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King's Lynn Football Club

chrissawyer21

By chrissawyer21,
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chrissawyer21

chrissawyer21

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King’s Lynn Football Club

Football Manager 2008 with the 8.0.2 patch update

Background

All my life I have loved football, and I have always dreamt of being a professional footballer. I started playing Sunday football when I was ten in the hope that one day I would be scouted and progress to become a professional.

Before I knew it, I was 30 still playing Sunday league football. I couldn’t continue to play because of a long term injury and decided to take up management. I took over a well-known local club and gained a UEFA ‘B’ coaching licence and a degree in Football Studies. We payed our players £10 win bonus and competed strongly in the FA Vase but never got near the final. In the FA Cup we never once got past the Preliminary Qualifying Round.

We won the league two years running but couldn’t be promoted to the BGB Southern Football League Division One South/West due to ground grading. With my success rumours were circulating I could be in line for bigger management jobs. I was excited by this prospect but did not for one moment for see what was going to happen.

One Saturday evening I was watching match of the day when I received a phone call.

“Hello, is this Chris Sawyer?”

“Yes, who is calling?”

“It’s Liam Winkleman, Chairman of King’s Lynn Football Club”

“Ohh, how can I help you?”

“I would like to offer you the job as manager of King’s Lynn Football Club; could you come to the ground tomorrow to discuss the matter?”

“No problem and thank you for the call”

I was incredibly surprised to hear that a highly successful semi-professional football club who were just promoted to the Blue Square North for the 2008/09 was interested in signing me as their head coach.

I struggled to sleep the following night wondering what sort of contract I was going to be offered, and I was also about to be offered a job to manage a team that get average attendances of over 1,000, 1,000!

The following morning I made my way to the Walk’s Stadium, I had booked the morning off work just to meet the chairman. After discussing what the expectations from me would be we got on with contract negotiations, I was offered £275 per week until 30/06/2010. This deal was perfect I signed and work would begin the next day on the 25/06/2008.

Before I took the job Kris Renton and Bally Smart were already loan signings made by the chairman and were on a 1 year loan deal. I was delighted that we had to professional players from Norwich, but I now needed to build a squad.

I immediately got on the phone to the PFA to find information on players looking for clubs who didn’t have contracts, the last thing I wanted to do was spend a vast amount of money.

My first call was made to David Blackmore, an ex-West Ham United academy player.

“Hello is this David”

“Yes, how can help you?”

“Its Chris Sawyer manager of King’s Lynn Football Club I would like to offer you a trial with a view of turning permanent”

“Firstly, thank you for the offer and secondly I would be delighted to trial and hopefully turn permanent”

“Ok, well first training session is the 30th June at 7:30pm at the Walk’s Stadium”

“Sounds fantastic, see you there and thank you very much”

I was very pleased with this deal and was defiantly looking to sign David permantly on at least a two year deal. Our first friendly would be on the 12th of July at home against Abingdon Town so I still time to sign players for the game.

I next signed Jack Jeffrey on a £300 per week two year deal, who is another ex-West Ham academy player. I also signed Clayton McDonald on a £400 per week two year deal. Stuart McKay, Stefan Koffi and James Palmer also were new signings to the Walk’s Stadium.

The day finally arrived, my first game in charge of King’s Lynn Football Club, it may only have been friendly but expectation was high. There was a buzz about the new side and with many signings too come the fans were excited but optimistic.

I arrived at the ground at around 4pm to help the grounds man set-up; I had managed to get the afternoon off work. The pitch looked fantastic and the grass was cut perfectly. The players started to arrive at around 6 and walked about on the pitch for a bit chatting and drinking isotonic sports drinks.

Abingdon arrived a short while later and I welcomed them to the club and told them to enjoy the evening, as I used to manage a team at their level it was a privilege for them to be playing at our ground. I shook their manager’s hand and both teams got changed for the warm-up.

We as a club had done an immense amount of fitness work, I wanted both the reserve and youth team to do the same fitness regime as the first team and I felt this would show in the match and hopefully enable use to be near maximal fitness for every game. The boys looked sharp in the warm-up and with fitter, faster, stronger signings to come I was very excited.

In the dressing room before the game I reminded the lads that the game was not about the result and I was more looking for a good performance. It was also important to me that we showed Abingdon respect and approached the game is if we were playing Man Utd, playing with top commitment and desire.

The referee blew his whistle and we got the game underway. Less than minute in Stefan Frost passed the ball left out to Ben Farrell but Abingdon’s Gary MacDonald intercepted the pass. An in-direct free kick was then given as Ben obstructed MacDonald.

Abingdon’s John Sidwell passed it to Green who then picked out Lance Thompson who next slotted it past our keeper David Blackmore. I went mad, less than 60 seconds into my career as King’s Lynn manager and I had conceded a goal. I dipped my head and hoped this was not a sign of things to come. I nervously turned to 230 or so fans sitting in the stand behind the dugout and their angry faces, we had to turn this around; we were loosing a side that doesn’t even pay their players.

The next ten minutes were dull and slow with very few chances created from either side or chants and cheers from the crowd were fading. I could feel the tension and we had to change something to save embarrassment.

Twenty minutes in we were piling on the pressure, the fans were starting to get back into song and I felt we had to score. We got a throw-in from the right-hand side and Stefan threw the ball into Kris Renton who turned and played a brilliant through-ball to debutant Jack Jeffrey who finished perfectly making it 1-1. The fans cheered and I couldn’t contain my joy, we were finally underway in the game.

At half time it was 3-1 and told the boys not to the let the performance drop and to start the half a bit stronger than they did in the first one. If we started that slowly in league games we would be in serious trouble, concentration was vital.

Six minutes into the second half we went 4-1 up through Stef and the fans were in full-voice and Abingdon were struggling to get hold of the ball. Then, out of nowhere Lance Thompson got his second goal straight after our fourth. I felt Lance had a great game for them and I have no doubt he will play a higher level than Abingdon.

On the hour it was 4-2 and the game had died down, our fans were still singing but the game had lost excitement as it appeared both teams had shut up shop. I shouted to the boys to keep it tight but try and attack, I wanted more goals to prove to the fans this would be the start of a good season.

“Come on boys a? Lets push get some more goals!”

“Clayton keep it tight at the back son, no more goals conceded ok!”

We kept pressing and eventually substitute Danny Simpson from the youth team got our fifth goal on the 80th minute. I was delighted and I could tell the fans were. They were already signing loan signing Kris Renton’s name after only one game. My target was to have the fans sing my name by the end of the season.

I shook the Abingdon Town manager’s hand and thanked him for a brilliant game. They had put us under some good pressure and were a good sporting opposition. I shook all the youth team player’s hands and thanked them for their performance because it wasn’t an easy game for them, but they put in a solid performance, defiantly some talented youths to keep an eye on for the future.

Both sides went into the clubhouse located in the stand at the end of the game for a drink and discuss the game. We all left the ground at around 11pm and I wished Abingdon manager good luck for the rest of the season and he wished me the same. I defiantly made a new friend and felt like I wanted to play them again next season.

More to come shortly

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Terk

Terk

Posted
Posted
Yes sirdez24 but this is just a report of how his team is doing, and his team is a Lower league team, so how does it not fit?

Because of the copious player naming. He'd likely be shot if he posted this in LLM. Having said that, neither does it have the detail that we expect from a story. Sort of betwixt and between at the moment.

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sirdez24

sirdez24

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Posted
Yes sirdez24 but this is just a report of how his team is doing, and his team is a Lower league team, so how does it not fit?

Player naming, far too detailed and you need to have completed a minimum of three seasons before starting an update thread over there.

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