Soulwave

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First of all welcome to this York City thread. I'm still into FM12 and this time I wanted to choose a team which I have a little personal connection with. I lived in York, North Yorkshire a while ago (altough I'm Hungarian) and I really like the city and all it's vibe. So I decided to take on York City's seat in Blue Square Premier.

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Starting with 0k transfer funds I really had my limitations in choosing the right players. Our media prediction was 5th place so eventually decided to keep majority of the players. I signed Pablo Counago on free transfer and a few others I have never even heard of and started the season with high expectations.

To be honest this was my least challenging career start, and with 4-4-2 counter we were crowned as BSP champions at the end of season. This was no surprise, and I didn't put much emphasis on the league as we had no benefits from the matches. During springtime we had some major injuries, and our winning streak has come to end, but the title was already secured. Jason Walker and Pablo Counage seemed the most useful players so I'll keep them as reserves for next season.

Sorry I'm forbidden to attach more than one picture, so here's the stage overview:
1. York / 31 - 9 - 6 / For: 92 - Ag: 37 / Pts: 102
2. Wrexham 90 pts
3. Fleetwood 89 pts
4. Stockport 87 pts
5. Mansfield 81 pts (Promoted in play-off)
...
19th Luton Town (Title contenders haha...)
...
24th Southport

More interesting was the FA Cup as we managed to take on two L2 and one L1 teams. In the fourth round we've found ourselves in Championship title contender Blacpool's home and we've been brushed aside unfortunately. However it was a very good run, and we could foresee some of our rivals for next season.

FA Trophy was a bit tricky with our reserve team, but we've managed to reach the semi-final.

So this was my first season with York City and I'm proud of our overall performances. The L2 story is coming soon. Cheers.
 
York City FC / 2012/13 / League 2

So as we've managed to win the Blue Square Premier easily, I had high hopes in League 2 too. We proved ourselves as a good team against L2 teams in previous year's FA Cup but I knew that we need to replace the whole team in order to secure a good performance in L2.

Therefore I made the following changes in the squad.
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I replaced the whole team leaving only Pablo Counago and Jason Walker as strikers from previous season. Unfortunately we had to face financial difficulties (-150K Eur on our account) so we started with 0k transfer funds and 90k wages/month. The media predicted us for the 18th place, which was ridiculous. We had no chance to develop the training facilities nor the networking system and I didn't have a reserve squad.

Despite the predictions we started the season very well and we've made a 28-1-1 run during fall/winter season which was above my expectations. We've been kicked out of the major cups at an early stage but in Johnstone's Paint Trophy we were in a good form so the season looked very exciting. Gotta admit that we were lucky on most of the matches but in the Northern Finals we made a big win against Doncaster (5-0) so we had the chance to play the finals in Wembley.
We played very well against Swindon but eventually, a penalty shoot-out secured York City's first JP Trophy!

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During the spring season we've had to face difficulties, the players seemed complacent in most of our matches and it threw the team back a little. We were 17 points ahead of Colchester after 30 games but when we made it to the 40th it dropped to 4 points only. Then I made a team talk and it worked wonders!

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So as a newly promoted team, we've managed to win the League 2 and promoted to League 1!

To be honest, no players worth mentioning, they were decent enough but nobody impressed me. Pablo Counago was great with 18 goals and 14 assists and Ryan McGivern was a solid central defender. I will definitely keep them for L1 and we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for reading, L1 coming soon!
 
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York City FC - 2013/14 season - LEAGUE 1

It's been a while since I wrote but here's my third season for York City FC in League 1.

Again we didn't get any transfer funds for the new season so I started with low expectations (mid-table finish). Our account was still close to zero but we've managed to gather some income with seasonal ticket sales and player sales. I requested a few things at the board but all of them was denied. Despite the sad facts I signed 12 players for the new season and got rid of a few.

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Like I said I started the season with low expectations because I knew that some teams were two or three times stronger than mine. I didn't put much emphasis on the cup matches: League Cup 1st round, FA Cup 4th round, JPT semi-final... I was quite careless because I wanted to concentrate on the league.

Which turned out quite well. We had series of very good games, the player shown some very nice football and we've managed to take over the top spot after 19 rounds. From that time we remained on the top spot and at the end we secured the promotion.
The last game was crucial tho because Bournemouth played home against Chesterfield (relegated) and we played away against Hull City. With our 2-1 win, we won the League 1!

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This was the first big moment of the team, because I certainly did not expect that! After 40 years, I led York city from BSP to Championship. So my plans are working out well and at the end of the season our finances got better as well. I didn't play to promote this season so this career is above expectations.
Furthermore I got a deal from Man Utd but I turned them down, because I can't accept "such a risible basic pay" hahah:D

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Thanks for reading, CHAMPIONSHIP is coming soon!
 
Thanks buddy! Actually I played 14 but didn't liked it so I remained with 12. Keep on reading as three seasons coming up!
 
York City FC - 14/15 Season - Championship

In this post I'll summarize our last two seasons in the Championship. After my promotion from League 1, the board wanted me to stay and keep up the good work, so I turned most of the PRL teams down and got a new contract for four years.

