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Having moved to Ilkeston (just outside Nottingham) a few years ago I thought it would be great to manage my local team.
Unfortunately they are not in the game as they are too low down the pyramid system but I noticed Hucknall Town were there (Conference North) and as they are only a few miles from my home decided to try them instead.
The chairman welcomed me with the superb news that we have £0 to spend on transfers due to our "precarious financial position"
Great start, I thought.
I checked our finances and he wasn't wrong. A mere £19,387 in the bank. Salary-wise we were only permitted a total of £2,500 per week but we were £408 under that so that was at least something.
A ground capacity of 5,000 though so not all was lost. Not yet anyway.
Staff:
One player/assistant manager. One of my better players in fact but poor coaching attributes.
One very poor Physio. His stats looked like they could do with some phyisotherapy themselves!
One crap scout.
Onto the squad with dwindling optimism:
22 players and almost all of them completely useless. This was going to be harder than what I thought!
I only have one GK whose stats are poor and his 39th birthday was 16 days away
So my priority was/is to bring in a 'keeper, even if it was some crappy backup, in case my "superstar youngster" gets injured.
Ok, my first query:
I've read the rules and guidelines on here to LLM but I'm unsure about something and it regards the player search and the 'transfers' section. I've read other people's experiences and noted that some have signed up quite a lot of 'free' players while it states in the guidelines that you are not supposed to use the 'transfer' section to find such players. My scout is on the lookout for GKs but after 2 weeks has yet to turn up a single one.
So my question is this: To what extent can I use the player search option (if any)? Is it only for loans? And can I actually use the 'transfer' section at all? As it seems that some use them and some frown upon such a thing. I've yet to use either option by the way.
I supose that the thing here is the database size.
We usually use huge or large, you probably are on normal or small. If you have selected huge, don't worry, as freebies will start to get discovered by your scout sooner or later.
There are varying degrees of "LLaMa-hood", and some embrace the grey areas...like the transfer screen.
Zealots don't. They'd rather suffer the slings and arrows of perennial defeat than sully their principles on such filth.
Do what you think's reasonable.
Some guys plead "but there's the PFA site, and worldtransfers.com, you can find out all the free players on there", but how many managers would sign a guy because they like his name?
If you spot a player you like on there and send your scout to look at him, then that's kosher (barely) in my Zealot mind, but my recommendation is always to use the largest Db possible and rely on your scouts.
Thanks for the help fellas.
I only started with a small DB so that's possibly where my problem lies.
Still, after 5wks my scout finally came up with a couple of GKs. One even had two stars of recommendation by his name. Woo-hoo!!
I signed him on a free transfer. He's 18yo and his stats are pretty poor but it's a start. At least I now have cover.
During pre-season I'd tried a few tactics out and stuck with one with a bit of tweaking to suit the players I have.
4 games into the season and we are doing ok. W1 D2 L1.
Created my own training schedules which aren't too heavy as I can't afford to lose players through injury.
My scout is now searching for outfield players and has come up with a couple who I have in on trial. Looks like I'm going to offer them contracts. The problem with them being in on trial is that I can't actually play them as we don't have reserve or U18 fixtures so have arranged a friendly (that's allowed, right?) to assess them better.
Managed to bring in a couple of half-decent players on loan aswell as signing those two players that we had on trial but that's it so far. My scout is still looking.
My 39yo GK is putting in some great performances and he has had to as we were struggling in the bottom half of the table until recently.
We've just gone on an 8-match unbeaten run which has seen us rise to 8th, only 3pts outside the playoffs. No-one is running away with the league either as the leaders are only 9pts clear of us.
I managed to sell some of my really crap players and we now have a massive £4k to spend on players (the board have only allowed me to spend 40% of the £10k we have received).
We won through to the 4th qualifying round of the FA Cup before being knocked out after I had two players sent off at the same time (2nd bookings) for arguing with the referee! Fell at the first hurdle in the league trophy too :-(
But league position is good: P22 W9 D7 L6
Crowds have been improving lately. A new record of 768 was achieved the other week. Woooooooooooo!!
Will post back with another update at the end of the season.
Thanks to all for reading and to those that have replied.
Just finished that first season. Try as we might we couldn't quite make the playoffs. A couple of injuries when we started to put another run together put paid to that
But we finished a respectable 7th so I'm quite pleased.
I've ended the first season with a squad of 25 players after spending a total of £5k bringing 7 players in and receiving £12k for the 4 that were shown the door.
My top scorer, an original Hucknall player, ended up with 13 goals and he's now worth £28,000. Not sure how as his stats are very poor and am tempted to sell him for the benefit of the squad. I could bring in 3-4 decent players for that, after the board have swiped 60% of the transfer fee of course
Have just now arranged some pre-season friendlies with local teams: Burton, Mansfield & Notts County so far. Nottm Forest would be a decent crowd-puller so I might try them aswell, along with Leicester and Derby too.
Sorry, I'm waffling.
All in all a good first season and as I'm now on holiday for a week will probably update this in a couple of days.
LLM Virgin - Hucknall Town 
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