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Time for my first update. This is my first career I've ever played, and actually my first time playing any of the FM games. But I did my research on the LLM board and wanted to make my first and hopefully only time as realistic as possible, so I follow all LLM guidelines and created a few more restrictive ones of my own. Hope you enjoy this as much as I've enjoyed reading all of yours...
2006-2007
I've started the game unemployed. My manager (Me, of course) is as realistic as possible, I'm 25, of Polish and American Nationality and have no experience managing much of anything. The purpose of starting the game unemployed is to make finding a job as hard as possible. I only applied to teams in English or Polish speaking countries, out of 75 leagues i've loaded, the point being that I would have a hard time managing a lowly Russian team if I didn't speak any Russian. I will allow myself to be employed by a larger foreign speaking team later in the game, should I actually get hired by one. Larger foreign teams would be able to afford me a translator.
After applying for about ten jobs the first week in leagues like Conf South, North, and Polish Div 2, I received 5 job offers. Four of them were three year deals worth about $100 a week, and the fifth one offered two years at $500 a week. Trying to keep the game as realistic as possible, I accepted the one that paid 5 times higher than the other four. Lancaster City, meet Dave.
Lancaster City, for those of you unaware, is a part-timer in poor financial condition with what I would consider a decently fair chairman in Conference North. When I took over, the team was young, with few promising prospects over the age of 16. I attempted to re-staff the coaching positions, but found that I couldn't afford to release many of them any time in the near future. Of special note is my ass mgr who doubles as an overpaid backup midfielder, and 2 physios who together didn't add up to one decent one. The ass mgr I would keep for the year, and the Physios were signed for 5 years each...boneheaded move by someone else i guess.
I managed to recruit a decent scout, who helped us improve the team right away. I was about 3k under budget for salaries, so I had some room to make a few signings in the free transfer market (since i was not given a transfer budget).
We were expected to fight bravely against relegation, and the media had us picked 18th. I managed to sign a mid-20 striker who drastically improved the team and finally got some goals on the board around December. We hovered right above the relegation zone all season, improving to 16th by the season end in April. Lost the cups to better teams in early early rounds.
The board was fine with this finish and the fans liked it too. I was just getting to really know the players and was satisfied that we would improve the next year. My new striker was named 2nd best signing in the Conf North. All in all, a good season. We lost $300k but no one seemed to mind.
2007-2008
I was able to ditch the Ass Mgr/midfielder before training started, and managed to pick up a half-decent coach and ass mgr. I also improved the scouts, 2 of them. But was still stuck with the physios, i've learned to just live with them. I used their situation as a lesson to sign coaches and scouts to one year deals for the time being, no one's going to come into Lancaster and try and pick them off while we're stuck at the bottom end of the table anyway.
We procured a few defenders, a new gk, and a midfielder, all for free in the summer from our scouts' work and we went into the season with high hopes. The Board again wanted us to fight bravely from relegation, but were pleased with my management as were the fans. We lost to the good teams and beat the utterly bad ones, and tied all the mid-table teams. We weren't winning many games, but i really liked the way my team was starting to respond to me. A few primadonna's asked for ridiculous salaries, and i turned down every request. My theory is if you're under contract, you are under contract to work for me. I'll decide if i want to reward you with a new one. One striker didn't appreciate my tone and asked to be transfer listed. That's fine, i agreed to put him on the list, benched him to the reserve team, and fined him two weeks for missing practice. no nonsense from me, hopefully that sets a tone, but we'll see.
Since we were safely in the middle of the table by now (and by middle i mean lower middle like 14th) I took my time to replace the cranky striker. I found a gem in a 25 year old with some speed and a great attitude. He started scoring in January and we finished the season 14th ahead of the media's prediction of 16th. Since this was my contract year, I was a little nervous about not being invited back to Lancaster City, however, around March the board offered me a new three year contract worth $500 a week. I asked to put it off til the end of the season, in case i got a better offer, but i did not. I signed for two more years at Giant Axe at $500, i wouldn't have given me a raise either. Once again, congrats all around from the board and fans, and we're starting to get more attention from free transfers who would normally not want to go to a Conf North team. My new striker who was scoring goals was named 2nd best signing in conf north. That's two years in a row for me. Lost both cups early again, to better teams. End of season. Lost another $250k but again, nobody seemed to mind. We're now in debt half a mil.
2008-2009
During the off-season i revamped the staff yet again (but i think i might keep this version of coaches for more than a year). Everyone was replaced by someone who was better than them in the staff. Attracted yet another GK, this time a 19 year old. Got a new mid-20's striker to match the one i got last year and play to the left of him. upgraded some defenders, all under 23. I really had a good off-season with transfers. Not sure if this was due to the mid-table standing, or my upgraded scouts. The team was NOTICEABLY better on paper at the beginning of this year. One youngster from the U-18 squad made my first team this year because he was developing so well. And 10 out of 11 players on the first team were not with Lancaster when i took over.
