retired_peanut22

When you start on the dole and take over a club 20th out of 22 in the English Conference South with your first match on Boxing Day, pretty football is the last thing on your mind.

So it was for me as I took over lowly Histon.(lovely ground by the way if you like non-league grounds, thoroughly recommend going there if nothing else to do)

My first move was to sign 39 year old Bob Taylor, formerly of Baggiest fame, and hoofing the ball up to him gave an ailing team the tactical direction they had been lacking.

I improved to keep Histon in the race to avoid the drop, but two consecutive last minute equalisers against in early March seemed to have put us down, and me on course for my first ever sacking on FM.

But a sudden and never to be repeated run of scoring by the singularly useless Danny Bloomfield kept us up in the penultimate game with an 8 game unbeaten run through to the end of the season.

Eventually we finished 13th, 8 points clear of relegation on 52 points from 42 games. My record after taking over as manager was W10 D6 L6. Sadly the club made a 249k loss as crowds dwindled to 150 at best. I'd like to think that was our league position and not my football that did that.

retired_peanut22

That summer saw a massive clear out with 16 players coming in, and 16 leaving the club, all on frees. I signed a number of players from the Football League, the most notable being pineapple man Jason Lee, the ultimate in lower league target men at 36. Alongside 20 year old speedster Andy Caton up front, they formed a deadly partnership. Backing them up was Deadly Derek 'Arsemower' Asamoah, once of Shrewsbury.

In midfield, I again went with youth and experience as Ian Taylor formerly of the Villa, but now 39, joined as club captain (it had previously been a right winger who I had played at centre half. It did work, honestly

The legs in midfield were provided by young Andy Fisk, ex-Norwich, and former Hibernian man Antonio Murray.

The flashes of creativity came on the flanks from former Barnet winger Louis Soares (I'm a Barnet fan in real life, so know L2 players and Barnet in particular quite well) and youth teamer Chris Parkinson.

At the back was the Posh part of the team. Dean Holden, Mark Arber (in January) and long throw expert Jude Stirling (he moved there in the game) all arrived from Peterborough. A Conference journeyman in Magnus Okowunaghe formerly of St Albans rounded out the back 4 and was actually the best of the bunch.

In goal was Col U youngster Mark Cousins, although he got injured and that let in Gareth Howells, surely the world's smallest keeper at 5 foot 7, who took over as No.1.

I was aiming for a top 5 finish in the same long ball style that had worked last season, with the occasional switch to giving it to Soares if Lee got marked out of the game, and we looked well on course for this, despite terrible away form, in mid December. But then a 7-0 thumping of Worksop away transformed the team into title winners and we ran away with the league.

We eventually sealed the deal with 3 games to spare and finished on 89 points, 9 clear of our nearest challengers, Hucknall. Our title was based on a superb attack who scored 98 goals while the defence let in 44. Our home record was an astonishing 19 wins from 21 games with 2 draws.

Our top league scorer was Andy Caton with 27, just edging out Jason Lee with 26. However Jason had also made 18 assists to earn himself Fans' Player of the Year. Asamoah scored 16 goals, which was mighty impressive given he only started 15 games, and Antonio Murray chimed in with 6 from midfield, which almost counted double as all of them were winning goals.

We made a 20k profit, which I hope backs up my theory that success was what crowds depended on, not football style. It better be, cos I ain't changing it.