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Its time I wrote a proper story on these forums. I am using FM 2007, 7.0.2 database with the Singapore League and the English League (Conference National and above). I am using my real name and my real nationality on here. Sorry if the intro seems a bit long but I like this approach. Any comments are welcome.
“Its been a very long time” I thought to myself as I exited the Singapore Airlines flight. I had been studying in the US since 1999 and I already had my BA and my MBA. I couldn’t find any work in the US due to the fact that I didn’t have a Green Card. So I decided to apply to jobs outside of the US and one of the first places I sent my resume to was a job website that targeted jobs in Singapore. I had moved to this country from Bangladesh when I was 5 years old and I call it my second home, so I decided to come back home once I got tired of working at a Shoe Store part time during my MBA. I also received some favorable replies from companies here and they granted me interviews.
I cleared through customs and went to pick up my baggage. I had one really heavy suitcase. Lucky I shipped the other stuff I had from my apartment and they should be with me in a few days. I had nothing to declare so I just walked past the officer with guns and went into the Greeting Area.
“Oi, Oi Mahmood!!!!!! Here!!!! Here!!!” It was Irene, one of my best friends since Junior College. Since my parents moved to Malaysia, I had no place to stay so before I left the States I asked Irene if I could stay with her and her folks; At least until I was done with the interviews. We hugged and then asked each other how everything was going. Then I took my suitcase and we walked to her car, a rickety old thing, which I was glad to say still had seatbelts. I told her about the job interviews I had the day after and she just wished me good luck. Her parents were still at work when I came in and she showed me to the guest room and I put everything down, took my clothes out and freshened up before just sitting down with her and talking about the good old days. Few hours later her parents came home and we said hello, talked a bit and had dinner. Then I just talked a bit longer with Irene and then decided it was time to go to sleep. As far as I knew, I was going to have one hell of a day tomorrow.
I had some trouble sleeping because of the damned jet lag. I was still used to US time and night in Singapore was actually afternoon in the US. Tried my best but I finally fell asleep at 2 in the morning. I woke up 5 hours later to get ready for the 1st of my two interviews for the day. Irene helped me to wake up actually; she screamed in my ear “OI!!!! WAKE UP!!!!” Anyway the first interview was with a marketing company that was supposed to help big companies like Microsoft, Google, Dell, etc…. market their products. Sounded good but after I questioned the manager on exactly what type of job it was, he told me I would be selling vouchers from these companies door to door. I told him no thanks and I left. The second interview went along pretty well. It was with the Ministry of Education as they where looking for secondary school teachers. I thought that it would be a good idea to get some real money (finally!!) and some much needed work experience. After the interview I just went for some refamiliarizing with the area. I had been gone for about 7 years and I wanted to get myself reacquainted with some of the places I used to frequent. I had a good feeling that I would be getting the teaching job so I thought that it would be better to get used to staying here once again.
After just walking around for a while, I took the MRT and heading to Irene’s condo. On the way I picked up a copy of the Straits Times from the MRT station and went immediately to the sports section. I wanted to see where my favorite team, Manchester United, was in the league table. It also had some articles about some of the local S-League clubs and one article in particular was saying that the Home United manager was in deep trouble since he finished the season below the boards expected place on the league table. I didn’t think much of that article, all I could think of now was that I would be excited in getting that teaching job and I was imagining how cool it would be to teach kids in my old secondary school. Finally, the train reached my destination and I got off, just then my cell phone started to ring. I picked it up and the voice on the other line was saying that they were calling about an opening for a job at Home United FC. The lady asked if I could come in tomorrow for an interview. I asked what position it was for and all she said that the interviewer would be giving me all the information I needed tomorrow. “It can’t be….” I thought to myself. I looked at the article about the Home United manager and it said that he had signed a brand new contract. “Phew!!” I told myself. “The guy just signed a new contract; it can’t be the manager’s job. Maybe something in the finance department or even marketing”. I was really hoping it was marketing. “I guess I will just have to wait until tomorrow then”.
