th​ minute. As Verlaque sung the ball in it was semi cleared by the Forfar backline but only to Hodge on the edge of the area. Facing away from goal with no real threat posed I assumed Forfar would shepherd him out but to my surprise Baxter simply clattered through his back – welcome to Scotland I guess! Fortunately the referee saw the clear foul and pointed to the spot. Up stepped my old head McMenamin to thrash home from 12 yards. Get in!! The first competitive goal of my managerial career!!

We continued to dominate proceedings and went further ahead in the 15th​ minute. Again we had won the 2nd​ ball in midfield and we moved it forward quickly to our target man McMenamin. He laid it off with one touch to McMullen who slotted home from just inside the 18. That was some nice football.

It was a comedy of errors that lead to the first chance for Forfar. First McMillan miscontrolled a long ball allowing Hildson to steal in and, after Fleming made a wonderful save from the initial attempt, Lithgow inexpicably slid in on Hildson as he corralled the rebound. Penalty Forfar. Fleming was huge in our goal though and he made a great save and we were first to the clearance.

Our job was made a lot easier when on 33 mins James saw red for his second bookable offence after bringing down Sutherland after he had turned him on the edge of the area. We went into the break 2 nil to the good. I told the boys some fluff about how I was happy with how they were going and it looked like it worked judging from all their faces. Really I couldn’t understand how we were only 2 nil up!

After the break I subbed off Twaddle and Hodge as they had both picked up yellows and set about ensuring victory. I didn’t change the shape as I wanted them to get used to playing in it but made it clear they weren’t to push on as much. 5 minutes from full time I was quite disappointed when Sutherland was clattered and picked up an injury. Millar might have picked up the man of the match as far as the pundits were concerned but for me Hodge was our best. He controlled the midfield with authority tonight. I think he is going to be a big player for us.


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Best of luck mate.

Interested to see how you go with Stenny.
 
Next up was the Scottish League cup 1st round match away at Airdrie. First up though I figured rather than try to get all antsy whenever the Chairman wanted to speak to me why didn't I try and use them to my advantage whilst I was here. So I called him into my office and asked if they would sponsor me into doing another coaching badge - I had won a game for them after all. Thankfully, instead of firing me for my impudence, they said yes.

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We started really positively again in this 1st​ round Scottish League Cup match. We were dominating possession and shots for almost the entire first half which was pleasing given we were away from home against a team, also from the Scottish League 1, but one who was expected to finish far higher than we were. We went into the break holding a 10 to 1 shot advantage.

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I would imagine to the players it is times like this when my inexperience comes to the fore. Deep down I wanted to shout at them for being so bad up front as we weren’t winning but I took a breath and did the shoulder slap routine. Telling the guys how I had faith in them and all that other lovey-dovey ****. Again it seemed to work though.

I changed the formation a tiny bit at halftime moving McMullen, who was playing highest up of my 3 strikers, into the middle and shifting McMenamin out to the left of the 3. I ended up making 2 changes on 50mins though as I wasn’t happy with how things were working out. McMenamin was brought off for Sluden and Hodge was protected again as he was on a yellow and Doris the young New Zealander was brought on in his place.

I also took the chance to tell the boys to back off a touch as Airdrie had started coming on towards the end of the 1st​ half. The opener came from an unlikely source. A corner wasn’t cleared properly by Airdrie and the ball, after taking 5 or 6 deflections, fell to our central defender Lithgow who smashed in a volley on the turn from just inside the penalty spot. He could give some finishing lessons to our strikers after that shot!

I was forced to make my final change just after the hour mark when Twaddle injured himself trying to take out a Airdrie player and Bateson was brought on in his place. I must admit I haven’t told my guys to go in hard, haven’t told them not too either. But the sheer amount of hefty challenges flying around each game is phenomenal! It’s a hard man’s game up here!

I was left pulling my hair out after 65 mins when McMullen was played through with an open goal, I mean literally open, the ‘keeper wasn’t even in the way, and he somehow missed wide… That the game finished 1 nil would suggest this was close. In reality it was anything but. We should have smashed these guys. This time, I let the team know what I was thinking! And it actually worked pretty well!