The season went smoothly, we were scoring from all over the place, and the defending wasn't all that bad. I identified some of my players who were improving so much that they became wanted by other teams. The values of these players rose from $0 when i bought them to between $10k and $20k. That's what i call smart investing. I sold some of the backups just to get their salaries off the books so we could stop bleeding money every month. We won nearly every game and were in the top five all season, still didn't manage to excel in the cups. One of the recently relegated teams from Conf Nat'l ran away with the #1 spot early in the season, but we managed to hold on to 2nd throughout the year. I still got requests for new salaries from some "Stars" (i use the term loosely because come on, this is the Conf North), but turned them all down and continued to punish players with bad attitudes.
Best striker on the team gets injured in March, will be out three months, yay physios, he's going to miss the playoffs. Sure enough, we have no offense in the playoff and lose the first round to the 5th place team. What a let down. But, its obvious i've turned this team around since taking over, and my popularity skyrockets, and i'm actually listed as a "talented manager". Only managed to lose $100k this year due to the increased attendance a winning team draws.
2009-2010
Kept one of the scouts from last year, and found an Ass Mgr i can be happy with. you know the saying, if it ain't broke don't fix it. So I only attempted to improve the backups this offseason and create more depth in the team. I had every intention of winning almost every game just like last year, and thought for sure i'd make a run at automatic promotion.
But alas, the season started off a little rocky. I was playing the best teams in the league early in the season so, i actually started off without a win in five games. Not a good standing. Luckily i got to play some of the bad teams for most of the rest of the season, and those wins started piling up. We attracted a striker as good as my favorite one in december, but this kid is only 19 and already a starter, as opposed to the goal-scoring now 27 year old. I turned away offers for about four or five starters all season long, and we won about 2/3rds of our games. Injuries piled up throughout the year, which i saw as an excuse to play some of the promising youngsters that i was growing in the U-18 squad. Unfortunately, some of them weren't as "Ready" as i thought they were, and we dropped some easier games to injury. We went into the last game of the season up one point from the 6th place team, so a win would gaurantee us a playoff spot. We were all nervous, especially since this was a contract year for me and the Board wanted us to make the playoffs. They had offered me a contract back in march, no raise though, and i deferred til the end of the year in order to wait for a better offer from another team or watch Lancaster choke and not make the playoffs and bail out. I was at the end of what i thought would be our rebuilding stage and i honestly didn't think the team could get any better while still in the Conf North, so I was prepared to leave rather than face another rebuilding year if we didn't make the playoffs. I didn't necessarily insist we get promoted, but i wanted to finish strong in the playoffs, at least making the finals this year.
Last game of the season, we win 3-0 to guarantee the last spot in the playoff. First round, we were down 0-2 at halftime on an away game, something i said in that lockerroom must have hit a nerve with a team i'm proud to call my own, becuase we score 6 unanswered goals in the second half to all but assure us a spot in the final. We won our home game 1-0.
The final was nerve-racking, I was missing my best defender to injury, and a couple of the regulars came back from injury the game before so were a little rusty. A defender earned a yellow card in the first minute, so i was forced to pull him rather than let him risk a second one. no worries, we score one goal, and keep the opposition to none the rest of the game to win the playoff and gain promotion to Conf Nat'l.
As I told the media after the game, "Managing Lancaster City brings me joy, and I hope to continue for a while." I'm very much looking forward to the challenge of the Conf Nat'l, but mostly I'm looking forward to the increased attendance this should bring us, as we lost another $200k this year and are nearing $1 mil in debt. I'm convinced even a mediocre showing in the Conf will ensure a profit. I'm also excited about the increased talent I should be able to draw to Lancaster. I could use a new GK.
I have yet to sign a new contract, but will most likely attempt to negotiate a small nominal raise to $550 a week and sign for another 2 years. The offseason begins tomorrow.
(1) You start off by saying that it's your first and hopefully only time. Do you mean that this is going to be your only attempt at LLM, or that you're not intending to scratch the save and start again if it all goes horribly wrong?
(2) What additional restrictions are you imposing on youself?
Sorry for the Verbosity, I promise subsequent updates will be shorter as they will only be one year long and way more organized.
to answer the questions:
1) I don't plan on starting a new LLM career and scratch this one. As I am trying to keep this as realistic as possible, you don't get second chances in life so it would be unfair to my conscience to just start over when things go wrong. I imagine in the future I will manage to keep winning consistently and become the best football Manager EVER... Or the more likely scenario, I will eventually be unfairly fired from Lancaster and forced to accept a lower job in a lower league once again. This is what i mean by only. i suppose once my character in the game turns 80 something, i'll retire him and start over...to keep it realistic.
2) Other restrictions... Making financial decisions, such as taking the Lancaster job to begin with. I would have rather liked one of the other jobs i was offered, but in real life I would have never turned down a job that pays 5 times more than the other ones. Also, I considered what my life would be like in the city of Lancaster, would I enjoy living there? For instance, I'm never going to take a job in the Russian League because I would be fearing for my life every time we lost with all the crime that goes on in some parts of the country, and others. I've seen other players do this too, but I turned down the USA job when offered to me in my second year. USA would never hire me with two years experience...and yes i know, neither would Lancaster with no experience. But I'd have a much easier time convincing LCFC than USA.
Glad other people are enjoying this as much as I am. Really looking forward to updating this further... Thanks, Dave.
Lancaster No Shadow 
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