FM20 British and Irish Steel Challenge

[NoNonsenseFM]

Hope nobody minds but I've decided to start a new thread for the FM20 version of the British and Irish Steel Challenge. Reason being I have noticed that there are now extra Leagues available in Wales this year and also a couple of new cup competitions!

 

BRITAIN AND IRELAND STEEL CHALLENGE

The aim of the game is to win all trophies available to clubs in Britain and Ireland whilst using purchasing players who are hail from Britain or Ireland.

Rules:

You can start with any experience or coaching badges 

You must start Unemployed 

You can only purchase players who have British or Irish Nationality

You can play in Full or Touch (if you are using touch be sure to have unlocked National Management)

Screenshots are required at the end of the season

Have fun 

 

Available Cups and Leagues

England (12)

Premiership

Championship

League 1

League 2

National League

National League North

National League South

FA Cup 

Carabao EFL Cup

EFL Checkatrade Trophy

Community Shield

FA Trophy

 

Scotland (7)

Premiership

Championship

League 1

League 2

Scottish Cup

Scottish Communities League Cup

Scottish RamsdensCup

 

Ireland (8)

Premier League

First Division

FAI Ford Cup

EA Sports Cup

Munster Cup

Leinster Cup

Presidents Cup

Irish Champions Cup (Feature Both Ireland and N Ireland Clubs)

 

Northern Ireland (10)

Premiership

Championship 1

Championship 2

Northern Irish Cup

NIFL Cup

NIFL Charity Shiels

County Antrim Shield

Steel and Sons Cup

Intermediate Cup

Mid Ulster Cup

 

Wales (5)

Premier League

Cymru North

Cymru South

Welsh Cup

theWord Cup

 

European and World (5)

Club World Championship

Champions League

Europa League

Europa League 2 (Starts 2020/21 Season)

Euro Super Cup

 

International (3)

World Cup

European Championships

European Nations League

 

There are now 50 trophies in total to win! Good luck!!!

Edited November 2, 2019 by NoNonsenseFM

[NoNonsenseFM]

I've decided to start this save in the Beta and I have my first job

I'll be starting in Northern Ireland with Lisburn Distillery in the Championship 2.

[NoNonsenseFM]

7 hours ago, DinkyDug said:

Good luck! what leagues did you have set up? just the british ones?

Yeah I've just loaded all the British and Irish Leagues, I'd say you don't need anymore as you can only sign British and Irish players

 

[NoNonsenseFM]

7 hours ago, DinkyDug said:

I also decided to start this save and my first job is with Cobh Ramblers in Ireland's first division.

 

 

Good luck mate!

[bigmattb28]

Are the new leagues in Wales playable though?

[Cheekybananafm]

2 hours ago, bigmattb28 said:

Are the new leagues in Wales playable though?

Yes they are

[bigmattb28]

3 hours ago, Cheekybananafm said:

Yes they are

Could be a game changer for this challenge for me that, I usually start this off in Northern Ireland, gonna load up FM tonight and gonna take a look at those new Welsh leagues.

[NoNonsenseFM]

2019/20 Season 

First season over and it's gone really well

Northern Ireland Championship 2

Promotion and title winners in the first season. It started slow but an amazing run at the end secured the title. And that's the first one ticked off the list
 

Northern Irish Cup

Only got through 2 round before being knocked out by The Welders who are a league above

 

NIFL Cup

We didn't last long in this!
 

County Antrim Shield

Beating Cliftonville was amazing seeing how much better they are. 
 

Steel and Sons Cup

A great run in this but the first 4 rounds were all against Non league or Development league teams. In the Semis we beat a team in the league above.

We then had a final against Bangor who in the same league as us but we managed to bottle it and lose on penalties.
 

 

Intermediate Cup

Another good run in this competition, mainly non league teams, we got our own back on Bangor but eventually lost in the semi's to Portadown.

So overall a good season. I've ticked 1 trophy off the list but was so close to have 2 comps won.

Now we have a big job to get ready for the NI Championship 1!

 

England 0/12

Scotland 0/7

Ireland 0/8

Northern Ireland 1/10 (Championship 2 - 2019/20)

Wales 0/5

European/World 0/5

International 0/3

Total 1/50

[bigmattb28]

This challenge is going to be 1 of 2 saves I'm going to be doing when the full game is released next week. Had a play around already and it seems Lisburn is the only available job at the start if the start date is June. May just start as the lowest rep team, which will be 1 of the ones in the Welsh second division.

[Andora]

Decided to join in this challenge, but running it on FMT.

Joined Cobh Ramblers 17 games into their season.