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Best of luck mate.

Interested to see how you go with Stenny.

Thanks mate - it's going well so far. I must admit that I am hoping it is a 'one and' done type situation though and I can find a job elsewhere.
 
That team talk is a risky one even with boat loads of experience on this game! :O That could have been you gone, players uprising and you'd be gone, good work though..
 
That team talk is a risky one even with boat loads of experience on this game! :O That could have been you gone, players uprising and you'd be gone, good work though..

I almost never use it but I'm trying to think how I would have acted when I was 22 :D
 
Funnily enough our next game was also against Airdrie but this time it was in the league and at home. I took the opportunity to have a little dig at Gaparotto who I thought had been their best player in the last match.

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I was really hoping to get a rise out of Bolland in the lead up to this one but it turns out he wasn't biting.

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Soon enough it was gameday. Before we went out I had a quick chat with Brown my assistant manager. “How do you think I should play this?” I asked. “I think you should encourage the lads,” he replied. “Yeah, good call,” I said and turned to face the players. “Now, here’s the deal. We are at home and you are all ready for this. I expect a win! Nothing less than 3 points here is good enough. I will have no hesitation in dragging you off after 10 mins if you aren’t up for it. Now get out there and give the fans a show.” I turned to walk up the tunnel. Brown just shook his head at me.

Turns out he was probably right. We went one down inside a minute, the boys looked like their heads were still in the dressing sheds. I was furious. I raced the edge of my technical area. “Is this some kind of joke!” I screamed, “show some **** passion!” and sat back down. This talk seemed to have a much better effect then my pre match one as we drew level within 2 minutes. A nicely worked move and the ball fell to McMenamin who slotted home.

After 20 minuted I’d seen enough – we were sitting far too deep and I let the boys know it. Unfortunately that apparently is Scottish code for "forget how to defend” as our back four completely lost their shape. I just didn’t want you sitting back inviting pressure you numpties!! We were one down shortly after when a cross swung in from the left was headed home by Blockley.

We would go into the beak 3 down after giving away a needless penalty just before halftime. In the sheds I told them in no uncertain terms that they needed to show me something else in the 2nd​ half. I also changed to a narrow 4-4-2 diamond as our 3 up front had been ineffective. Bringing Doris on for McMenamin who obviously decided after the 3rd​ minute he’d done his work for the day.

Despite not playing well really in the 2nd half we missed some glorious chances to bring ourselves back into the game. We then had the ball in the goal right before full time but McMullan was deemed to be offside. It was one of those days. I decided against the hairdryer treatment at fulltime but I still let them know I was disappointed. That’s the type of game we should be winning…

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After the match in the conference I was honest in my assessment of how some of our players had performed. Dad, who's been following it on the internet, texted me later and said I need to tone it down a bit. I'm not going to apologise for telling the truth though. I have expectations and it is up to the players to meet them. Shape up or ship out.

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Wanting to effect a reversal in our fortunes I sent the boys out in the 4-3-3 narrow shape that had worked reasonably well for us to start the season against Brechin in our 2nd​ league game. It seemed to work wonders for us as we took the lead in the 14th​ minute. It was McMullen stepping up to the plate, pouncing on a rebound the quickest and steering home. I think there was more than a hint of defiance in his celebration as he looked sternly in my direction after the goal following my recent remarks about his performances. Whatever mate – just keep scoring.

We played well for the remainder of the first half but a horror defensive lapse lead to an equaliser for Brechin. Verlaque was too casual on the right, allowing himself to be dispossessed and as the cross came in we had Fleming, McMillan and McCormack all in the vicinity and only Andy Jackson there from Brechin. Can you guess who was the most determined and won the header? Although pretty ****** at conceding at half time I told the boys that if they kept going there was every chance they could win, I wasn’t even lying this time!

We didn’t play nearly as well after the break. I made changes to try and shake things up but it was all for naught. Overall thought I am quite happy with the away point. Deep down I’m disappointed we conceded such a terrible goal. Again I told them the truth at full time - they had in fact proved a lot of people wrong in avoiding defeat. Now, I’m not one of them and I thought we could have won that game, but at least I didn’t have to lie to them at full time this week!

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