Season 2011/12
Elgin City - Scottish First Division
"Avoiding the yo-yo"
Interesting off-season. The balance is over £2M, with a £1.8M transfer budget & £17k wage budget. I felt both budgets were too generous, and kept the wage bill to around £3.5k. I lost four scouts to retirement & other teams.
For signings, I wanted a striker, midfielder, and centre back. Particularly, I wanted young players, as my squad is aging and hasn't had much recent turnover. The facilities were finally upgraded to "average," which helped lure players. I was pleased, as I was able to sign a young player for every position I wanted, although none seemed like game-breakers.
Elgin's league form was good, but inconsistent. We would lose games by narrow margins, only to blow out our next opponents. Nowhere was this more apparent than losing to East Strilingshire 1-2 in the Scottish Cup, only to blow out Gretna 8-1 next week. Same team!
Dundee Utd didn't allow a league goal until late October, and was never in danger of losing the division championship. A late surge by Elgin assured a safe 3rd place position by year's end. Oh, and Gretna? I brutalized them during the season by a combined score of 23-4.
This year's shocker was the new 20-y.o. striker. He ran riot when healthy, scoring a ridiculous 35 league goals in 24 games. My star left winger set a club record with 17 assists, and was named First Division Player of the Year. The defense leaked like a sieve early on, but eventually learned how to play in this division.
Scottish 1st Div: 3rd, 18-7-11, 83-46, 61pts
Scottish Cup: 3rd round at East Stirlingshire.

£50k prize money.
League Cup: Lost in quarter finals at
Dundee Utd., 1-3. £30k.
Challenge Cup: Lost in finals to Patrick, 2-3. £10k.
Old Firm: Rangers win 8th consecutive SPL; Celtic win Scottish Cup, retain League Cup, & make it to semi-finals of Champions Cup