 

Season 1

Managed to sneak into the promotion playoffs during the second half of the season. Managed to get to the final but Shelbourne were too strong in the end. To be honest, didn't really mind it because I need to win the First Division title first 

Also managed to get myself into the semi final of the FAI Ford Cup, so after this the board were naturally happy with the turnaround and offered me a new contract.

 

 

Season 2

With no money in the bank I managed to convince some English youngsters to hop across and join the team. Although not part of my club vision I did sign only U23 players with the hopes of selling them later for some cash.

 

 

With this team I did continued on where we ended last season and were even close to winning the title but we bottled it in the last game against Galway However we did manage to snag the Munster Cup so that is one trophy down.

 

 

Statistics

England 0/12

Scotland 0/7

Ireland 1/8 (Munster Cup 2020)

Northern Ireland 0/10 

Wales 0/5

European/World 0/5

International 0/3

Total 1/50

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Andora

[NoNonsenseFM]

On 13/11/2019 at 09:32, bigmattb28 said:

This challenge is going to be 1 of 2 saves I'm going to be doing when the full game is released next week. Had a play around already and it seems Lisburn is the only available job at the start if the start date is June. May just start as the lowest rep team, which will be 1 of the ones in the Welsh second division.

Good luck mate. I'm just coming to the end of my 2nd season and it's going well again! Happy for you to start with a team in the lowest division. I have used to rules from last years challenge but happy to tweak the rules

[NoNonsenseFM]

1 hour ago, Andora said:

Decided to join in this challenge, but running it on FMT.

Joined Cobh Ramblers 17 games into their season.

 

Season 1

Managed to sneak into the promotion playoffs during the second half of the season. Managed to get to the final but Shelbourne were too strong in the end. To be honest, didn't really mind it because I need to win the First Division title first 

Also managed to get myself into the semi final of the FAI Ford Cup, so after this the board were naturally happy with the turnaround and offered me a new contract.

 

 

Season 2

With no money in the bank I managed to convince some English youngsters to hop across and join the team. Although not part of my club vision I did sign only U23 players with the hopes of selling them later for some cash.

 

 

With this team I did continued on where we ended last season and were even close to winning the title but we bottled it in the last game against Galway However we did manage to snag the Munster Cup so that is one trophy down.

 

 

Statistics

England 0/12

Scotland 0/7

Ireland 1/8 (Munster Cup 2020)

Northern Ireland 0/10 

Wales 0/5

European/World 0/5

International 0/3

Total 1/50

 

Good job on ticking off your first trophy, as for Season One that's one of the tough parts of this challenge, promotions without winning the title doesn't count!

[NoNonsenseFM]

Season 2020/21

Another season over and once again it's been pretty good

Championship

A great first season in the Championship, we managed to get ourselves into the Playoffs, we made it hard for ourselves with a poor end of season run where at one point we sat top.

We were then knocked out in the playoff semi final to a much more clinical Ballinamallard United

Irish Cup

Knocked out in the round we enter in to fellow Championship side Portadown

 

NIFL Cup

Went one round further but were knocked out in extra time to Larne

Steel & Sons

A frustrating one, we played brilliant to get to the Quarter Finals only to throw it away again Development League side Larne Olympic

County Antrim Shield

Lost in the Quarters to Premier League side Cliftonville

 

Intermediate Cup

A fantastic run in this competition, lots of easier game we breezed through, we had a good run playing teams lower down than us all the way through and managed to get to the final

And in the final we faced Championship winners Portadown and somehow managed to win the game 1-0 in the 92nd minute!

 

A fantastic way to end the season and that ticks off my 2nd trophy of the challenge

What Next?

I won't be actively looking for a new job but I'm not sure I can recreate the feats of this season with Lisburn. We have no money and very poor players. So I may look for another Championship team with better players, we will see.

England 0/12

Scotland 0/7

Ireland 0/8

Northern Ireland 2/10 (Championship 2 - 2019/20, Intermediate Cup - 2020/21)

Wales 0/5

European/World 0/5

International 0/3

Total 2/50

[Andora]

Congrats on the cup win at least!

For me the new ME hit hard so have to tinker around with the tactics again to get it to start working again :D

[bigmattb28]

7 hours ago, NoNonsenseFM said:

Good luck mate. I'm just coming to the end of my 2nd season and it's going well again! Happy for you to start with a team in the lowest division. I have used to rules from last years challenge but happy to tweak the rules

I'll have a proper look when the full game is released on Tuesday.  As Wales has a new division I'm leaning towards starting there

[NoNonsenseFM]

AN UPDATE - NEW JOB

So I have a new club. Lisburn wanted me to say but only offering me £375 per week in wage budget put me off. Newry came in for me, same division, higher expectations even though they ended the season in the NI Championship 7th (we ended 3rd) and a £2.1k per week wage budget, that last point means I can't say no!

