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Morpeth Town - Part 4 - European Adventures
Season 12 - 2033/34 - Premier League - 7th
Fighting in 2 competitions took it's toll on us this season as we struggled in patches and could've easily failed to secure another European spot. Our transfer budget was swallowed up by the 2nd installments of last seasons splurge, as we only managed a couple of squad players in (and about as many out, net spend £11.5m). It was, however, a season to remember for Ivan, whose 28 strikes were enough to earn him top scorer in the division (thanks massively to Haaland doing his cruciate midway through).
In Europe, we did pretty well for a first appearance. Our group stage draw was reasonably kind - Hoffenheim, Nice and Levante. We won all 3 home games and beat Hoffenheim away, drawing the other games 0-0 to finish comfortably top and unbeaten. We got a bye to the 2nd round where we drew Benfica, losing 1-0 away and winning 1-0 at home before going out on penalties.
Season 13 - 2034/35 - Premier League - 2nd
There were a couple of factors that led to our incredible performance this season. Firstly, being in the Europa Conference League helped massively, as we played a second string in almost every game. 2 signings also caught the eye - Ben Moses (D(C), £36.5m, Newcastle) was the missing link in the back line, pairing up perfectly with Sotelo, and Adrian (AM(C), £32m, Real Betis) was the missing link at the front, providing 11 goals and 6 assists in the league. The title race was extremely close - it was in our hands still with 4 games to go, trailing Liverpool by 2 points but knowing we played them on the final day. With 2 games to go we were 4 points behind, but our loss to Chelsea as well as their victory over Forest sealed it (and denied the people of a title deciding game).
Our European campaign started with a playoff against Ukranian side Mariupol, which we won 5-0 in each leg (10-0 agg.). In the group stage, we faced PSV, Rosenborg and Borac Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina) - winning 5 and drawing 1, we got a bye to the 2nd knockout round, where we again faced PSV. We won this tie 3-0 and 4-0 (7-0 agg.). In the quarters, we drew Brest, and again won comfortably (4-0 and 1-0, 5-0 agg.). The first leg of our semi against Bilbao finished goalless, but at home we struggled to break them down and were fortunate Ivan scored a 95th minute equaliser to keep us in the tie. We eventually lost on penalties, whilst they progressed to beat Hellas Verona comfortably in the final.
Season 14 - 2035/36 - Premier League - 3rd
Playing in a higher European competition again put a dampener on our league form. We made a net profit on transfers, selling Moses for £60m to Man City and Torres for £50m to Arsenal. Our incomings mostly were young prospects with little to no playing time - most notably goalkeeper Donny Sergini from Willem II (£10.5m) - though in the winter we spent £52m on Man Utd midfielder Pedro Rocha (who had a poor 2nd half of the season but came alive in the next).
Our first Champions League foray pitted us against Juventus, Leverkusen and Salzburg. We did the double over the Austrians, got a point against Juve and nothing against Bayer - as it happens, if we had hung on for the win in that drawn game it would've been enough to get us through, but 3rd place is what we deserved and it's where we ended. In the Europa knockouts, we beat Midtjylland comfortably (5-0 and 1-0) before getting thrashed by Dortmund (0-1 and 0-4).
Season 15 - 2036/37 - Premier League - 1st (Champions)
This summer saw a big overhaul of both the playing and coaching staff as we took huge strides forward as a club. We generated £247m cashing in on squad players, aging players and those who never quite lived up to their potential, most notably Didi, Antunov, Loyola, Hajek and Ivan. The key signing for us was 26 year old English M(C) Andrew Hanson from Everton for £75m - this had been by far our weakest position in recent years, so to have a player there averaging 7.38 in the league was a godsend (8 goals 11 assists). It was also very useful as we don't have enough players for the homegrown in nation quotas in Europe. Other key business was striker Esau Atienza (£7.5m, Copenhagen) - who raced to 14 goals in the league in the first half of the season, but contributed very little in the second - and winger Jakub Prochazka (£40m, Wolfsburg). We were also very lucky to pick up wonderkid Raul Coste for £4m from Cluj, who played a solid number of games in the first team and was then named number 1 youngster on the NxGn 50 email. We were clearly the best team in the league this season, particularly at home (W18 D1 L0).
