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Scotland (Division 3 and above) and England (Conference North/South and above) on Huge database
East Stirling 05/06 - Scottish Third Division
Start well under my wage budget, due to the fact my players are on about £10 a week, and have a (huge!) debt of £1k to pay off. No transfer budget for players only adds to the fun and scout is dispatched quickly enough. Bring in a goalie from Arthurlie before the season starts, and a DLC, MC from Albion Rovers in January. Both were free transfers. Nobody leaves the club. Odds are 50/1 for me to gain promotion.
Start the season with some good results, and end the first round of games unbeaten and top of the league. Didn't stay there for long though as the team suddenly forgets how to score goals but because just about every team in the league is capable of beating each other I don't fall too far down the league. In fact, I don't fall below 3rd place. With four games to go, I'm away to Queen's Park who are in 1st place and three points ahead of me. Get trounced 3-0 to end any lingering title hopes, but a play-off place is secured. Silver lining and all that. Finished six points behind Queen's Park, three ahead of Albion Rovers and sixteen ahead of Arbroath, who finished 4th.
Albion Rovers in the play-offs then, we lose 3-2 at home and 1-0 away to go crashing out 4-2 on aggregate. Our goalie got injured a day before the first leg and we had to use a 40 year old reserve that couldn't catch a cold so I've decided it was his fault Rovers beat us. And no, I'm not bitter. Rovers eventually beat Arbroath on penalties to get promoted.
Scottish Cup: 1-4 Raith Rovers (D2) (A) - 3rd Round replay Challenge Cup: 0-3 Hamilton (D1) (H) - 2nd Round (Hamilton won the competition) League Cup: 1-3 Ross County (D1) (H) - 1st Round
Middlesbrough won Premiership in an exciting last day where any one of five could have won it. Liverpool, who were top, lost at Spurs and ended up in 5th, with no Champions League place. (Unless the FA tries to sneak them in again, that is) First division teams run riot in the cups as Dundee beat Rangers 1-0 in the League Cup final and St. Johnstone beat Kilmarnock 3-1 in Scottish Cup final. France beat Italy 2-0 in the World Cup final.
Pre season odds of 7/4 seem a big leap from last season (50/1) and leave me joint third favourite for promotion. Didn't sign anybody this season, and released two players to other clubs. Got in an ace striker that banged in 12 in 12 on loan but he didn't want to make the move permanent and his club then sold him off to Leicester. Started the season off by drawing too many games, and this proved our downfall. The title was between four teams and there were a couple of nail biting games. We made a habit of scoring late goals that kept us in with a chance but a crap defeat at Arbroath left us going into the final game in 3rd, and out of the title race. We'd even beaten Stenhousemuir (Winners) to keep the dreams alive up until then. Both the under 19's and reserves won their leagues so only the seniors let the club down, and in the end there was only 4 points between the top four. Had we turned one of our draws into a victory we would have won the league, albeit on goal difference. Had 5 players from 16 in the team of the year, and yet again had best defensive record. The defensive displays haven't gone unnoticed by other teams as interest grows in goalie signed in first season.
Scottish Cup: 0-2 Motherwell (SPL) (H) - 3rd Round Challenge Cup: 0-2 Queen of the South (D1) (H) - 2nd Round League Cup: 1-2 Queen of the South (D1) (A) - 1st Round
Before the season started I knocked back the New Zealand job feeling it would be too unrealistic to accept. Bring in two players - a DC, DM, ST on a free transfer and a DM, AMR for £4k. Started playing the first signing in defence but moved him upfront for one game and he scored five in a 6-2 victory at Arbroath. We started the season off like a house on fire with eight wins and two draws in the first ten games. This season everything just seemed to click. In the Challenge Cup we made it to the final, handing out some drubbings along the way. Examples were 4-0 at second division Forfar and a 4-2 win at St. Mirren (AET) after being two-nil down inside ten minutes. To put that win in perspective, they were top of division one, having won 11 on the bounce. We also beat recently relegated Livingston on penalties on the way to the Challenge Cup Final, which we lost 4-2 to Raith Rovers of division one. The ref gave 3 penalties in that game, two to them (both goals) and one to us (missed). We ended the year on top with 41 points, ten ahead of second placed Alloa.