I could not sleep at all the entire night. All I could do was think about what kind of job I was interviewing for at Bishan Stadium tomorrow. I was really hoping in was some kind of marketing job because that was one of my specializations when doing my MBA. Anyway, I just got out of bed and almost stubbed my toe on the door frame as I was still drowsy. I knew I needed a lot of coffee to stay awake. I took a shower, put on my best suit and tie and left for the interview. The taxi ride took about 20min from Irene’s home to the stadium. Once I got out of the cab I walk to the administration offices to tell them I was there for an interview. The girl at the reception desk let the interviewer know that I arrived and she asked me to wait. About 15 minutes later, a man comes up to me and says that he is the chairman of HUFC, Mr. Koh Siong Ling. He said that he had an offer on the table that he hoped I would be interested in. He led me to the board room where the Managing Director, Chan Kwok Mun and the General Manager K. T. Velu were waiting. They asked me to sit down and asked if I had any idea why I was asked to come in. I just started rambling on about how much I would like to work in their marketing department and I told them I had many ideas on how to improve the marketability of Home United. The 3 of them just laughed and told me that I had the wrong idea about the kind of job they wanted me for. They said they wanted someone with a fresh perspective who has the drive to excel in a managerial role. “Cool”, I thought to myself; “No experience and they are offering me a position in management”. Then Mr. Koh dropped a bombshell, “We are actually interviewing for the vacant manager position.” I just sat there looking like an idiot with my mouth wide open. One of them even asked if I was ok. Then they asked me if I liked football. I said that I watch games whenever I have the time. They then asked me many other questions before they told me that they had other people to interview as well and they would get back to me in a few days. Before I left I had to ask why they called me in for an interview since I did not have any experience in managing a football team at all. All they said was that they were looking for someone who can think outside the box and bring a fresh perspective to how the team is managed. And all I could say to that was “OK”.
I called Irene on my cell phone and told her about the position I interviewed for. She was screaming on the phone. She told me it was a really good team that won the League title a few years back. I asked her to get on the internet and find out more about the tea. I then called my parents in Malaysia and told them about the job, they were a bit skeptical but they said whatever happens, it happens for the best. I then called a friend in Malaysia whom I knew when I was studying in the US. Her name’s Vivian and I never even told her I was in Singapore. She was happy, although she scolded me for not calling her when I arrived, to hear from me and said that she would love to visit me in the weekend. I told her to come over sometime and we could talk about old friends and just catch up.
Two days passed and still no call from the club although the Ministry of Education called asking me to send in more information like my transcripts from university which meant that they were considering me for a job. Well at least I have a chance of getting a good job teaching. A day later, the female receptionist I talked to earlier from the club called me and asked me to come in the next day. I asked her if I got the job and all she said was that Mr.Koh wanted to talk to me about some issues. She just asked me to come in tomorrow when I again asked her if I ad the job or not. Sighing to myself, I told her that I’d come in tomorrow. I guess she must have felt sorry for me or something because before she hung up the phone she whispered, “You got the job”.
“Good morning Mahmood, this is Mr. Koh calling. I just called to let you know that I sent a car to pick you up and bring you to the stadium. Let me be the first to congratulate you on getting the manager position at Home United.” I thanked Mr. Koh but I couldn’t tell him that his own secretary spilled the beans about me getting the job yesterday. Anyway, I had to get ready for my “orientation” for the day. I was to be taken on a tour of the grounds, the club house and I was to meet the back room staff and given the key to my very own office. “SWEEEEEET!!!!!”