Our European campaign was also excellent. In the groups we got PSG, Sociedad and Rangers - 2 easy wins against Rangers, 2 1-1 draws against Sociedad and a 2-2 draw and 3-4 loss to PSG, we qualified in 2nd place. In the RO16 we beat Atletico comfortably (2-0 and 2-1). We drew Barcelona in the quarters, and beat them at home with van Dalfsen grabbing the only goal. At the Nou Camp, we were dominated, 3.71-1.23 in xG but we held them to a single goal, then won on penalties. The semis against Manchester City were a similar story - lost 0-1 away, then winning 1-0 at home when in the 69th minute Sotelo is sent off. We cling on for extra time but don't quite make it to penalties, final score 1-2 on aggregate. This defeat means that we will have to wait 4 years for a chance at the club world cup.
The Future
We are in a position now to mount a serious attempt at the Champions League each season and I am hopeful to complete the challenge in my next update. I am looking at options up front - Ivan is gone, Atienza is too inconsistent and van Dalfsen is now 30 (and outperformed his statistics to date, I'm not convinced he is the best choice for starting striker going forward) - and also have my eye on a Brazilian defender called Defendi. Haaland continues to be the bane of our existence - while Liverpool finished 7th, he scored 34 and so we can't count them out yet, despite being 37 he is staying on for at least another season, and hasn't regressed at all.
New: Andrew Hanson - Pedro Rocha - Adrian - Jakub Prochazka - Esau Atienza - Ben Moses
Updated: Michel van Dalfsen - Markos Moukidis - Eleuterio Loera - Nicolas Sotelo - Ivan
Young: Donny Serghini - Raul Coste - Emilio Pezzella - Graeme Wales
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Morpeth Town - Part 3 - Foundations
Season 9 - 2030/31 - Premier League - 10th
We certainly made some progress this season, though it was largely unspectacular. The full £30m budget was used on reinforcing the squad, and I would say on the whole a very good window, though frustratingly the bigger splashes were underwhelming but this was made up for by some fantastic signings for under a million - Nicolas Galvan, AM(C), free from Velez, 6 goals 8 assists; Nicolas Sotelo, D(C), £350k from Deportes Tolima, 2 goals and 7.24 rating, now worth over £50m; Louis Crane, ST(C), £800k from Hearts, 12 goals 2 assists. Rather than go into detail all the transfers of these 3 seasons I will just do a general squad overview at the end.
Our big prospect striker, Jackson Higgins, was very disappointing, finishing up with just 5 league goals and losing his starting spot to the cheap backup.
Season 10 - 2031/32 - Premier League - 11th
The day we moved into the new stadium, I immediately convinced the board to expand it. We sold out every week at an 18k seater a few hundred miles away so this 15k build back home did not cut the mustard.
I really thought I'd nailed this window, filling in all the obvious gaps and throwing some money around. We spent around £70m in the summer, mostly on players in the £15-20m range, as well as a couple of loans including a very highly rated Liverpool youngster, but nothing really worked out (a few of the younger ones got better in the next season though at least). In the winter, we did make a good move, selling our backup keeper for £15m and getting an improvement on our starting keeper with a bit of change leftover. Higgins was again awful, scoring just once before being sent out on loan midway through the year.
Despite dropping a place in the league, we did improve on our points tally a little bit. This was also a good season in the cups as we reached the semis in both (EFL Cup - 0-5 and 2-2 v Chelsea, FA Cup - 0-3 v Liverpool). Devastatingly, Sunderland obliterated our bad discipline record, totalling 153 yellows and 14 reds - they also beat Derby's record, finishing the season with 4 points (0-4-34).
Season 11 - 2032/33 - Premier League - 5th
Due to the stadium expansion we were yet again turfed out of our own home, sharing with Middlesbrough until the renovations were complete in late March.
