retired_milla0225

Langley gets Manager of the month

The Dag Hammerfest column Aamulehti 01 Oct 2005

Following four straight wins in the month PP-70's Tristan Langley has been named manager of the month. And let this commentator be the first to offer his congratulations. With only one game of the season left PP-70 are out of any relegation danger and could even finish as high as fifth, if results go their way tomorrow. That certainly did not look possible when Langley arrived and the fact is that he has turned this club around. the fans will be looking forward to next season already with hope in their hearts. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. PP-70 fans will be keen to see the team finish as high as they can, so tomorrow's game remains vitally important in their minds.

That's all for now.

retired_milla0225

The season ends on a high note

We travel to OLS on the last day of the season. OLS will finish bottom of the league whatever happens in this match. And it turns out that our guys have their thoughts turned to their holidays already and we are outplayed for long periods by OLS but they reveal exactly why they are doing so badly by the standard of their finishing. It's against the run of play when our best player all season Olikainen scores after 40 mins. OLS do manage to get back into it with an equaliser right on half time. the second half is more of the same but its us who gets the winner with Eranen's 18th goal of the season mid way through the period. And try as the might OLS can't respond a second time and fall to a final day defaet that confirms them in 14th spot in the league.

Final Score OLS 1-2 PP-70
Results do go our way and we finish the season in 5th spot, our highest placing of the whole campaign, certainly the right time to do that.

retired_milla0225

A quick meeting with The Chairman

The following Wednesday after the last game of the season I recieved an invitation to join the club chairman, Pentti Kainulainen, for a coffee at Valssi, the cafe housed within the museum centre of Tampere, called Vapriikki.

Vapriikki is housed in what used to be the engineering works of Tampella Ltd. In addition to exhibition spaces, the Museum Centre provides facilities for collections, preservation, photo archives, a reference library, an auditorium, education of school children as well as space for research and offices. The facilities of the Museum Centre and Valssi café can also be rented for private functions.

Tristan Langley [TL]: "A very nice museum that town has here, and a very pleasnt cafe too."
Pentti Kainulainen [PK]: "Yes, Tampere is full of pleasnt surprises. I hope you have found the same."
TL: "Indeed I have, Pentti. Tampere has proved to be a very pleaseant place to live and work."
PK: "I am very glad to hear it, Tristan. Turning to the team I have to say that I, and the rest of the board, are very impressed with the way you have turned the club around. We are espcially impressed with the final league placing. On the whole we are very pleased."
TL: "Thank you, but it's the lads on teh pitch who have done the hard work. All I had to do was point them in the right direction."
PK: "Very modest of you, Mr Langley. I'm sure you had something to do with it. Anyway, into the off season, Have you ever seen any ski-jumping live ?"

The thanks of the board did indeed turn out to be just that, plain and simple. I'd thought that the meeting could only mean either an addition to the transfer budget or even an instruction to cut the transfer budget but neither was forthcoming. All the players were released for their holdays, due to return for pre-season training in December. But for me the transfer window would reopen in November and I had work to do to plan for that.

retired_milla0225

Author's note: I should probably point out that all of the Tampere specific details come from some very informative websites including The City Of Tampere website, the websitre of the Finnish Embassy in London and the Virtual Finland website. This is by no means an exhaustive list of sources, but these are the main ones. I thank the author's of the sites for their informative and entertaining sites.

retired_milla0225

What I did on my holidays

Whilst the players were on their post-season holidays I went to work strengthening the team and fielding enquiries for players. And the offers came in thick and fast. Eranen (no chance !), Mikkola (are you joking ???), Peltonen (never!) fr three. We also turned down offers for Pasanen, Etelemaki and Valkaepaa. No dice on any of them.

But a couple of players did move on. Defenders Viitanen and Kuusi both moved on to better things, newly promoted FC Hamealinna and Premier Division stalwarts RoPS respectively. Andre Arjas, a right winger arrived with a small amount of cash in the Viitanen deal and Kuusi waranted £10k up front and a further £20k in appearance money. It keeps the finances topped up.

Both transfers out were completed on the reopening of the transfer window and at the same time a couple of players came in 32. Christoffer Carlsson is a 16 year old Sweedish central midfielder who can also fill in on the left who we picked up for Sweedish non-entities Stafsinge and also 33 Linus Blomster, aged 20, a wide midfielder picked up from the open market.

Ans so we obviously had need of some central defenders and in the course of the next couple of weeks we signed 5. Roger Nielsen a 20 year old Sweedish centre back signed for £5k from Asmundstrops a Sweedish non-league side. Also coming in were 34 Matti Uoti a 29 year old centre-back coming in from local non league football and the experienced 16. Per Arne Gjerdalen, 33, on a free from Norwegian nobn league outfit Hamer he comes in in a player/coach role and so will help us out on a couple of levels.

Anyway the time flew and before we knew it it was December 12th and the players reported back for pre-season training.

So obviously were were in need of

retired_aurie

Quite an entertaining read there mate
Hope you can go one better next season and start fighting for promotion.

retired_milla0225

Cheers Axeman.

and apologies for half a sentance at the end of the last report. I must learn to cut and paste properly. Or at least read what I've written before I post it.

Anyway, coming up the biggest, most important pre-season friendly in the history of the world. Honestly.

retired_milla0225

And so to pre-season training

Finland. December. How's this going to work ? In a scene that Good King Wencelas himself would have recognised the snow lay deep and crisp and even.

But my assistant came up with the idea, and let's face it if you're not a Brit it's pretty obvious (should have been obvious to me really but I still consider myself to be new round here) that we should use the conditins to our advantage.

So our first training session was cross country skiing across the expansive city parks of Tampere. All the players are, of course, expert cross country skiers, unlike myself who went on to make a complete a*se of myself.

Fortunately the local TV crew was there to do a piece on the recommencement of training and saw my pitiful efforts. It made an easy opening to the brief interview for local TV presenter Hanna Ripatti.

Hanna Ripatti (HR): "Tristan Langley, you haven't yet quite got the art of skiing worked out then ?"
Tristan Langley (TL): "No Hanna, I certainly haven't personally, but the lads have and from what I've seen, and indeed felt myself, today I don't believe there is any better way to start pre-seeason training. The aerobic exercise provided by cross country skiing is second to none, and that's just what we need right now."
HR: "Fascinating stuff. So how do you see the season ahead unfolding, especially after the way PP-70 finished the last campaign ?"
TL: "We certainly finished last year very strongly and I believe we can carry on in the same vein this year. We'll have to work hard but I think we can do it."
HR: "And will there be many changes in personnel ?"
TL: "We have the same core of players but have added to it in places. We are reshaping the defence a little and have made some changes there. I also expect some transfer activity to continue in the next couple of weeks. There has been alot of interest in some of our players in the past few days and something may come of that."
HR:"Any clues ?"
TL:"Well, Hanna, the defence has been the focus so far, and we can expect to see more action tehre, but I am always on the lookout for any player that will help to strengthen the team"
HR:"Well the future certainly looks bright from where I'm standing. Many Thanks Tristan Langley." (and turning to camera)...."And that's it from central Tampere where the PP-70 squad have put theire best foot forward on the first day of pre-season training. This is Hanna Ripatti reporting from beautiful downtown Tampere."

Hanna Ripatti: "That's us finished with filming. By the way Tristan, do you fancy going out sometime ?"

retired_milla0225

Oops. Just noticed that I managed to change Hanna's name halfway through that one. Bad me !

zipman

Doesn't matter - this is a great read!