FM23 / KETTERING TOWN / 150 YEAR ANNIVERSARY / NON LEAGUE - PREMIER LEAGUE

[LeeDocks]

FM23 / KETTERING TOWN / 150 YEAR ANNIVERSARY / NON LEAGUE - PREMIER LEAGUE / INTRODUCTION

Once again FM23 brings up my annual save with hometown club Kettering Town of the Vanarama National League North.

With the club being in it's 150 year anniversary this year it makes it even more special to not only try and achieve league status for a club that has never made the English league system but go all the way to the top, the holy grail...the Premier League! 

First up was to get my contract. £750 per week and a one-year deal.

Our first job when in the door was to get in touch with the Director of Football and start asking him for recommendations for free transfers in every position.

It was like a revolving door of 30 players being constantly in and around the club. The best would be offered contracts with the hope that they would sign up for our project.

Our best player to join us was Jayden Smith a 19 year-old striker that been released from Southampton the previous season. 

I think we had trialled him for the maximum of 4 weeks about 3 times before finally he accepted a contract that we could afford. Locking him down to a 2 year deal felt like a great bit of business for our level!

Predicted to finish mid-table could our new superstar striker fire us to something more??

 

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by LeeDocks

[LeeDocks]

FM23 / KETTERING TOWN / 150 YEAR ANNIVERSARY / NON LEAGUE - PREMIER LEAGUE 

VANARAMA NATIONAL LEAGUE NORTH /SEASON 1

With our incoming transfers all complete it was time to begin the season. Have you signed any of these in your saves? How did they turn out? Let me know!

 

We had an unbeaten pre-season so confidence was running high with goals coming from lots of our new signings including Jayden Smith but also from other trialists, Enock Asante being one of them.

A player I remember from my FM22 save as he was leading my line in that save for the first couple of seasons. 

He was offered a contract but ended up signing for Banbury United in the same division. He ended up with 16 leagues goals from 40 games for Banbury and an average rating of 7.19. One that got away potentially??

August & September 2022

An opening day defeat away from home against promotion favourites Flyde got our season underway.

Disappointing but the performance was encouraging and would lead us to 2 wins, 2 draws and one defeat for the remainder of the month.

On-loan Andrew Oluwabori (on-loan from Peterborough) & Decarrey Sheriff both starting the season well.

September would prove to be fantastic with 5 wins and one defeat putting us in the playoff positions. A nice home win against Ware also helped us progress to the 3rd qualifying round of the FA Cup.

Our superstar striker in Jayden Smith starting to find the net on a regular basis was also promising and leading us to believe that playoffs and possibly promotion was on the cards!

October, November, December 2022

Our strong form continued through October & November with an FA Cup victory against Swindon Town (Sky Bet League Two) on penalties.

When then got drawn against Lincoln City (Sky Bet League One), 3 divisions higher so it was always going to be a touch ask.

A 0-0 draw at home, it felt like that was probably our best opportunity gone for a potential money spinning Third round tie against one of the Premier League's big boys.

It was!

The replay resulted in a 4-1 defeat and with that our FA cup run was gone. Getting that far and having replays against both Swindon & Lincoln had provided some much needed revenue to the club coffers.

I was praying that come the end of the season, whether it be in the National League North or promotion to the National League, the board would pass some of that on to me to use in the available wage budget to really strengthen the team.

That result then saw us lose a further two games so we had then lost 5 on the spin. Not good!

An upturn in our final two games of the calendar year saw 2 much needed victories. Both by a score line of 3-1.

Sitting just outside the playoffs it had still been a good first half of the season.

January - April 2023

January didn't start great with 2 defeats but we then started to go on a great run from February where finishing up at the end of April we had gone unbeaten in 15 games (11 wins & 4 draws).

That form had shot us up the table and resulted in us finishing in 2nd place. Way above the expectations at the start of the season.

We'd had a great tussle with Scarborough Athletic but ultimately finished up a point behind them on 89 points.

May

Finishing 2nd had allowed us a bye and a home tie in the Semi Final.

Up against Chester we had too much for them and a 4-2 victory set us up for a final against Spennymoor.