The driver came at 8:55am to pick me up and we drove to the stadium. It took about 20 minutes to get to the administration offices and I walked up to the receptionist to let her know that Mr. Koh was expecting me. She let me right into Mr. Koh’s office and the man himself was seated behind a huge mahogany desk fiddling with some paper work. He asked me to have a seat and told his secretary to hold all his calls for the rest of the day. He congratulated me again on getting the job and he had every faith that I would do well. I asked him about my employment paper work as I needed an employment pass to work. He said that the club was taking care of all that and that he had pushed through the required paper work to the Ministry of Manpower and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority. I was very surprised that all this was done so fast. He also told me that he would be putting me into some licensing courses that are required by FIFA. But in the meantime I can start to gather up my team of players and staff. “But first things first, here is your contract. It’s a standard contract we have for every new manager that the club hires. I hope that you like those terms.” I looked through my very first contract with an actual football club. Who knew that from wanting to be a teacher to secondary school kids, I would actually be managing a real life manager at a real life football clubs. Anyway, the terms that were on offer was pretty decent for most entry level jobs in Singapore. The contract was from 1/2/2007(1st of February 2007) to 30/11/2007. So I had almost 9 months to make a positive impression to the chairman and the board so that I could get a contract extension. The contract also stipulated that my wages would be S$625 a week. This too would increase based on how the team did at the end of the season. It was a full time contract and, at 26 years old, I think I was pretty much the youngest manager in the league. I thought about the offer and I said that I would take the job and then I signed on the dotted line.
After all the formalities were completed, I shook hand with the rest of the board members and they took me for a tour of the ground. Bishan Stadium was a decent sized stadium for a team of this size. It was similar with most other stadiums in Singapore in that the football field was in the middle with a running track bordering the field. Even now, I can see members of the public jogging on the running track. The total capacity of the stadium was about 7500; out of that, there were 5500 seats for the fans. The training and the youth facilities were pretty basic but I was told that if we did well, the board would consider improving these facilities. “How about the clubs financials? Are we doing ok so far? Will I get any transfer funds?” I asked Mr. Koh. He handed me a manila envelope with all the financial information I needed to know. The club was in the black with a balance of a little over S$2million and I was given a transfer budget of S$110,000. Before I could say anything about the transfer budget, Mr. Koh told me that I was still pretty new to managing a team and once again, if I can do well then he and the board can increase my transfer funds. “Don’t worry; we can still get a few decent players with that much cash.” I then looked down at the other information. I was given a wage budget of S$43.82K and S$27.06K was already used up. After walking around for a while I met with the back room staff. The chairman introduced me to them and they were very welcoming and said that they would help me with anything related to team matters. I asked which one of them was the assistant manager and Mr. Koh then told me that the assistant manager wanted the manager job but he wasn’t really qualified or well liked by the rest of the staff. I told the chairman that I didn’t want anyone working as team coach with a negative attitude and that I would like to offer the assistant manager and another coach, who also wasn’t present a mutual termination. The chairman agreed and congratulated me on my first managerial decision. “At least that would free up some money for wages now.” I thought to myself.
I had little or no connections to the football world. I just knew some friends in secondary school who were good players but I lost contact with them years ago. I made a mental note that I should use “Friendster” to find as many of my old friends as I can. In the meantime I asked my remaining coaches to give me a detailed report on our players all the way from the first team to the reserve and youth teams. It seemed like they were glad that they had something to do. I also took one of my coaches, J. Surachai, to the side and asked him if he knew any good coaches. He said he knew some local as well as some expatriate coaches who needed a job. I asked him to look them up and recommend any good ones. I told him that he was going to be my new assistant manager and I needed all the help I could get. The chairman told him that he would draw up a new assistant manager contract for him tomorrow. Surachai was very happy and thanked us. He then went to make some calls. I then asked the only scout I had to search for any good players in Singapore and I asked him to also look for two more good scouts to work under him. He said he would try his best. As for the rest of the staff, I asked them to draw up some new training methods and schedules for the team. There would be a staff meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the new schedules. “Not bad. In one day I fired an assistant manager and a coach and hired a new assistant manager to take his place, all on the same day. I feel like a real manager already.” I told Mr. Koh. By this time the other board members had left and Mr. Koh showed me my office. It was pretty nice with a window overlooking the pitch. Mr. Koh just told me to relax for today and that he showed me everything he needed to show me for today. He said that the clubhouse was close by and I could get in for free tomorrow after I was officially revealed to the public. Then he said that after the press conference, I would be meeting the players. I thanked him for giving me the job and that I would see him tomorrow.
