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Back in FM07 I had a go at Dafuge's challenge, determined that I would stick to all LLM rules and keep going until my Conference North team had made it to Premiership glory.
However, I'm ashamed to say that I gave up after about 5 seasons as it was too difficult for me and I craved some glory.
So when FM08 came out I was determined to start again and this time stick with it. However I wasn't going to make the same mistake I had last time and make a lower league game the first one I attempted. So while I was waiting for the full patch I got to grips with a Premier League team and got a feel for the changes and developed some tactics.
So it was with great excitement that when the new patch came out I holidayed for a season and then was able to take control of my most local team, Gateshead. I know their reputation and stadium makes them a little easier than some teams that can be used but I live very close to Gateshead stadium so couldn't bring myself to manage anyone else.
So I was ready. I had an automatic reputation, attribute masking and was only going to buy players that I could scout (Buy's probably the wrong word considering I still don't know when the board will actually give me some transfer funds). Only trouble was that I had no scouts, rubbish coaches, no physio and no money. The players were worse than your average pub team and I realised after only a few games that my tactic developed using my Premiership club was never going to work.
The boards expectations of a mid-table finish were also quite high for a team that was about to play it's first ever season in the Blue Square North.
Nevermind. After managing to convince a scout that £40 per week was worth his while I was ready to try and bring in some players. I spent literally hours scouting unattached players and eventually managed to sign a few that I was fairly pleased with.
However, my final league position of 16th wasn't that great and I was straight away worried that it might be too much of a challenge. No I thought, I don't care if it takes 10 years to get out of this league, I'm sticking with it!
On the up side I felt that a season of tweaking had turned my Premier League tactic into an very solid lower league one and because of this I was confident that next season things would be better. My other problem though was that I was losing money. So because of this I decided to just get rid of many people as possible. This meant all staff except my Assistant Manager, 1 Coach, 1 Physio and 1 Scout and as many reserve and youth players as I could without paying any compensation. The saving in wages allowed me to bring in a couple more free players and in the next season I stormed the league, comfortably finishing 1st.
For a minute I allowed myself to think that I was a tactical genius and had just created my very own 'super-tactic'. Of course I was wrong and I spent the next four long seasons in and around 15th place in the league. I then, however, had a season that prompted me to write all about it here. I know that no-one probably cares but wanted to write about it anyway.
It all started with a risky decision. From when the game started I'd had Hartlepool as my parent club. They'd sent me a couple of young players on loan every season but to be honest not one of them had been good enough to really make an impact on the first team. So I started thinking 'should I sever my ties with them in the hope that I can get a better parent club?'. However, it may have left me with no parent club at all. At least at the moment I was getting some revenue out of them in terms of a small yearly payment and an annual friendly. Despite this I decided to go for it and promptly ended our association, at the same time asking the board to find me a new parent club.
So as I waited to see what their decision was I again trawled through any unattached players I could scout and managed to stumble on a striker who, if I could persuade him to sign for me, would be a fantastic player. I also managed to find a couple of other decent looking players, including a good keeper (something which I'd been severely lacking) and also offered them contracts.
So while I waited and hoped that these players would sign for me I heard back from the board. I could hardly believe it, they'd given me the choice of either Sunderland, Newcastle or Middlesbrough as my parent club!!
As a lifelong Sunderland supporter I could never have taken one of the other two clubs so quickly made my decision and announced my link with Sunderland.
Now, for a few seasons the main thing my team had been lacking was a decent defence so straight away I made offers to loan two Sunderland reserve defenders, an attacking midfielder and a right winger. Amazingly they all agreed to come to me and I suddenly had a whole new defensive partnership which was miles better than my old one. I also had pace on the wing and creativity in attacking midfield. To add to this the keeper I was after agreed to sign for me but more importantly so did the very promising looking striker. After a couple more fringe players were signed I was very happy with me new look squad and looking forward to the new season. As my tactics hadn't changed at all in the last 5 seasons I also decided to freshen them up a bit as well....
Disaster. My new tactics and players saw me in 18th after 10 games. My new star striker had picked up an injury right at the start of the season that would keep him out for 6 months and my new tactics were failing badly. So much so that I decided to go back to my previous tactic, in the hope that the new players would be enough to improve the tactic to give the kind of results it did in my second season.
Fortunately this worked and after a massive improvement in form I found myself in 5th place going into the final 3rd of the season. Things were tight though and I could still finish anywhere between 1st and 17th position, there were 10 points between me and fist place and automatic promotion, but only 3 points between me an 9th place. My star striker had come back at the end of January and netted 4 goals in his first game back, just to get injured again in the next game. Never mind, he was back now and had 9 goals in 10 starts and was looking good.
So going into the last couple of games I found myself in 3rd. Cambridge, who at one point I thought I might catch, had suddenly run away with the league so automatic promotion wasn't going to happen. But the play-offs looked a certainty and myself and Kidderminster had been battling it out for 2nd place for some time. I was due to play 5th place Nuneaton in the 2nd last game, if I managed to pip Kidderminster to 2nd spot this could be the team I would play in the play-off semi's. I hoped it would be as I battered them 4-0, my start striker scoring a hat-trick to take his season tally to 21 goals in 23 starts, I wondered where I might have been if he'd been fit all season.
