retired_tresor

Oh quieten down sam1001, this is a story forum, not a football forum. Stories aren't all about football you cretin.

shannon2007

Its not going off topic at all, you'll find there are a few writers who don't just write all about the football by try to bring in more of a story aspect, which is exactly what this forum is for.

retired_gohilharshajit

I think its brilliant mate, well done keep it up! its better how you have wrote it because some stories get boring after 2 pages of just the manageing of the club. Its a proper story this way and more realistic.

retired_smelesko

RIP Jeff

retired_lovelyminoo

I got quite emotional writing that entry truth be told

retired_007bondgirl

sorry boys

retired_smelesko

Now we're left to wonder, what will come of Margaret?

Keep up the good writing man

(Personally, I think she oughta come to Norway with you. Surely there's room for her there, somewhere. Just not in the cafeteria )

retired_lovelyminoo

July 13th 2007
The march for promotion was on! Sitting pretty in 4th place, the club was just 6 points off acheiving the improbable and getting to first place. Not bad for odds-on favourites for the drop this year.

Going into this weekends game we had 4 suspended players, and our goalkeeper was milking his injury for all it was worth it seemed. He was sporting a rather fetching purple bruise down one side of his face but I felt his ego was more in pain than his head. He hadn't left his house for a week for fear of being ridiculed.

Steve and Lenny had nipped off for a walk, leaving the place free for myself to prepare for tomorrow afternoons game. This was now becoming a common ritual at weekends and I enjoyed it. Hearing them two slobbering over each other in the bedroom was helluva distracting when trying to sort out the team sheet for the day and a few times I had interupted them mid-...whatever to tell them to shut up and quit making such a racket.

Picking the team for the game is an art. It's not just looking at who plays the best in each position, give them each a shirt and tell them "off you go then, win 5-0 for daddy" (oh I wish!), there's a lot more skill involved. How did that player play over the last 5 games? Did our central defender get turned far too quickly when the opposition was on the break? How many shots were on target, how many off target, how many balls ended up in the sea? How are the other team lining up? Do they have someone we need to watch out for? Do they play the quick passing game? Do they lump long balls up to Giant Haystacks? How tall is Haystacks? Are our defenders to slight to cope with the presence of Haystacks? Just how many pies did our left winger eat? If he runs too much will he be sick?

Most of the team picks itself each week. Fylling up front has been phenomenal for us and I've been singing his praises for helping us get to where we are. 10 games and 8 goals. A tally many top strikers would be proud of. My only real concern was the defence. Malmo was an animal. I think he'd now had 4 red cards this season alone. Straight reds mind, not your double yellow business. I've fined him twice already this season, yet the message still hadn't got through to him. It's times like this I wished corporal punishment wasn't illegal. He needed a good whack about the head did that boy.

I text my assistant to get his opinion on it. Go with Malmo, the centre-back that is a rock in defence, but has a habit of getting into scrapes with the other teams forwards or go with Lien, who was sporadic to say the least. One day he'll play out of his skin, the other he might as well just curl up on the touchline and go to sleep he was that ineffective.

Text came back: "Tom". What a tube, both their names were Tom! I text him again but the message doesn't send. No signal. Friggin' signal! What is it with mobiles? Why does moving 5 inches suddenly make your phone think it's entered a 10 foot thick lead container?! I moved back 5 inches to my usual position. Signal still gone. I HATE PHONES! I ****ING HATE ****ING PHONES!

Signal returns, I try to send again, no credit. Typical. Ach to hell with it, Malmo gets the nod. We play half our games with 10 men anyway, why should we make an exeption this week?

I looked out of the window, it was indeed a nice day today. The thermometer was settling at 20 degrees although it says that every day I've looked at it. The barometer indicated a high chance of snow. I tapped it lightly, possibly a bit of dirt trapped by the hand. Nope. The hand was broken. Two taps had brought about it's downfall, as if I had the power to melt steel just by tapping a glass surface in front. Remarkable. This is a pet hate of mine by the way. Why do people just leave things un-mended. I've seen clocks hanging on walls with no batteries on them? Why do that? Why give guests the shitters thinking they're late for appointments when you know damn fine that that clock doesn't work! What's even more stupifying is when they ask for the time, this idiot will turn to look at the clock. Yes, the clock that DOES NOT WORK. The clock they know damn fine doesn't work!! GGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

I took the barometer off the wall and hid it in a cupboard. Knowing Lenny, he'll blame me for breaking his barometer and get me to stump up the cash for a new one, so I took it back out of the cupboard and hid it under Steve's bed. Steve was a terrible liar, and what was even better was he looked like he was lying even when he was telling the truth. The buck had been passed firmly to him now, and glued to his face. Get out of that one. Mwahaha.

We're heading to the south of the country for our game tomorrow and need to stay overnight so I won't be taking my diary with me. Actually - we're spending the weekend there, so it'll be Monday before I update again. I'll let you know how we get on upon my return.

retired_lovelyminoo

17th July 2007
We lost our game 1-0 unforunately. It was definately not the best of matches. One of our midfield players got send off for a rash challenge in the box, their player retaliated and ended up in an early bath also.

Two of our players came off with slight injuries, one was Tom Malmo. To be fair though, he wanted to play the full ninety despite twisting his ankle. I hooked him anyway. His ankle injury was down to trying to kick someone on the turn.

We've got 12 games left of the season, and we're doing well. That result puts us down 2 places however, and I've worked out we need a further 12 points to make sure we avoid relegation this year.

The weekend passed without incident thank God. Steve and Lenny had a small row about the barometer which ended up with Steve admitting he broke it just to keep the peace. What daggers I got off him later on though!


26th August 2007
Diary, this has been one of the worst run of results I think I've had in a while. We went 5 games without winning anything, despite scoring 6 goals. We're now slipping down the table and sit 7th. This is not on!

