retired_florentino

Nov 2002 to Jan 2003 Update

November saw a change of tactics - moving Chester away from the sort of football that I wanted them to play and more towards the sort of football they could play

Results were pretty immediate - with the Blues heading off on an 8 game unbeaten run in the league. Along the way - we managed to claim the scalps of promotion hopefuls Morcambe and Kettering and held favourites Dagenham to a 1-1 draw away.

Despite the good results - the newer 'hardman' style of play was causing casulties in the Chester squad - with the midfield receiving a battering.

This showed at the start of January 2003, with Chester losing two games in succession before another tactical change put us back on track. Wins against Northwich and Doncaster put us firmly in playoff contention - although a 2-4 defeat away to Stevenage meant that we didn't really have a hope of catching them for the automatic promotion spot.

Something that I had been aware of as a potential problem was the high ground maintenance charges (some £300k so far this season) plus a slightly overbudget wage bill. I set about reducing our overheads by offering our 2nd-string striker around to clubs on a free transfer. I eagerly await their response...

Ideally I'd have a link to a screenshot of the league table here - but I can't figure out how to grab the image. Can anyone recommend a good program?

retired_emanali

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Commander Wocko:
Paint... use the print screen button to capture the image to the clipboard, and then paste it into paint, save it as a jpg(if you can, you might need Imaging or whatever it's called for that) and stick it on the web.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
And if you play in windowed mode, use Alt+PrintScreen to capture only the current window (hopefully CM )

retired_agoulding

Very good thread dave hope u get promotion, im not doing to bad myself 3rd after 13 games with leigh rmi.

retired_florentino

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Very good thread dave hope u get promotion, im not doing to bad myself 3rd after 13 games with leigh rmi<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the encouragement... but I have to say that I didn't really think that I would make it anywhere near as high as third position!

Thanks to Commander Wocko and adax for their help in sorting out the tables side of things!

Feb 2003 to May 2003 Update

Despite my attempts to loan out and/or sell off some of my excess baggage in the squad none of the clubs I contacted displayed the slightest bit of interest - so I had to continue and hope that the club administrators weren't called in before I had my big chance at league football.

Febuary started well enough, with two back-to-back 2-0 wins, both home and away. Then, for no apparent reason, my form completely shot downwards.

Suffice to say that from this point (where I was sitting happily in fourth place in the table) - things steadily went from bad to worse.

Out of the remaining 36 points I could grab from my league games in February onwards, I managed to 18 of them: winning 5, drawing 3 and losing 8.

Admittedly one of those wins was against promotion contenders Dagenham, and the last three were Scarborough, Farnborough and Barnet (although I threw away a 2-0 lead at Barnet ffs ) but overall Chester couldn't find any consistancy.

To make matters worse - during a barren spell of six games where I managed to score two goals (courtesy of that star striker) I officially warned my 2nd string striker for poor performance. My whole squad now hates me and most of the senior players want to leave (or want me to leave).

Ah - the joys of LLM

Chester have ended the season approximately £600k in debt. The ground management costs are pretty crippling - and I simply must get promoted next season or run the risk of losing everything I've ruined to the administraters.

My last act of the season was to sign a promising young central defender - and I will spend the summer watching games across the globe to pick up some tactical hints...

The final league positions are as follows.

retired_florentino

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Out of the remaining 36 points I could grab from my league games in February onwards, I managed to 18 of them: winning 5, drawing 3 and losing 8.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Let that read 'remaining 48 points'. That's what you get for posting at 1am.

retired_florentino

Preseason '03 to November '03

Summer in the Chester camp certainly was exciting - as the player rebellion that started when I warned my second string striker continued with me trying to offload 8 first team regulars who had all taken a dislike to me.

While trying to offload them I had a fair amount of success with free transfers and loans. 2 loans from Premiership clubs came in for the whole season (including a Liverpool U-19 regular), 10 free transfers (mostly kids offloaded from the Premiership clubs) and two new midfielders (for the combined price of £18k).

Only one of the bad guys were offloaded (although as I write this another is about to leave the club). Currently my wage bill is very stretched - but with some of the players being allowed to leave in the summer (and earlier if needs be) for free that should come down.

The preseason friendlys went fairly well - as I adjusted my tactics once more. To my surprise we were also one of the bookies favourites to go up (2-1 odds) and had about £50k worth of transfer fees available to us (I bought noone last season).

Despite the new-found quality of the squad - we started with a 2-0 defeat at home. However, another quick adjustment of the tactics and we shot off on a 7 game unbeaten run.

Newly promoted Aldershot brought our run to an end (those grey players are really good!) - and this was followed by a 4-0 thumping at the hands of Hull in the Vans Trophy.

Still - we qualified for the FA Cup first round comfortably and repicked up our form in the league reasonably well (although we lost to promotion favourites Doncaster, courtesy of a last minute goal).

Still - life at Chester has certainly been worse.

Hopefully the play-offs at least this year... (and no administrators).

retired_florentino

November '03 to May '04

Well promotion chasing Chester hit a respectable run of form over period of November to Febrary - winning 3 out of 4 games and staying in touch with the leaders (only 5 points seperating the top 6 six through most of it).

A bit of a nightmare month from mid-Feb to mid-March saw us go 6 games without a win before picking up the pace a little late and winning four of our last five games.

Final positions were as follows. Interestingly - despite a lower finishing position this season, we actually scored more points. I'm hopeful that my maturing youngsters will enable me to actually maintain the necessary form to make the playoffs or championship next season!

Also, Margate and Aldershot both got into their positions courtesy of gray players. I don't mind being beaten, but being hammered by sides which don't even have players is annoying.

On the transfer front, four of the dissenters from last season (another reason I'm happy with our performance this season, given the in-fighting) were cleared out to different clubs on free transfers - plus a bosman signing from last season (a former Leeds Utd left back) agreed terms with Plymouth in a £20k move.

I'm bringing in three players - including a new goalkeeper and a Turkish midfielder (£30k).

The last area of interest this season has been the financial problems of Chester. I'm still slightly over my wage budget - and Chester are approximately £2m in debt. Ground maintenance fees have added up to £1.4m and wages £1.5 (both over 2 years) - effectively meaning that I can either have a squad or a ground. There have also been 'other' fees of £450k over the same period.

Someone's getting paid well... and it's not me!

retired_florentino

I don't think I'll ever get out of the conference The joys of LLM.

retired_kris10nicole

The indispensible one's random team generator came up with Chester as the first conference team out of Frank's hat, so i'll be starting a game with them this weekend. SOunds like a good challenge. KUTGW!

retired_florentino

Something tells me that you'll do better than me