retired_jennzapp

I bought striker Charles Ademeno in my first season as Woking, and he's still banging them in in the Championship in 2011/12. Matt Gray, a right back/right winger/striker who was in the squad I inherited tends to do well in the odd game I play him. Same with DC Matt Ruby, but he's really too slow for this level so I only tend to use him as a sub when changing to 5-3-2 trying to protect a lead.

Shaun Richardson, an Irish regen has been with me since League 2 and has excelled at every level. He'll definitely play in the Premiership one day, but I'm not sure he's good enough for the national side. Same with GK Jonny Lund, but at the beginning of this season he decided he'd achieved all he could and I let him go to Falkirk. Pretty bad decision cos the replacement I got for him is rubbish.

retired_marcias

I signed Jonathan Forte for Stockport in League 2 and he played for us all the way up to the Premiership although he featured rarely in the Premiership, partly because of injury and also because he was ~32 by then.

The best one I had though was a young regen striker called Alan Dyer who I signed for Whitley Bay in League 2 as a 16 year old. He started slowly (1 goal in ~17 games first season), but as we progressed up the leagues he developed with us until suddenly in one of our successful seasons in The Championship he netted 43 goals. When we arrived in the Premiership he netted 20 goals in his first ~20 games there, but then hit a barren spell as he did for a number of seasons afterwards too, but he was a club legend - scored over 200 goals for us from League 2 up to the EPL and won the Champions League once with us.

retired_badmagic9

I signed ST Danny Barrie as a kid in BSP, and he wasn't good enough for the first team yet. He subbed his first year as we got promoted to L2, and started for the consecutive-promotion years to Champs. After that, I was ready to sell him as I had signings I thought were better, but every time his contract came up, I kept telling myself "He has a few months to prove himself, or he's gone." He kept proving himself. I'm playing in Europe now on a regular basis, and he's still 3rd choice, the same as he's been for the last six years ... he holds the team record for league goals, at 153.

buffdaddy110

There's a lot of player-naming in this thread

I've only just started my lower league career i fm08, but I took Trinity to the Championship in fm07. I think I had one or two players brought in as free agents in the opening summer of the game, but I'm not entirely sure.
I know I got really p'ed off with the game because it couldn't handle rapid success.
I lost a lot of players immediately following promotion from League Two - the season I also won the JPT and beat two EPL teams in the FA Cup. Unfortunately many players were already bemoaning the need to move to another club if they were to achieve success (despite the cabinet of winners medals they'd just won in the past two or three seasons at The Northolme). Since promotion to League Two there were also wage disputes because the wage budget was being adjusted proportionately - although my players were demanding further pay rises weeks after having had annual pay rises and promotion pay rises as in their contracts. Bizarrely many of them started demanding a pay rise at the start of the League Two season!
Anyway I lost a lot of players after that promotion, some to relegated teams! And the lack of wage budget, slow stadium expansion, training facilities and slow and inadequate timing of reputation adjustment and transfer budgets meant that I struggled to bring in replacements (even worse than who I had remaining). Basically, the whole thing had gotten to silly when I reached the Championship with half my stadium closed to expand by 800 seats, and myself on a £100/wk part-time contract and the board unwilling to renegotiate while it still had two years to run.
While I appreciate that it should probably have been much harder to achieve success, the game was just creating farcical scenarios.

I've gone off on one haven't I sorry. The answer is yes - in the Championship, I had a player that I'd had as an U-18 in the Conference North. Iirc my AsstMan had automatically given him a new contract and I'd been unable to offload him for several seasons. Then I had to keep him because I couldn't sign any adequate replacements in League One.

retired_trojan

Had Raffaele De Vita on loan from Blackburn when I was Exeter in L2 and reloaned him when I was in both L1 and the Championship (3 seasons).

Just been promoted to the Prem and have signed him permanently after Blackburn released him on a free so I've taken him right through from L2 to the Prem whichis quite a way.

train

Paul Wallace - N. Ireland Div. 2 to Champions League Group Stage :thup:

barita_lola

I'm pretty sure player naming is allowed in this forum, but mine was a regen anyway, Andy Burgress I think. Was a reserve left back at Crewe at the bottem of Second division when I became manager. Ended up winning five league titles with Crewe and playing in two (I think) Champions League finals.

This was in CM03/04 mind you, where it seemed any full back with moderatly good physical stats was nearly impassable no matter how poor their technique. AI recognized his other stats were poor though, so even though he was only 32 when I left the club I don't think he ever played another game. Although he could of as I tried to sign him, but wanted an insane amount of money.

retired_Cliffc

2426 miles.

I took him with me from Manchester to Rome, back to Manchester, to London and then back to Manchester.

Signed him at 18, and he played more or less his entire career with me.

retired_macca1875

I bought a 16 year old regen while in the BSP who went on to score the winner in the CL final 12 years later.