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As everyone keeps posting stories of their friendlies, I thought I'd regale you with my tales of having played a few seasons.
The Conference North was the most attractive choice with the lure of ex-Football League teams Southport or Barrow. I chose the latter and set a long, long term goal of bettering their best ever placing of 8th in Division (sorry League) One in 1968 or be sacked trying.
Barrow had a squad of 17, 1 poor player/asm, 1 physio and no scouts. The wage budget was £3k, the actual spend was £3.4k and I had transfer funds of 8k. I got rid of my most expendable but overpaid player (on a free, of course) to get back to budget. 2 scouts were obtained and an asm after the player/asm generously agreed to be re-contracted without his managing responsibilities.
I thought that the play-offs would be our target, while board & fans looked for mid-table. However the scouts turned up 2 good loanees and we started excellently, at the halfway point 11 points clear of Worksop who had 3 games in hand. A month later, Worksop were 2 points up on us and we tussled until the final day of the season with never more than 3 points separating us. We finally won the championship with a 3-0 away win to finish with a 3 point margin.
Conf N: W30 D7 L5 PTS 97
FA Cup: 2nd Qualifier Lost 3-2 at Weston-Super-Mare (last minute deflected free kick, bah)
FA Trophy : 1st Round Lost 2-1 to non-non-league Heybridge (only home defeat of season)
Conf N Manager of the Year
Avg attendance 1269 (cap 4000)
At this stage, I was looking forward to the Conf Nat and maybe even buying a player at some point in the game.
I'll just check the facts of 05/06 and then post that season. Do not fear, this is NOT a thread that leads to Barrow winning the World Club Championship in 7 years time!
Following our promotion, board and fans looked for us to fight bravely etc. My scouts turned up my first 2 signings (no I didn't spend any of my 8k funds), 4 loans and I smashed my transfer record when I sold a player for a cool £1k. My wage budget was frozen at £3k when most other teams were paying circa £15k.
A terrific season in which we varied from 2nd to 7th place (never in contention for title with runaway leaders Cambridge clinching by 22 points!), during which I rejected about 10 job offers from Leagues 1/2 clubs, ended with a 5th place finish. This left us in a play-offs which also included our derby rivals Carlisle and Morecombe both of whom had big mouth managers who I had regular tiffs with (though we never shared either pizza or soup - ok at LL this would be Bovril). Lost 1st leg 2-0 away at Morecombe, after I altered my usual tactics (aaarrhh, idiot). 2nd leg 3-0 up, missed pen and it finished 4-2 (I bodged my tactics again) to knock us out on cursed away goals. Carlisle beat Morecombe in the final, to make it even worse.
Overall, beyond all expectations but left feeling disappointed.
Conf Nat: Pos 5 W20 D9 L13 Pts69
FA Cup: 1st round lost 3-0 A at League 2 Barnet
FA Trophy: 5th round lost 2-0 A at Cambridge
Avg Attendance: 3208
Most of my squads' contracts were up and I was hoping the wage bill would rise after mid-June but a lot of them were looking at £1k+ weekly contacts, so it could be farewells. I needed a bit more cover in the squad as my reserve GK had to play outfield in 1 game!
Board & fans were expecting me to re-build the team, which was good as at the start of July, Barrow owned 7 players. The wages were still £3k and I couldn't tempt back our better players. So farewell to our 56 goals in 2 seasons striker, enjoy Colchester reserves.
After 14 games, my scouts were fantastic having alerted me to 4 gems plus the usual quartet of loanees which left us with 34 points, clear at the top by 7. However after that, the scouts hid from me. We collapsed taking 28 points from the remaining 28 games. The creative players couldn't pass, the defenders were blind and the strikers relied on own goals.
I got so deperate, that I changed tactics, before changing them back etc all to no avail. Finally, I splashed out £12k (budget had risen to £40k) on a winger. He scored after 17 mins on his debut before departing on a stretcher after 31 mins with a season ending breakage. I would like though to say the following:
Our decline was not due to bad luck or injuries
(this is why I'm am not a real football manager).
Somehow we finished 5th, qualifying courtesy of Scarborough conceding 2 late goals on the last day of the season. We were level with them on points, goal difference and goals scored. I believe we beat them on alphabetical order, as our head-to-head results were worse. With this luck on our side we only lost 4-0 on agg to Gravesend who beat Morecombe in the final (hurrah), to join Walsall in League 2.
Before the seasons' end, I mortgaged the future (well £35k) on a striker I'd loaned the previous 2 seasons. I also employed a retired premiership playboy/player as my first ever coach. The board put my wage budget up to £5.3k in May, which should give us options next season.
Conf Nat: Pos 5 W18 D8 L16 Pts62
FA Cup: 1st Round lost 1-0A Kettering Conf North
Van Trophy: 1st Round lost 3-1A Dag & Red
FA Trophy: 3rd Round lost 3-0A Leigh Con Nor OW!
Avg Attendance: 3894 (capacity 4500- I made a mistake in the first post)
I'm in the middle of 07/08, so I'll post when I've finished it.
This is a quality update. In fact it should be made a 'sticky' to show people how updates should be laid out in terms of content and word count.
KUTGW :thup:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nobby_McDonald:
A good update amongst all the crap. :thup: <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Barrow Boys 
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