We had a budget of around £60m, but this was the first season good players were willing to talk to us and so our net spend was closer to £100m as I went a bit overboard in installments etc (£180m on incomings and outgoings of £80m - almost half of that from Galvan who is the only one that was missed). A bit of a risk, but one that clearly payed off. Ahead of the winter window, the club was bought by businessman Henry Ludlam - who made £55m floating us on the stock market and then only put £3m into the budget, so we did nothing of note in January.
I was very impressed by the team this season as we stormed to a Europa League place. A run of 4 difficult games threatened to disrail the season in November (losing 4-0, 7-3, 5-1 and 3-2 to Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man Utd respectively) but we bounced back fantastically, going on a run of 8 wins.
The Future
Making the Europa League is a fantastic achievement, but also very much deserved for how we played and I would be very disappointed to not qualify for one of the European competitions again next season. We were in the race for top 4 very late on but dropped away only in the last few games.
The big clubs are still on another level right now - we lost very few games to teams outside them and only won a handful from teams in this group - but I'm hopeful some will drop away soon. While Man City and Chelsea are stacked with incredible players in their mid-20s, Liverpool and Man Utd are a few years away from needing to rebuild. Haaland scored 56 goals and got 4 assists in the league for Liverpool this season and is now 32, while a 34 year old Mbappe got 32 goals 20 assists for the red devils. Newcastle are still rich and this years 16th placed finish is a huge outlier following Isak's departure - they have perhaps the best striker regen in the game now and will certainly bounce back. Arsenal and Spurs' squad strengths are a long way short of the others right now.
We are again expanding the ground, this time just a slightly reduced capacity for a few months thankfully.
I'm yet to plan what our priorities are in the upcoming window, but I have managed to increase/remove the more concerning of the release clauses in our players contracts.
Squad Overview
Goalkeeper Ademir has been with us for 18 months, joining from Palmeiras because Dortmund bought our understudy goalie.
Nicolas Sotelo is the key man at the heart of defence, and Kevin Nsakala has slotted in nicely as his partner this season (£24m, Brugges). Our full backs are very young and raw but could be world class one day - Eleuterio Loera (£8m, Club America) and Jan Hajek (£5.5m, Slavia Prague).
Dragoslav Antunov (£5.5m, Red Star) is perhaps our best wonderkid - he is usually partnered by Marcelo Torres (£25m, Stoke) who was the only disappointment of the season just gone. Sitting ahead of them in the attacking midfield role is Nelson Loyola (£1.3m, Colo Colo), our leading assister.
Michel van Dalfsen (£21m, PSV) was signed mainly as a wing option, but has often had to cover up front and ended up our top scorer. Ivan (£30m, Wolfsburg) remains our top choice up front for now. Our other wing options are Markos Moukidis (£16m, Olympiakos) and Didi (£32.5m, Sao Paulo) have also been game-changers this year as this is the position we have most struggled to recruit well in since reaching the top flight.
Honourable mentions from those that have left - Louis Crane and Nicolas Galvan.
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Morpeth Town - Part 2 - Ascension
Season 5 - 2026/27 - League 1 - 6th - Playoff Final
This season was hugely frustrating, we would always start well but just couldn't hold onto a lead, so while we didn't lose too many we ended with an obscene number of draws and just barely scraped a playoff place on goals for. The semis were a bit of a grind, neither team willing to take a risk and we came out the other side 2-1 winners over Wycombe. Then we lost 5-3 to AFC Wimbledon in the final, with a hat trick by their on-loan Argentinian striker who had no business playing at this level (22 in 36 in the league that season).
Harker got 19, Snelgrove got 13. A few key additions moved the team up the league a decent ways - most importantly Aiden Sealy, a winger on loan from Southampton who chipped in 6 goals 15 assists, along with an extra centre back (Dane Murray) and a slightly better goalie (Luke McGee).