He then left for his office to take care of some business. I decided to head home after a long day and get prepared for tomorrow. I talked to Irene about the day and then called Vivian again. She said that she would come visit me from Malaysia next weekend. All I could do now was just relax and mentally prepare myself for the days ahead.
this is BRILLIANT one of the best starts to a story in the forum i've seen in a while. This story defenitly has great potential thanks for sharing and I can't wait for an update
Originally posted by tom69er:
this is BRILLIANT one of the best starts to a story in the forum i've seen in a while. This story defenitly has great potential thanks for sharing and I can't wait for an update
Thanks. I will hopefully do an update in the next few days. The last story i did seriously sucked. So i hope this one is better. Thanks for the compliment.
“So, Mr. Hossain what are your ambitions for the club? Do you think that you have a chance at the title this time? Are you getting any new players? Where is your assistant manager?” The guy from the Starits Times was seriously asking a lot of questions. The press conference had started off nicely with the Chairman, Mr. Koh introducing me to the press from the national newspapers and magazines. I did my best to answer questions but I was really getting overwhelmed by the questions being asked. My new assistant manager, J. Surachai gave more detailed answers to the press on my behalf. “Eh Mr Hossain ah, Chee Ah Beng from the Pondan Times, how long do you tink you have this job for?” Without giving any details of my contract away, I just told him that I hoped to manage Home United for a pretty long time.
“Damn that was a long press conference!!” I told my assistant. He said that it was only 25 minutes long. It seemed long as it was my first press conference, but he assured me that over time I will get used to it. He then handed me 3 files full of paper. “I wonder how many trees died for this,” I thought to myself. The first file had a heading that read FIRST TEAM, followed by another file with RESERVE SQUAD and lastly UNDER18’s. I asked Surachai to call the entire backroom staff, even the physio, for a training meeting because I wanted to see what kind of schedules they had set up. My scout wasn’t here; he was still scouring the country for decent players. He said he would get back to me about his findings as soon as possible. I asked Surachai if he found any leads for new coaches. He said that he had some interested British expatriates but they were holidaying now in England but he would let me know at least by tomorrow if they were really interested. Then he left to tell all the staff to meet me at my office.
The entire staff came into my office in about 30 minutes. We discussed mostly training and I let them know that I put them in collective charge of the player’s training. I wanted the youth coaches to recommend some decent talent once we got a fresh intake of players from the academy system at the club. I asked the physio if the training schedule that was set would have adverse effects on the players conditions once they came back to training. He said that the training should be ok as long as we don’t overdo it since it’s only the pre-season now. After talking for about an hour, I asked the coaches to set up the training areas for the players as today was when they came back to the club for pre-season training. As I was thanking them for coming to the meeting, there was a knock on the door. It was the team captain, S. Subramani, coming to welcome me to the club. He was much older then me but he was like the rest of the staff, very welcoming and said that he was there if I had any questions about the squad. I told him that I was actually going to the field and I asked him and my assistant to fill me in on the status of the squad. They said that the team was still disappointed from last season and they badly needed to win something, any cup would do. He also said that they were a few players who were apprehensive about taking orders from a 26 year old with absolutely no experience in football. They then told me that we had a good team this season, at least on paper. We brought in Shi Jiayi, Qiu Li and Kengne Ludovick from 3 of our rival teams and our key goal scorer Indra Sahdan had already recovered form a long term injury and was ready to bang in the goals. These four were the key players, I was told, who maybe able to help us win the title.
I walked with the team captain and my assistant onto the running track where the main squad was seated. The reserves and the under-18’s where seated on the grass. I just told these two squads that I was happy to be there and was hoping that this would be a different time for the club. I then dismissed them and the youth coaches and another coach took them through their training paces. I then walked over to the First Team and introduced myself. I told them that I understood that a few of them had concerns about being bossed around by an inexperienced 26 year old manager but I let them know that we still had to try our best on the field. They then were dismissied and broke off for training. Due to our temporary coaching shortage, I authorized some of the seniour players to lead in the training sessions.