I knew the Championship won't be easy as pie and the media prediction was nice as well: 24th spot. Fortunately our finances got better due to some player sales. I would pick one player out of my new signings - Robert Vittek came as a free a transfer. Actually I had almost the whole team replaced which turned out to be a big mistake but sh*t happens.
It also turned out that my stadium has only 3000 seats, therefore our match day incomes decreased and our finances got into a downfall again.

About the performance: We've managed somehow (thanks to our solid defense) to keep our team on the play-off spots for 6 months. Then the usual FM things started, injuries, poor form and so on. So eventually we've finished as 10th in our first Championship season.
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FA Cup, League Cup I didn't care about them, we've been high above expectations in the league so I was both satisfied and disappointed...

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York City FC - 15/16 Season - Championship 2nd season


So here goes my next season in the Championship. After securing our team with a mid-table finish last season, I knew we have to do something big in the current season to keep the team alive. Therefore I expected at least a play-off spot.

Unfortunately our finances went down in a minus again, and at the end I got 0k transfer and 360k wage funds. Needless to say that some teams (like Newcastle) had single players with such salary.
Our facilities were ridiculous as well: basic youth, adequate training + 6000 seater stadium. Pretty bad is it not?

So I made some great transfers mostly for free. Don't get moved by Adnan Januzaj's transfer, he is useless, only used him on the bench. But players like Cheryshev, Kappelhof or Casado made good impact in the team.
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I still had Vittek as a striker but I put an AMC behind him to increase the assists in the upper midfield. With this tactic the guy scored 17 goals (he was injured half the season) and he's 34 years old. Not bad. Anyway our tactics turned out quite well and with the new players we finally controlled most of the matches.
However Newcastle and Southampton was too good and they were to be promoted. So we've only had chance to reach the playoffs which we eventually did on the 4th spot.

Playoffs: We first drew Wolverhampton and I was a little bit worried because they were in a good form. Somehow I managed to win the away match and we snatched a draw at home so we've promoted to the finals against Huddersfield.

That match almost gave me a heartattack really. We started the match well we've had a lot of chances but we couldn't make that one goal happen. 0-0 in 90th minute. In the extra time our James Bonar finally scored in the 113. minute. He sent the fans into raptures :)) and we've got one hand on the promotion. But H'field didn't think that way and they scored an equaliser in the 118. Penalty shoot-out. York scores, Hfield scores, York scores, Blackman saves! ... 4-2 for York and we promoted!

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So as the titled says, and first time in it's history, York is in Premier League! Starting from Blue Square Premier, within 5 years we've reached the PRL.

Thanks for reading.
 
You got promoted really quickly thats interesting.
 
Hey Pueira! It gets worse :) In my second PRL season we've reached 3rd spot and secured Champions League qualification. Oh yeah and we won the FA Cup. Unfortunately the game crashed so I decided to move on. Right now I'm not playing FM at all, but I saw your post so I decided to share the last season.

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Anyway I exactly know what you mean by 'interesting' but I can assure you I did not use any cheats or editor whatsoever. I did not open this topic to brag about results that I achieved by cheating. It would make no sense. I opened this topic because I wanted to show that with smart tactics and transfers, it's possible to get promoted from absolutely low leagues to the highest stage quite easily. Probably I couldn't do the same in FM13 or 14 because it has different calculation methods but once you get familiar with FM 12 tactical practices you will be able to reach top in 10 seasons.

Long story short:
First season (BSP) - 4-4-2 tactics and only a couple of free transfers to preserve chemistry. If you create a different tactic you might end up with a confused team that doesn't understand your instructions. Keep it simple!
Second season (L2) - Similar tactics, and leaving the key players in the team only. Keep it simple, but you need to get players with good technical values - physical values doesn't matter in lower leagues - therefore I mostly use older free agents and young loanees from big teams.
Third season (L1) - Like I wrote it in the initial post, I didn't expect the promotion in this league. I guess the key was again good transfers and simple tactics (4-4-2). Truthfully my team beat L1 teams in JSP trophy when we were in BSP, so I guess there's no huge gap between these lower league teams.
Fourth-fifth (Championship) - Here's the boiling point. In this stage, your players need to be both technically and physically qualified and there's a huge gap between the L1 and CH teams. I started with changing tactics to a fast paced one based on wingers. By the second season the team were fast and good enough to promote from Championship and we only had to find the right players for each position to achieve this.
Sixth-seventh (PRL) - You got money, you got TV money, you can get your hands on non-EU transfers. In big leagues all I'm doing is putting the tactic below together (actually I used this in Championship too).
The key is that you need to find the best wingers possibly available, who are fast and has good crossing, passing and dribbling. They will work the ball from the flanks to your Poacher, and with quality finishing, off the ball and anticipation he'll do the rest. You midfield needs to filter the through balls and get the ball from the opposite by pressing on one hand. On the other hand they need to have excellent passing ability to play out the ball to the flanks or through the upper third to your poacher. And you have 5 players left. Now I got one DM to support between the midfield and the defence, plus 2 solid central defenders and two full backs with great pace and good tackling. This gives you a chance to work the ball out for the midfield once you got it.

There's no such thing as a winning tactic, but I used this tactic and got my Hungarian team Ferencvaros to EL final, got Schalke to win Champions League twice, and Sampdoria to win Serie B. So it's working on every level IF you have quick and technical players. If slow players has to play such tactics they'll be outnumbered in no time and will lose the ball. Find the right players for the right positions and it will work wonders.

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Cheers!
 
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