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After reading other people's stories, I decided to write about my own management career. I do not currently own fm2006 so this game is on fm2005. I'm not sure whether or not anyone will read this, (I hope they do), but i will do it regardless.
I wasn't sure which team to start with so i decided to start unemployed as i had never done that before. I loaded up :
<LI>the english league (conference and above),
<LI>the scottish league (second division and above),
<LI>the french league (national and above), and
<LI>the dutch league (first division and above).
My first job offer - 13/7/04
I was unemployed for all of half a day when the chairman of Greenock Morton (a Scottish second division side) contacted me and informed me he would like to talk to me about the vacant manager's position at Morton. I was thrilled so went to see him later that day. He told me that he was looking for a young, ambitious manager to take the club to the next level (First Division). He said that I fitted the bill perfectly so he was willing to offer me a job. I was delighted so I accepted straight away. He told be that the board's expectations were for the club to gain promotion to the first division and to help me with that he gave me a transfer budget of £72,250. I thought this to be an adequate sum of money for this level of football and I signed the contract straight away.
First Problem - Coaching Staff
When I headed down to the training ground the next morning, which was a Wednesday, I found that I had a real problem, I only had one coach and no assistant manager. I knew that this was only a small club so I decided that I would need 3 coaches and 1 assistant manager so I placed two adverts in the job centre. About two weeks later I recieved my responses, some good some bad. I offered a contract to both John McLaughlin (as my assistant) and Thijs Moonen (a dutch coach). I still needed one more coach and about a week later I signed John Bell from Albion as my third coach. (A top quality young English coach but cost £24,000, a huge chunk of my transfer budget). Now, this problem was solved.
Next update soon! (Will be very surprised if anyone has actually read this!!)
After sorting out the coaching problem, I turned my attention to the playing staff. It seemed to be quite a large squad for that level. However, my main concern was the left side which had one left back and no left midfielders! It took me a while to find a left midfielder after talks with Tom Baker, Martin Devaney and Kevin Ellison all broke down I finally secured the signing of 25 year old scotsman, Jay Stein from Forfar Athletic for £8,000 at the beginning of August. I also needed some back-up for the left side and therefore, with the tranfer window about to close, I secured the loan deals of Willie Gibson (20 year-old left winger from Queen of the South) and Sean Callaghan (20 year-old left back from Stranraer). Neither of these player looked as if they were going to set the world alight but they would provde good back-up without costing a single penny. Therefore, it seemed that I had had an excellent first transfer window in charge of a football club!
Start to the season
My first game of the season was a disappointing 5-2 defeat away to St. Johnstone in the Challenge Cup 1st round. Having said that we did manage to come back from 2 down to force extra time but their superior fitness told in the end. We started the league on fire with three victories:
<LI>Morton 4-1 Berwick
<LI>Dumbarton 1-4 Morton
<LI>Morton 4-1 Forfar
The game against Dumbarton was most pleasing with 4 goals from Alex Williams, who I was quickly realising was my star striker. However, our next game was not so pleasing. We got beat 4-2 by fellow promotion contenders Brechin City despite us leading 2-0 earlier on. It was obvious that my defence needed some work. Also, 2 wins in the league cup away at Queen of the South and Berwick set up a mouthwatering tie with Dundee (from the SPL) at home which the chairman was particularly looking forward to.
Morton 3-1 Dundee
A fantastic display by my players leaving me proud to be their manager. Two goals from striker Peter Weatherson and one from Australian midfielder John Maisano set up the victory and even a late consolation goal from Dundee could not dampen my spirits. The Chairman was happy as well as we had quadroupled our average attendance as 9889 people watched the mighty Morton defeat Premier League outfit Dundee. However, we had previously been dealt a cruel blow as my physio told me I would have to do without star player Alex Williams, who was currently being chased by a number of English clubs including Bury, for 2 months due to a head injury. Oh yeah, we were top of the league at this point as well!
Normally, this would not be considered such a bad result but having led 2-0 with only 25 minutes remaining thanks to a Scott Bannerman penalty and a goal from Jason Walker, it was a real gutter. It was Mark de Vries who almost single-handedly dumped us out of the league cup therefore denying us the opportunity of a semi-final appearance at Hampden Park. De Vries scored 2 goals in normal time in the 69th and 86th minutes before netting a winner, and his hat-trick, with only 4 minutes remaining of extra time. On top of this, we had missed a penalty earlier in extra time through Paul Walker. One thing which cannot be denied though is that the crowd, a record attendance of 11,036, got their money's worth as it was a truly magnificent game and Hearts' superior quality and fitness showed in the end!
The winter period passed without much event although we did win 7 games in a row, including a 7-0 victory against Stranraer on boxing day, but defeats to fellow promotion chasers Brechin and Stirling left us in 2nd place, 6 points behind Brechin and 1 ahead of Stirling going in to our Scottish cup quarter final.
Scottish Cup Quarter Final. I have to be proud of my players after this figting display. After going one down early on, a dubious penalty decision which was converted by Ross McCormack, we fought back and equalised through top goalscorer Alex Williams, 24 in 24, before another goal from McCormack early in the second half. If it hadn't been for a couple of outstanding saves from Stefan Klos then I feel we could have got a replay. The game saw outstanding displays from midfield dynamo Scott Bannerman which deservedly earned him the man of the match award and captain and dependable centre-back Stuart McCluskey but unfortunately it wasn't enough to see us progress to the semi-finals. This young squad does seem to have a promising future though. We also received another record attendance with 11,576 people watching the game which is only 13 shy of full capacity. Anyway, we are now out of all the cups now which leaves us to concentrate fully on the league and promotion!
I really like the style, and enjoyed this. I hate to be a teeny bit critical, but you say "we did win 7 games in a row". I'd like to hear a bit more depth than that, so we can enjoy the ups and downs with you.
If you've got time for more detail that would be great, I would have high hopes for your story then! Keep at it
Sorry, I would have done more detail but I started this game a few days ago and I wanted to get up to where I was in the game and I am now so there will be more detail in the future!
Starting Unemployed 
Welcome to FMS.
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