So after winning the BSP last season, the plan for this season was to not get relegated and hope to use my new found professional status and the ability to scout the UK plus Ireland, France and Spain, to attract some good promising players to the club.
First of all the board let me pick a specific side to be linked with, and after noticing that Marine got promoted to the BSN I picked them in the hope that I can help them climb the leagues.
Rather disappointingly the ability to scout outside of England didn’t prove very helpful – my scouts weren’t finding people, so I did some manual scouting and it appears the players in Ireland and Scotland just aren’t interested in signing for me, luckily I had more luck signing players for England or on frees (either due to my promotion, or more than likely due to applying the new patch at the start of the season)
So initial signings saw me sign two promising full-backs from Blue Square sides, the others were several freebies and Chadwick and Petrucci (who was sent by Utd) returned for another season onloan, as did Corry Evans and Daniel Galbraith later in the season.
Transfers out was a different matter, with no one willing to pay for my players I ended up releasing them or letting them go on frees to reduce my wage bill – including captain Kyle Wilson and vice-captain Simon Spender who both struggled with league football.
The beginning of the season saw us rocked by my youth prospect Neil Swift demanding a transfer after a couple of BSP teams became interested in him, but no one made an offer and he spent the season on the bench as punishment.
Boxing day saw us claim our biggest win to date with a 7-1 hammering of bottom side Rushden, and that somehow saw us sat third in the league at the halfway point, with ground-owners Bury top of the league.
Though the game did decide to pick on me in Feb letting Aldershot cheat their way to a 2-1 win – their second goal came in the 97th minute, when we should have only played 93 minutes, whilst the first goal was blanantly offside – though rather worryingly the different views had the players in different positions?
In the end that didn’t matter as towards the end of the season my new signings started to gel and we stormed the table claiming a playoff spot with games to spare, before making an attempt on the automatic promotion spots, claiming promotion and second place on the final day.
League Two proved to be rather easy due to their being no strong sides in the league, with victory depending on what mood my strikers were in.
Team Stats – winning our last 6 games propelled us past Exeter into second, whilst we ended top scorers, and with a good defence and attendance. Though Man Utd loanees Chadwick and Petrucci helped out storming the league.
Squad – I signed quite a few players this season, and now need to reduce the wage bill and also see who is good enough for League One.
In goal we are sorted for the future Aaron Jameson is a solid Keeper, however my scouts spotted two Premiership Potential Keepers this season – Spanish Keeper Pedro eventually signed at the end of Jan for £7K from Real Madrid and was a rock at the back, keeping 10 clean sheets in just 17 games, though this left record signing Ryan Dawson on the bench (he was signed when it looked like Pedro wouldn’t come and with other sides interested I splashed out £100K on him)
I also strengthened my defence this season, picking up two rightbacks for free from Fulham – Jonny Bentley who displaced vice-captain Simon Spender and Dean Proctor who was mainly used as a sub. At left-back I picked up Keith Barwick from Newport for a bargain £10K and he looks like he’ll be a quality player.
At centre-back was another new signing Jean-Francois Christophe who was picked up on a free after being released by Portsmouth, he was initially partnered by Ashley Williams, but towards the end of the season with a transfer to Cardiff agreed I gave Billy Cook a chance as he’ll be needed next season.
Midfield saw two new left wingers arrive – Irishman Donal McDermott from Man City via Preston and Scott Gilligan who arrived from Tiverton when he finally turned 17 and is highly rated by my staff and even got capped by the England U19 team to become my first English International.
In the centre of midfield Adie Chadwick was again the rock in the middle of the park, though my two new signings didn’t really impress Norwegian Magnus Eikrem arrived on a free after being released from Man Utd, whilst Des Bowden was picked up from Watford, whilst he has bags of potential he didn’t play well (and is possibly why Watford let me have him on the cheap). Rounding out my midfield is Academy player Rafi Layla who did ok and is highly regarded by my staff.
Upfront we were again reliant upon Davide Petrucci who took the league by storm, with promotion being helped out by him gelling with my new Spanish Striker Sendoa Guarrotxena in the second half of the season – Sendoa had a slow start to the season, but the sheer size of him and his work rate (he’s like a slow Spanish Emily Heskey) kept him in the side, and eventually he started scoring and also became the first player to learn a PPM when asked. Providing cover was NIrish striker Billy Kee and new signings including Polish Striker Marek Saganowski and Man Citys Italian Striker Marcello Trotta.
Best XI – was about right, though the All-time XI is rather broken – Keeper Pedro makes the overall one after half a season at the club, but hasn’t made a seasonal best XI, whilst upfront is even worse Kee and Sendoa are preferred to Petrucci, whilst legand Kyle Wilson is dropped in favour of Challinor who spent the season out on loan?
Snapshot – the cups didn’t go to well this season, whilst we lost money, due to being over the wage budget and squad bonus being more than I got for being in the league.
Club Info – Sendoa gets added to the fav. Personnel, whilst we turned pro we still only have a local rep. Club Stats, facts and facilities – Hopefully with Burys promotion the ground will be kept in good condition.
Finances – are Ok but the wages really need reducing.
Manager Profile – upto National rep, which explains all the job offers, hopefully it will allow me to attract some better players. Manager Info.
Next season is going to be interesting, I got no youth players of any interest at all – I got three useless DMs.
Also Petrucci and Chadwick have refused to come back on loan next season, so I am now left searching for a striker and a midfielder :(
Career Overview
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| 2009/10 | Blue Square North | 1st | Promoted - Champions |
| 2010/11 | Blue Square Prem | 5th | Playoff Final |
| 2011/12 | Blue Square Prem | 1st | Promoted - Champions |
| 2012/13 | League Two | 2nd | Promoted |