 

[charlie_hyett_123]

Do you guys start with no experience or do you put it at one? Just wondering

[Andora]

12 hours ago, charlie_hyett_123 said:

Do you guys start with no experience or do you put it at one? Just wondering

In the first post it is stated that you can set any experience or badges if you want.

 

I am using FMT so I cannot set badges but I have set my experience to semi-pro because that was the level I was playing at IRL

[Andora]

14 hours ago, NoNonsenseFM said:

AN UPDATE - NEW JOB

So I have a new club. Lisburn wanted me to say but only offering me £375 per week in wage budget put me off. Newry came in for me, same division, higher expectations even though they ended the season in the NI Championship 7th (we ended 3rd) and a £2.1k per week wage budget, that last point means I can't say no!

 

Newry.. lovely city had to cross through it often when travelling from Belfast to Dublin and back.

[Andora]

Season 3

 

So I had to change some things around with my tactic, not only because of the new ME but also because the board got used to our high finishes from last season and was expecting a minimum of promotion playoffs. At the end of the season I just accepted the faith that I will have to return to the First Division to win it either by relegation or with a different team because we managed to finish 3rd in the league and we won the promotion playoffs. + side is that I finally get a bigger wage budget to work with, at the halfway point of the season I got offered several jobs with the other teams in the league and I noticed that most of them have at least 100k EUR per year more wage budget then what I was working with.

When it comes to the cups, damn fierce rivals Cork City destroyed our chances of any. Still managed a quarter final spot in the Ford Cup (this cup is also good for the finances).

 

Statistics

England 0/12

Scotland 0/7

Ireland 1/8 (Munster Cup 2020)

Northern Ireland 0/10 

Wales 0/5

European/World 0/5

International 0/3

Total 1/50

[NoNonsenseFM]

18 hours ago, charlie_hyett_123 said:

Do you guys start with no experience or do you put it at one? Just wondering

I started with no badges and no experience but the rules of the challenge state you can start however you wish

[Mediocre_Jake]

So this is my first time ever joining a challenge on these forums, even though I have played for years and done many challenges on my own time.

Started unemployed, no badges, no experience. Managed to get the job at Knockbreda.

The journey begins.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Mediocre_Jake

[NoNonsenseFM]

9 hours ago, Mediocre_Jake said:

So this is my first time ever joining a challenge on these forums, even though I have played for years and done many challenges on my own time.

Started unemployed, no badges, no experience. Managed to get the job at Knockbreda.

The journey begins.

Good luck matey!

[Mediocre_Jake]

So I finished my first season with Knockbreda. I decided not to win the league, despite leading for about 30 games. I thought it best to give it to Portadown, I felt bad for them. We were supposed to be in a relegation battle, so I thought it only fair...

Only kidding. I bottled it in the last month. My strikers seemed to forget where the goal was and my defenders were on some sort of strike.

So I won nothing. Didn't get promoted. Was a decent season compared to expectations. But my team was also stripped by bigger teams because of semi-pro contracts. I'm not sure whether I will move on to another team, or if I will give Knockbreda another season. I have May and June to think about that I guess.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Mediocre_Jake

[Andora]

I have to restart the challenge, seems my game did not get saved correctly to the cloud  

[NoNonsenseFM]

2021/22 Season

Another season down, my first at Newry, can we push for promotion? Let's see

Northern Ireland Championship

A hit and miss season, at one point we looked like we were going to be challenging for the title but we fell away at the end to finish 3rd and get into the promotion plaoffs

And for the second straight year for me we lost in the semi final. Disappointing!

Irish Cup

Poor as we were knocked out in the the first round we entered

Northern Ireland League Cup

Reached the quarters where we were knocked out by higher opposition

Mid Ulster Cup

A shocker of a result!

Intermediate Cup

A fantastic run in the competition where we ended as winners, the second year in a row for me.

What Next?

We need promotion from this league but we really need to do as champions. One more year here to see if we can do it.

I also now working towards gaining my Continental B Licence

 

England 0/12

Scotland 0/7

Ireland 0/8

Northern Ireland 2/10 (Championship 2 - 2019/20, Intermediate Cup - 2020/21)

Wales 0/5

European/World 0/5

International 0/3

Total 2/50

[iamnobody]

How do you unlock national management in FM Touch?

