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The team I have selected for the Official 2006 LLM Challenge is…Workington.
The story behind it is this – upon loading the Beta demo, I noticed that Workington are now in the ECN, being a newly-promoted team, and therefore not playable in FM2005 from the start.
Now, I'm one of the old gits who remember Workington being a League club, and a bloody crap one at that. However, doing a bit of research (out of curiosity) and looking up their history I found that the best they ever finished in the League was 5th in the old 3rd Division.
The essence of this challenge is to use the English Quick Start (everyone's data starts the same, same size database, only one league loaded, etc.), start as Workington and aim to not only get them back in the League, but to eventually beat their club record finishing position – in today’s money, by finishing 4th in League One or better.
This is not a challenge as in the old days where it was a five-season-who-does-best competition. You can take as many seasons as you like - the challenge is just to achieve it. It is not about doing it before anybody else, it’s meant to be a rite-of-passage not only for experienced LlaMas, but can also be used to encourage those who wish to join our ranks. (ie anybody who comes into the forum wanting to know who to manage can now be safely (and politely) pointed in the direction of the challenge).
I think this is better, because those taking up the challenge shouldn't feel pressured to master the game from the first day – it’s a good learning curve to get used to the new game with. Ideally it’ll help the idea of an LLM community as well, because I hope that other LLaMas will be forthcoming in mutual support to those who are finding it more of a struggle (me, probably). Look at it not as a race, but more of a gauntlet thrown down by us mods.
There are several points that I think make this a good challenge to throw down. Workington have a crap ground, no money, expect relegation (always a good sign!), and have a not very good squad with little prospect of persuading anybody worth signing to join them. There is a lot of scope there for LlaMas to have to make some telling decisions as to whether to try to sign players, try to adopt your tactics to the players available, play players out of position to fit a particular formation, try to sign and train up some grey players (and these are even worse than the players you have), or a combination of these.
I’ve been giving this challenge a bit of a play test with the 6.0.1 patch, and you’ll be pleased to know that at just over halfway through the first season I’m firmly esconced in the relegation area, with little prospect of that situation changing. I have come across a problem that I haven’t had before – one area of my squad is continually outplayed by the opposition’s equivalent, and it wasn’t until I looked at some of the attributes new to FM2006 that I’ve discovered why…not that I can do much about it…
A nice little sideline of this challenge is of course that it finishes whilst still in what I would call the lower leagues, as you don't have to get into the top two divisions to finish - it's all in the leagues below that. Should you manage to complete the challenge, you may very well want to carry it on further…
The update rule still applies – no updates until you’ve completed three seasons, unless of course you’re heading in my direction and likely to get relegated or sacked within the three years. If that happens, dust yourself down and have another go – I’m finding it great fun because I’m so utterly awful.
How To Start:
Firstly, please make sure you have downloaded and installed the 6.0.1 patch.
If you can, you should use the England Quickstart that comes with the game (so everybody starts from the same position)
Some people have had problems with their quickstarts. If you have the same problems, you should start a new game with the following settings:
League to – English Conference N/S
Detail – Normal
Database – Small
Load all players from – England
Team to Manage - English Conference North; Workington
Favourite Team – Optional.
Right, off you go, and GOOD LUCK!
Because you’re going to need it.
10-26-2005, 04:27 PM
The *Official* FM2006 LLM Challenge...is here! Post #2
Thirty different Workington update threads? How about one which can consolidate general discussion and players just posting Season number and league position? Would make it much easier to follow.
10-26-2005, 04:47 PM
The *Official* FM2006 LLM Challenge...is here! Post #9
The *Official* FM2006 LLM Challenge...is here! 
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