As you can see we progressed and gained promotion on penalties. However that doesn't tell half the story of the game!

They had been leading up until the final minute and with the last kick of normal time, that man, our man, Jayden Smith produced an equaliser that would take us into extra-time.

Pandemonium not only in the stands but everywhere (home office included ).

It then came down to penalties where the Kettering boys prevailed.

Season One done and promotion achieved.

Onto the Vanarama National League next season where we would be coming up against the likes of Wrexham, Notts County & Barrow.

Chairman.....Show me the money!

[RoguPL]

Good Luck ! 

Kettering is quite local to me and was also considering doing a save with them   Will be following. 

[KibworthBull]

Kettering is my closest National League North Club so good luck and hope you move out of Latimer Park as quickly as you can!

Even though you did beat the team I support twice and helped them get relegated...

[LeeDocks]

FM23 / KETTERING TOWN / 150 YEAR ANNIVERSARY / NON LEAGUE - PREMIER LEAGUE 

VANARAMA NATIONAL LEAGUE / SEASON 2

A new season and lots of changes....

A new contract for me, a increase in available wage budget and lots of new faces.

All signed on Free Transfers as that's just how you have to operate at this level. Alfie Gilchrist being released by Chelsea felt like a big signing and him came into our team as a 4 star Current Ability player. Also raided the Tottenham players that were being released and they would all come in to our starting line-up for the new season.

August - November

We started the season with a dodgy pre-season but I put this down to the number of players coming in and the fact they had to come in and adopt to our 4-1-1-3-1 DM Wide Asymmetric tactic. It sounds complicated but it's just a 4-2-3-1 but with a DMCR & MCL in midfield.

The league began with us only losing 2 of our first 17 games. The new signings coming into the team and performing well. New signing Christian Saydee was challenging Jayden Smith for the central striking role and forcing Jayden to sometimes play out wide in the AMR position.

This run of form had positioned us in the playoffs once again, could we possibly go and get back to back promotions??

December & January

Our form turned in December for no reason, maybe the teams were beginning to clock our style of play, maybe it was tiredness setting in. 

Similar to last season we exited the FA Cup in the Second Round with defeat away at Championship side Barnsley. Shame as similar to last season that money spinning Third Round tie had once again eluded us.

But as a positive we could now focus on our participation in the FA Trophy and keeping our place in the playoffs in the league.

Woking were at the top and winning most games so the gap was never closing. A nice victory at home to them at the end of January courtesy of a 95 minute winner by Mathaeus Roberts closed that gap by 3 points. Could this set them on a bad run now? We could only hope!

February - April

The latter stages of the season saw us go on an incredible run of form with only a defeat away at you guessed it, Woking.

They would be crowed champions despite our great form with us ending the season in 2nd place and also a FA Trophy final against Notts County to participate in. That was going to be a tough game with them finishing the season once place below us in 3rd position.

There was a potential that we could face them in the playoff final should we both progress to the last game too.

May

It was both us and Notts County that made the playoff final. 

Once again we scored with the final kick of the game (94th minute) to make it 2-2 and send it to extra time. Could we do what we did to Spennymoor in last season's final?

Sadly it wasn't to be and Notts County scored 3 times in the extra period with only a consolation goal for us. Congratulations to them and another season in what I believe to be the hardest division to get out of in FM.

We still had the FA Trophy final a week later and this time we would turn up against them and win it 4-0 with a hat-trick from Jayden Williams (Yes, another Jayden). Think we had 3 Jayden's in our team by this point.

A nice victory and our first ever FA Trophy as a club.

I remember as a youngster going to the old Wembley back in May 2000 when Kettering faced Kingstonian and we ended up losing 2-0. As a 13 year old it was hard to take so today's 4-0 victory felt like a bit of redemption (Although virtually).

The celebrations were wild with around 45k in attendance and had at least allowed some kind of celebration at the end of the season.

I felt the season proved we had a good time and with a couple of additions we could challenge for the top next time around and that one automatic position.

Below the final standings as season 2 ended. Could season 3 result in us finally achieving League status for the 1st time in the club's history?

 

Edited December 2, 2022 by LeeDocks