[Zilla Blitz]

I'm going to give this one a shot as well. I'm overlapping with the Dafuge Challenge, which works if I don't bring in any non-British/non-Irish players.

Club

Looking forward to this! I've started with Nuneaton in the Vanarama North in July of 2020.

Profile at start.

[iamnobody]

I'll give this one a shot.

I edited so I could try it in FM Touch.  

 

 

This should be interesting since the board is expecting a 3rd place or higher finish.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 23, 2019 by iamnobody

[iamnobody]

I just found out I've over budget by almost $400 per week.  The most I can offer a player is $15 p/w.   I'm not sure how I'm going to get third.  

[NoNonsenseFM]

14 hours ago, Zilla Blitz said:

I'm going to give this one a shot as well. I'm overlapping with the Dafuge Challenge, which works if I don't bring in any non-British/non-Irish players.

Club

Looking forward to this! I've started with Nuneaton in the Vanarama North in July of 2020.

Profile at start.

Good luck mate. A nice club to start with

[NoNonsenseFM]

13 hours ago, iamnobody said:

I'll give this one a shot.

I edited so I could try it in FM Touch.  

 

 

This should be interesting since the board is expecting a 3rd place or higher finish.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good luck fella. Nice to see everyone starting in different places. Sounds like promotion is on the cards first season? Ha ha

[Jordey]

Quote

You can only purchase players who have British or Irish Nationality

Is this only born in UK & Ireland or eligible to play for any of these countries?

 

Have a player I want to sign who is born in another country but eligible for England and I know he studied in the UK.

 

Can I sign him or is it against the rules?

[NoNonsenseFM]

8 hours ago, Jordey said:

Is this only born in UK & Ireland or eligible to play for any of these countries?

 

Have a player I want to sign who is born in another country but eligible for England and I know he studied in the UK.

 

Can I sign him or is it against the rules?

I'm happy for you to sign him as long he isn't declared for that nation, by that I mean if he hasn't had an international cap for that nation at the time of you signing him

[bigmattb28]

10 hours ago, Jordey said:

Is this only born in UK & Ireland or eligible to play for any of these countries?

 

Have a player I want to sign who is born in another country but eligible for England and I know he studied in the UK.

 

Can I sign him or is it against the rules?

Bit like Owen Hargreaves who was born in Canada but eligible for Canada, England & Wales due to his parents being Welsh and English.

As long as the player is eligible for any UK nation or Ireland, but hasn't played for another nation then he's fine. Take Hargreaves as an example, he was eligible for Wales, England and Canada, so if he was in the game you could use him, but if he declared for Canada in game then you'd have to sell him, as he's now 'technically' not British or Irish. Hope that makes sense

[Jordey]

Thanks both, player rejected me anyway but he’d already been capped so lucky for me. 
 

 

[NoNonsenseFM]

2022/23 Season - Newry City

Another season over. I'm not going to go through everything in detail, just what was won.

And that's one thing! We won the Northern Ireland Championship

 

In the other trophies we didn't do as well

• Irish Cup - Sixth Round 
• League Cup - Third Round
• Mid-Ulster Cup - Semi Final
• Intermediate Cup - Second Round

So a good season, one of the league titles done, we only have the Danske Bank Premiership to do and then the majority of the cups.

But my time at Newry is probably going to come to an end, the title was great but we don't have the squad capable of challenging in the Premiership. I've had a few interviews from clubs in that league and although they've been unsuccessful I will be actively looking to find a better club.

 

England 0/12

Scotland 0/7

Ireland 0/8

Northern Ireland 3/10 (Championship 2 - 2019/20, Intermediate Cup - 2020/21)

Wales 0/5

European/World 0/5

International 0/3

Total 2/50

[NoNonsenseFM]

It's not taken long to get a job and I'm off to the Northern Ireland Premiership, just where I wanted to go!

 

A 7th place finish in the season just gone, predicted to end 4th. Have a good chance in this league with the right additions

[iamnobody]

Well, my first season sucked.  I started out over budget by 400 per week in a league where 1/2 the players aren't paid anything and your players can get poached since most don't have value.  I ended up in 6th place when my board was expected 3rd place.  My budget problems at the beginning ended up putting the club in debt to the tune of $80,000.  A fortune at this level.  When I could find a player of value the most I could pay them was $15 p/w instead of the $150-$200 per week they wanted.   I also had my Brexit go through and it doesn't seem too bad.  I put that below.  

Time to start applying to see if I can salvage this challenge.

 

[iamnobody]

It didn't take long to find another job.

Once again I'm over budget, but the good news is that the board's only expectation on placement is not finishing last.  