As the players were going through their training, I asked my assistant why we didn’t even challenge for the title last season. He said that the previous coach had insisted on playing a defensive minded, counter-attacking form of football with a 3-4-1-2 formation. All I could say was “HUH?!?!?!?” Its not that I did not understand what the formation meant but I did not know why the previous manager used that formation since we had so many defenders available. I decided to take a different route and suggested an attacking minded 4-4-2 to my assistant manager. He said that the players were not used to that formation but I said that the upcoming friendlies would give them a chance to get used to it. “I hope so” was all Surachai could say. I told him not to worry, if anything happens it would be my fault. He then went off to oversee the training of the players and I took the files full of paper and went to my office to look through them and come up with a tentative first eleven squad. It took me 3 hours but based on the team reports I was given, my first 11 would have to be:
I handed this list to Surachai and he remarked that this was a decent team. He then xeroxed a copy for himself and took it with him to inform the players. I was hoping that my scout could get me some names of cheap and decent available players. I still had S$110K and I really did not want to use all of it in one season. As I was taking a seat, the phone rang. It was Mr. Koh who called to say that he was faxing me the fixture list tonight with our first S-League game starting in 15 days. I told him that I was heading out for the day so I would appreciate it if he could fax to Irene’s dad’s fax machine. I gave him the number and he said he would send it tonight. Just as I was leaving the phone rang again, this time it was Irene. I told her to ask her dad to keep an eye out for an important fax for me. “Ok I will. You are done for the day right? Lets go for a movie. There are some good shows. Lets go!! Lets go!! Lets go!!” I told her ok and that I would meet her at one of the cineplexes. I hung up the phone, said bye to teh players still milling around after training and headed out to get a taxi to Orchard Road.
I told myself I should enjoy this now because in 15 days, the most hectic year of my life begins.
I had just received the fax from MR. Koh. As usual, we were going to have some friendlies against various Singaporean sides which included one of our feeder clubs. Police Sports Association was a club in the lower leagues of Singaporean football and they had some good player that I could buy. IT was definitely useful to look through their team and see if there are any players that interest me. As for the friendlies, I called my assistant Surachai to cancel the friendlies with the Singapore sides and asked him to set up a tour of Malaysia. My reasoning was that the only way for me to know the full capability of this team is to put them against tougher opposition. Malaysia does have some good club sides and I was hoping that some of the games would evoke memories of the old days when Singapore used to play in the Malaysian Football League. Anyway, I tried calling Surachai but there was no answer. So I called the chairman and asked him if he could find us some nice opposition in Malaysia. I told him my thoughts on why we should play against some of their sides plus they were really close to Singapore so we didn’t have to travel quite so far away. Mr. Koh agreed and said he would get some decent friendlies for the team by next week.
The next day, I went to Mr. Koh’s office to talk to him about our feeder club. I told him that for some reason we are paying them S$2.5million a year just to be our feeder. He said that they had good players that would be useful to us in the future. “But its financial suicide,” I told him. I told him that I was looking at the financial statements at home last night and noticed that once we paid them that amount next week, we would be in the red. There would also be no way to know exactly when the club would be able to get back into the black. He said that the club was relying on Police SA for most of our newer players. “But getting rid of them for the time being would still keep us financially sound. Once we are in an even better footing we could have them as a feeder club again. But it would be nice to have a feeder club where we have a lower payout for the time being”. Mr. Koh said that he would think about it and that he would get back to me in a few days. I asked him if he had seen my assistant manager anywhere before I left; “Oh yes, Surachai said that he had a family emergency in Thailand and he had to leave last night. He said he would be back in a months time but in the meantime he said that he put an ad out for a new assistant manager and a few coaches online.” I was surprised upon hearing that, “so that’s why he didn’t answer the phone” I thought to myself. I told Mr. Koh I’ll see him later on and left to oversee the players training.