We also had a good cup run in the Scottish Cup. We get a bye for the first round and beat Queens Park (D2) in the next 2-1. We then get non-league Fraserburgh away and win 3-1 in round three. The fourth round was harder as we faced first division side Airdrie but we come through in the end with a 1-0 win and can even afford the luxury of a missed penalty. We get drawn against either Falkirk or Celtic in the quarters and a shock win for Falkirk means we face them at home. We're totally outclassed by the SPL side but only lose 2-1. Still, we got £130,000 for making an appearance. Anyway, back to the league and we faltered in the second half of the season, regularly throwing away one and two goal leads against much weaker sides. Luckily Alloa stumble as well and win the league with two games to go. Alloa actually managed to lose there last three games and drop down to fifth, a place outside of the play-offs. We were top since the 4th game so the league win was much deserved.(Ended up 9 points ahead of second placed Cowdenbeath) Over the course of the season we beat four teams in higher divisions so we're capable of stepping up a level. Hopefully. I win Manager of the Year and my DM, AMR signing wins player of the year. Some bigger clubs are sniffing around both him and my goalie.
England beat Denmark 1-0 to win the European Championships and FC Bayern complete a hat-trick of Champions League wins with a 2-0 victory over Barcelona
| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 1st | C | East Stirling | | 36 | 19 | 10 | 7 | 60 | 37 | +23 | 67 |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Scottish Cup: 1-2 Falkirk (SPL) (H) - Quarter Final Challenge Cup: 2-4 Raith Rovers (D1) (N) - Final (Runners Up) League Cup: 1-2 Motherwell (SPL) (H) - 1st Round
Bring in three players in pre-season - a back-up goalie from Alloa on a free, a DM from Livingston for £7k and a AM RC on a free. Two players are released, and one is sold on to Albion Rovers for £8k. The DM signing later moves to Hibs in January for £160k (his minimum fee release clause thingy) and that sale leaves us only a couple of grand short of making our first £1m!
The cup runs were disappointing, but only in comparison to last year's efforts. Anyway, the early(ish) exits let us focus on our first league campaign outside of division three. I had already faced many of the teams in division two before, either in the cup or in division three and we had pretty decent records against most of them. The bookies fancied us for relegation and my main priority was safety but when the mid point in the season came around and we sitting pretty in second place, I started to dream of consecutive promotions. Although if we were to escape from this division it would have to be through the play-offs, but only because of Gretna. Their team was, quite simply, awesome. They won the challenge cup, got to the Scottish Cup quarters and had the league wrapped up after 30 (unbeaten) games. We did manage to put one over them towards the end of the season though, and on their own patch, so have that.
The league campaign was a lot easier than I had anticipated, and we finished comfortably in second spot, a massive 21 points behind Gretna, but 4 points ahead of third-placed Clyde. A couple of the youth prospects broke into the first team this season, and one in particular did extremely well - an 18 year old Irish striker firmly established himself as a strike partner to the clubs top scorer of the previous seasons.
So we're in the play-offs, and this one started terribly as we find ourselves two down after only 5 minutes away to Clyde. Time to regroup and we quickly pull one back, only to concede a soft penalty and end up two goals down. Again. We pull back another but cannot equalise so we head into the home leg a with a one goal deficit. On the twenty minute mark our top scorer pops up and puts us ahead on away goals and we get a penalty just after half time which is slotted away meaning they have to score twice to go through. An own goal with just less than half an hour to play forces us to play backs to the wall stuff but we hold out for the win and go through to the final on away goals after a 4-4 aggregate scoreline. In the other tie Stenhousemuir lose 3-0 only to win the return 5-0 and face us in the final.
So Stennie in the final and we score inside the third minute and then they get a bloke sent off for two bookable offences. We add a second near the end and wait for the final whistle to confirm it - promotion to the First Division!
An East Stirling Update 
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