There are currently 11 games left in this season to not **** up another team.  Wish me luck

[bigmattb28]

I've just had a thought. I know this challenge is all about managing and winning the British and Irish nations, but are there any rules against managing in another nation, say Holland for arguments sake to build up your rep, or add a bit of variety to the save? 

Also I'm thinking about adding the Champions League, Europa League, that Conference League, The Euros and World Cup into my challenge, if anyone is interested in adding these to theirs?

Edited November 29, 2019 by bigmattb28
Added another comment.

[bigmattb28]

2 hours ago, iamnobody said:

Well, my first season sucked.  I started out over budget by 400 per week in a league where 1/2 the players aren't paid anything and your players can get poached since most don't have value.  I ended up in 6th place when my board was expected 3rd place.  My budget problems at the beginning ended up putting the club in debt to the tune of $80,000.  A fortune at this level.  When I could find a player of value the most I could pay them was $15 p/w instead of the $150-$200 per week they wanted.   I also had my Brexit go through and it doesn't seem too bad.  I put that below.  

Time to start applying to see if I can salvage this challenge.

 

Just a quick question, hoe do you get your images so big? Once I crop mine with snipping tool and put them on the reply, they always go really small.

[iamnobody]

17 hours ago, bigmattb28 said:

Just a quick question, hoe do you get your images so big? Once I crop mine with snipping tool and put them on the reply, they always go really small.

I use the Windows 10 sniping tool instead of a screenshot from the game.  The snipping tool gives me more control over what I want to show.  I just save the image and upload it to Imgur.

[Andora]

Back again  Same team, this time on the full FM and I started at the start of the Irish season.

 

[bigmattb28]

13 hours ago, Andora said:

Back again  Same team, this time on the full FM and I started at the start of the Irish season.

 

Good luck, I struggled with them quit after 9 games.

[Andora]

Season 1

So took over from the start this time and on the full FM version. No badges but semi-pro reputation. The league went pretty well and managed to secure it one game for the end with a draw, I was afraid I would bottle it again like I did on FMT on the last day. The squad itself was pretty decent. I only added three players that I thought were needed to make the team a bit more complete, Langan on RB, Sinclair-Smith on the ML position and Raftery as DM and backup CB.

We ended up with the best scoring offense and 2nd best defense of the league. Brian Murphy was our goal scorer with 16 goals and Ian Turner had 14 assists. Ian Turner also won fan's player of the season.

I managed to beat arch rivals Cork City in the Munster Senior Cup. In the EA Sports Cup I got kicked out of the quarter finals against Dundalk (Derry City won it in the end) and a bitter defeat against rivals Cork in the FAI Ford Cup quarter finals (Dundalk winning it).

Statistics

England 0/12

Scotland 0/7

Ireland 2/8 (Munster Senior Cup 2019 , Airtricity First Division 2019)

Northern Ireland 0/10 

Wales 0/5

European/World 0/5

International 0/3

Total 1/50

[Andora]

Season 2

We had an excellent season. I did had to throw around the tactics after the first 5 games as we were in the relegation zone but after that we did not have to look back and even managed to get European football next year. Key point in terms of signings was that Scotland has some good quality players that do not mind a loan spell in Ireland.

[/url]

It was good to see that my youth product became our top goal scorer for the season with 25 goals. Breadner on loan from Scotland had the most assists. Finlay Sinclair-Smith was fan's player of the season.

[/url]

We had some quick exits in the cups, both cases to rivals Cork City so it is good that they got relegated. We did manage to extend our Munster cup title.

Statistics

[/url]

England 0/12

Scotland 0/7

Ireland 2/8 (Munster Senior Cup 2019 + 2020 , Airtricity First Division 2019)

Northern Ireland 0/10 

Wales 0/5

European/World 0/5

International 0/3

Total 2/50

Edited December 5, 2019 by Andora

[iamnobody]

My first season at Athlone Town is completed.  I ended up 7th which made the board happy.  My biggest challenge is that I joined the team when they were over budget and in order to cut contracts it was going to cost me a lot of money.  I just had to ride the season out and try to stop the bleeding where I could.  I'm hoping in this off season to get rid of the deadwood and get to a point where I can offer larger contract than $5 p/w.  Wish me luck.

 

 

 

[NoNonsenseFM]

Apologies for lack of updates at my end, had some personal stuff going on, but I'm back now and back on the save. I have however quit from Crusaders, I just wasn't feeling it from the start. I am now in search for another job

[NoNonsenseFM]

It's taken 2 weeks but I have a new job. I'm off to England with FC United of Manchester in the National League North