Although we are still looking a safe bet to stay up this year I want the players to realise that we can't just sit back once our goal has been acheived. I talked to Steve and he's putting them through a harder training session over the next month to make sure they realise what we expect off them.


23rd October 2007
"Ceeeeeeeeeeeeeelebrate good times COME ON!"

It's the end of the season and we've done it! We avoided relegation! Not only that but we finished 5th in the league, higher than anyone had predicted. Our last 7 games went almost according to plan after the debacle of last month. Played 7, won 5, drawn 1 and lost 1.

In fact, our last two games saw us run out 4-1 and 5-1 winners. It was an extra special moment to win so emphatically at home and the supporters were in full voice singing our praises. I've not been fortunate enough to experience such a response before. It was simply amazing.

The awards ceremony got under way earlier on this evening. Although there were no Manager of the Year trophies to be had (which I would have won!) there was a Top Goalgscorer award which went to our very own Per Kristian Fylling for his 22 goals in 25 games. A trully wonderful season. In his speech he paid tribute to yours trully as well. Nice touch Kris!

I tell you what though diary, despite not winning anything this season, despite only finishing 5th in the league – in fact 5th in the Second Division Group 1 which lets face it, isn't La Liga – I felt a great amount had been acheived in the space of a year.

I flicked through my diary this morning and thought about how niave I was back in 2005. I wanted the top job and I wanted it immediately. I wanted the money that goes along with it, the millions of pounds for transfers, yet here I am in Norway, on £80 a week and £254 (at last count) in the bank for player transfers wanting nothing more in the world.

It's down at this level I think you find the men that are the real managers. The ones that don't get satisfaction from signing an 18 year old for £10million just because Chelsea were sniffing about. No, these men get satisfaction from just getting through another season, by getting the best out of a team of part-timers, from integrating with the community, feeling part of a club.

Lenny's methods of getting close to all players and staff (too close at times) really does work. When you know you've got the solid backing of your chiarman, the improbable becomes the probable. This has felt like my first real break. f*** Farnborough, Drøbak/Frogn will be the name of my first club when it comes to writing my autobiography.

Yet, while I love this place and the people, there is still that nagging part of me that wants to return home to Inverness.

retired_lovelyminoo

10th November 2007
It was the last day before the lads went off on holiday and we all decided to have a get-together in Lenny's local.

For some of the players, it would be the last time they'd be joining us as Drøbak/Frogn employees. In total we had 10 players being released on a free transfer, which alarmingly reduced our squad size to 14.

As manager, it was my job to give a speech, doing the usual thank you's and congratulations to the team on a job well done this season. My toast was interupted by cheers of "wa-hey" every time I tried to pronounce the clubs name in my best Norwegian accent. Bastards.

The fire was cackling nicely in the corner as the snow began to fall outside - the first snowfall this side of winter - giving the pub a greater sense of coziness. The jukebox cackled into life from hits of yesteryear making me feel like we were in a dress rehearsal for Whams next single.

Mary collected the glasses from our table every 20 minutes, faster than anyone could drink. It was a clever ploy to make us subconsciously drink faster so that we wouldn't feel bad when she came back over, so within 3 hours we were pretty sozzled. Steve resumed his favourite position of head back over the chair, snoaring away, with a trickle of drool working its way slowly down the corner of his mouth.

One of the more catchier songs came on the jukebox and by this point the players and their better halves were up onto whatever space was available to dance. Lenny came over and sat beside me, once again giving me a pat on the back and telling me well done.

My mind by this point was wandering and I wasn't paying attention to Lenny anymore. He could be harping on about how he was turning over his money to the club and that we'd have millions to spend next year, maybe he was giving me a huge payrise to try and scare off other clubs coming in for me. To be honest, I didn't care.

I wanted to go home. Norway is a lovely place, don't get me wrong. The people are so very friendly. And here I felt like I was part of the club, not just the manager but part of the foundations. And it was wrong, oh it was so, so wrong. Back home I would be the manager, and the players would know their place. If there was any sort of drinking involved, they'd be fined. If at the end of the season we were having a party, I'd turn up for an hour before leaving. I was their leader, I was not one of them.

Scotland was depressing, and I was a depressing person. I liked not having to say hello to random people in the street, I liked being able to get from A to B without telling 15 people how my day was and my isn't it cold today, yes that's winter coming in. I'd had enough of being all nice and happy. I wanted to be moody and miserable again.

Lenny did that annoying thing where he waved his hand in front of my face to get my attention. I hate that, I really hate that. I hate it more than clocks not working, I hate it more than people putting the heating on, then opening a window. I hate it more than blocked public toilets, I hate it more than when they do a news story about pigs that run away. THAT'S NOT NEWS!!!

I slapped his hand away, picked up my pint glass, smashed it on the table and glassed him in the face.

"Take that you annoying ****er!" I thought to myself. The dancing and music ceased simultaneously. How on earth do they do that? The dancing stopping, yes I can understand that, but the music? Just who is that person that bolts towards the jukebox and pulls the plug? You ever wondered that? And how do they get that job?

Lenny clutched his face, shaking he pulled away his hand to reveal a large cut just below his left eye. The players crowded round him, pulling him to his feet and sitting him back on his chair. Steve, through all the commotion, was still sleeping.

For a few seconds, I showed no remorse. The glass still in my hand, breathing heavily I just stared at Lenny. Then slowly my brain regained control of the primal rage that had moments ago consumed my body.

I didn't hate people waving their hand in front of my face. I just thought it was rude. The aggression that leapt out of me had been building for a while. Heavily in debt, cramped in a room with 2 other guys, the pressures of the season, Jeff's passing. It all built up into a split second moment of madness that would surely cost me my job.

And it did.