On the training field I told Subramani what had happened with Surachai and even he was surprised. Apparently none of the squad knew. But they were professional enough not to let this news disrupt their training. I asked the other coach, the youth coaches and the senior players how training was going. They all said that the players were fit but they needed some playing time. I told them that would be happening soon, very soon. After talking to some of the players and coaches, I went back to my office and checked my email. I received some decent applications for the now temporarily vacant assistant manager position and a lot of coaching application. I had a few from England, Brazil, Canada and Malaysia. I looked through these applications and I was really impressed with a few of them. I gave a call to some of the applicants that interested me and interviewed them over the phone. For some in was early morning or others were sleeping when I called but they got attentive when I said that I was offering a job to them. After interviewing them for awhile I immediately offered a contract to about five of them including a new assistant manager by the name of Brendan O’Connell. Out of all of the apllicants for assistant manager, his CV impressed me the most. The good thing was that these guys were skilled in their profession so they would get a working pass easily and the best thing of all was that they were all free transfers. Just then my chief scout Fauzi Noor came into my office and said he had some good news. He found two friends of his who were decent scouts but unemployed at the moment. So I could have them for free as well. “What a good day, I got a full backroom staff for absolutely nothing at all” I told Noor.
Noor said there was another reason he came to talk to me. He said that Firdaus Idros wasn’t too happy at Young Lions and that he heard rumours that he wanted to leave. However, the problem was that 4 other clubs were also going to make a bid for him soon. He also said that the new Korean team in the league was going after a talented player called Jung Sun-Bi from Seoul. He was an attacking midfielder who made some real good performances during his trials at that club. I thanked Noor and asked him to get the new scouts busy tomorrow after I and the chairman draw up the new contracts. “I want you to handling scouting our next opponents, I want another to scout Singapore and I would like another to scout the South East Asian countries,” I told Noor before he left.
Then I left the office to talk to Mr. Koh. He was happy that I signed a new back room staff at no upfront cost but he was worried about the wages. I told him that the total wages would a little bit less than S$5000 which still left me way under the wage budget. I then told him that I would be making a bid of S$10K for Idros and S$3k for Jung Sun. After their wages we would still be under budget and I will still have a little over S$90k to play around with. He mentioned that I was really getting into the role of a manager and now he knew that the board and himself did not make a mistake in hiring me. “Oh one more thing, you received your work permit today.” I thanked him for everything and went back to my office. I sent a fax to Young Lions with the bid for Idros and sent another fax to Jung’s representatives. I got a reply from them in a few hours and both replies were positive. A few days later the chairman and I gave the two players long term deals and better wages. Then the club held another press conference where we unveiled the Idros to the press as our newest player. I had mentioned that we bought a very talented South Korean player and that he would be arriving next week. Then the chairman mentioned that mentioned that the club would be touring Malaysia starting at the end of the week, Our opponents would be FELDA United, Shahzan Muda, Kelantan and finally Kuala Lumpur. I was surprised that he managed to get these fixtures so fast. He also told the press that after consulting with me, he had decided to drop Police SA as our feeder club.
After the press conference, Mr. Koh said that he was sorry he did not let me know about the friendlies earlier but he thought that these were the best opponents he could find in a short space of time. But he said that now he is giving me full control over team matters including friendlies and choosing feeder clubs. He said that he would have a list of potential feeder club next week. I then went back to my office again and made a call to the Korean Association of Singapore and told them about the Korean player that was coming to play for us. I told them that he was coming with his father but he had no place to stay and I thought it would be comfortable for him to stay with a Korean family here in Singapore until he could adjust to staying by himself. The lady I talked said that they could help me out with that and that one of their representatives would be there at the airport with me to greet him to Singapore. I gave them the flight details and said that I would meet the representative next week then. It was time to head to my temporary home anyway, my temporary home being Irene’s apartment. The whole day was so hectic that I just closed the door and crashed onto the bed.
**sorry I made a mistake in my last post. I meant to say that I wanted top call my ass. man. to get him to cancel the friendlies but I could not reach him. So I called Mr. Koh's assistant and asked her to ask the chairman to cancel all of the friendlies. Sorry for the mix up*
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