But with Kidderminster drawing I found myself in second place going into the last game of the season, a semi-final against Nuneaton looked increasingly likely. However, a disappointing 1-1 draw with Torquay allowed Kidderminster to steal back second place. Nuneaton slipped out of the play-off places all together, losing to Southport on the last day of the season and giving them the playoff places instead.
I would now be playing Mansfield in the semi's. Worryingly I got a news message just before the game saying 'It is worth noting that Mansfield have beaten Gateshead in all there previous encounters so far'. Great.
However, another goal from my star striker and a solid display from my Sunderland centre back partnership helped me to an excellent 2-0 away advantage. All I had to do now was hang on at home and I was in the final.
However that was not going to go according to plan. I was 2 down and then 3 down before I knew it and things were looking bad. A half time rollocking inspired my team to go out and pull a goal back but on 59 minutes Mansfield scored again making it 4-1 on the night and 4-3 on aggregate. Nails were getting bitten as we entered the final 10 minutes before my star striker scored an excellent goal on 83 minutes to make it 4-4 on aggregate.
In my mind however we needed another goal as Mansfield had now scored 4 away goals to my 2. So because of this my shoulders slumped when the final whistle went but immediately perked up again when I realised the game had gone to extra time. I hadn't read the match rules properly, evidently away goals didn't count and it wasn't all over after all. A nervy extra time finished goal-less and the match was going to penalties. The highest penalty taking attribute I had for a player was 11 and the rest were quite away behind that so I wasn't confident, we hadn't had the best record throughout the last few seasons when it came to penalties. I was right to be worried, we only converted 2 of the 5. Amazingly though Mansfield only managed to score 1 of theirs and somehow we were through.
The final against Kidderminster was a tight affair with no goals from either team in normal time. With penalties fastly approaching I was getting worried, surely I'd not be able to fluke my way through another penalty shootout! But then on 111 minutes my star striker, the player I'd had such high hopes for at the start of the season, popped up and scored his 25th goal in only his 27th start. It was enough to win the game and secure us promotion. Myself, the board and the fans were amazed and chuffed to bits at the achievement.
So it's taken me 7 seasons but I'm finally in the professional leagues and my clubs now finally a full time club.
Apologies for the long post, I just wanted to share with you my first proper attempts at lower league management. It's been a long and hard road so far but I've enjoyed it more than any other game.
If anyone's interested I'll keep updating my progress with Gateshead, although I'll probably be in League 2 for at least the next 4 years
Originally posted by mkus:
English teams can not be feeders under FA rules.
.
What. I think you're wrong here. As I said, I already had Hartlepool as a parent club when the game started and was offered the other three when I was in the BSP. Plus, when I've played as Sunderland I've automatically had teams such as Darlington and York as my feeder clubs.
And apologies about the length. As I said it would have been nice if someone had been interested in my 1st real attempt at lower league management. But if no-one is I'm not too concerned, just wanted to write it down anyway. Didn't realise there was a character limit.
I see. Well unfortunately for me if it's in the game (whether by mistake or not) it's something I'm going to use. It's been a lot of fun having my own favourite team, Sunderland, as parent club to the team I'm managing.
I feel that cancelling this link will deminish my particular enjoyment of the game. So as I will technically not be playing by LLM rules (even though there is no mention of this in the actual rules for the forum) I bid you all farewell.
Well unfortunately for me if it's in the game (whether by mistake or not) it's something I'm going to use
Never going to be much of a LLaMa then were you. The editor comes with the game, player search comes with the game, lots of non-LLaMa things come with the game. Doesn't make them realistic.
Originally posted by mkus:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Well unfortunately for me if it's in the game (whether by mistake or not) it's something I'm going to use
Never going to be much of a LLaMa then were you. The editor comes with the game, player search comes with the game, lots of non-LLaMa things come with the game. Doesn't make them realistic. </BLOCKQUOTE>
I think this is slightly different. Whereas the editor and player search are things that are blatently not realistic, the feeder clubs for the home nations is apparantly just a mistake.
Do the rules and guidelines not state 'Play the game as SI programmed it. That is, install the CM Game, apply the latest official SI Patch, Choose a Team and play the game. That means do NOT use editors or third party updates (i.e. Updates on squads, competitions, etc, made up by persons other than SI).'
That's what I've done is it not? Trusted the data that SI has provided, and that data is that Gateshead have Hartlepool as a feeder club and that this can be changed to a different English club.
Anyway I don't want to get into an argument about it, I've followed all other LLM rules to the letter but as I'm halfway through my first season in League 2 and have some players on loan from my feeder club it would have too much of an effect for me to just sever all ties with them now, outside the transfer window. And more importantly I'm enjoying playing like this, and from what I understand it's more of a 'gray area' than against any LLM rules.
Professional football, finally. 
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