But none of this really matters. We didn't really deserve to get into the playoff places and would've been hugely unprepared for promotion. What happened this season is we cleared out the debt. An academy player was poached by Villa, giving me a load of transfer clauses that I cashed in for about £1m (he was pretty average and worth nowhere near that) - more than half the deficit cleared. We got to Wembley twice, first for the FA trophy final (lost to Fleetwood and only 13k attendance so didn't actually make that much) and then in the playoffs (52k turned up this time, much better for the coffers), and also made bank on a trip to St James Park in the FA Cup 4th round (also got a Prem team in the league cup, but at home sadly).
We upgraded training/youth facilities, upped the youth level, I finally got going on my badges again and I was handed a more reasonable budget to push on with.
Season 6 - 2027/28 - League 1 - 1st - Promoted
With the finances looking a lot healthier I had some freedom to deepen the squad a little bit - not a lot though, still restricted to frees mainly. The defence remained largely the same (and we conceded about the same number of goals) aside from picking up a promising youngster released by Arsenal, Jude Sampson. Having failed to renew Sealy's loan I signed up a young scottish winger (Cameron Fletcher) instead. The midfield was bolstered with around 5 backups. And crucially, a solid striker (Abu Kamara) to rotate with Harker (and could also do a shift on the wing, so neither got too upset about playtime).
With the gaps finally plugged we were ready to smash our way out of this league. Harker got 21, Kamara got 19, Snelgrove got 21 and Fletcher got 14, and yet again none of our players got top scorer in the league.
Club legend and star centre back Adam Long somehow got into his head that he wasn't getting enough game time, and left on a free at the end of the season.
Season 7 - 2028/29 - Championship - 3rd - Promoted via playoffs
The momentum carried into this season as we somehow achieved back-to-back promotions. The squad didn't change too much this year, most notably Harker hit his ceiling and played a more bit-part role behind free transfer Ellis Simms. The signing of winger/ attacking mid Ryan Duncan was a game changer, 7 goals 16 assists. We also got a promising young fullback Garry Ryan in on loan (he was OK, and only gets a mention here because we get him permanently a year later). Kamara was the real star this season, 18 goals and 10 assists playing mainly as a winger.
In the playoffs, we edged out Sheffield Wednesday 3-2 over 2 legs, and then beat Blackburn 3-2 at Wembley thanks to a hat trick from Simms.
Season 8 - 2029/30 - Premier League - 15th
This was the first truly tough season, I feel we were lucky to catch the league on a year where there were enough bad teams around to stop us dropping straight down. The squad inevitably got rebuilt, too many to bother describing here but I'll dump some screenshots - though we did bring back Adam Long as I felt he deserved to get a chance to play for us at this level. Our stadium was no longer suitable so we instead have to ground-share with QPR (??) and sold off the Ken Beattie Stadium after 3 years for less than 10% of what we paid for it. Our new stadium will take 2 years to build and is very creatively also called the Ken Beattie Stadium.
The turning point of the season came in the January window when we brought in teenage Australian striker Jackson Higgins for £500k from Macarthur FC, who could become a world class player. We'd been just about keeping our heads above water and I'd have fancied us to survive anyway, but he gave us a bit of breathing room with 9 goals in 14 apps (11 starts).
Most importantly, our 111 yellows and 6 reds obliterated the previous Premier League record for worst discipline.
The Future
The club is in a really good place right now. We've survived the first year in the prem, that's the hard part of the challenge done really, and we also have some exciting young players coming through. Still another year before we get our proper stadium. I should finish my badges sometime in the off-season, we'll keep upgrading facilities and we are long overdue a staff overhaul. The budget this time is £30m and £250k/w, even bigger than last years.
Dane Murray - McCauley Snelgrove - Cameron Fletcher - Jude Sampson - Abu Kamara - Garry Ryan - Ryan Duncan - Ellis Simms - Dominik Reimann - Felix Correia - Tiago Geralnik - Harry Funnell - Jackson Higgins
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Morpeth Town - Part 1 - Early Years
Morpeth have had a great past couple of years, earning promotions in 2013, 2018 and 2019 to reach the Northern Premier. Surprised how high the reputation is considering they've effectively come out of nowhere to become 1 step below FM. I'm excited to finally have a Northumberland team to play this as (other than Blyth, which is pretty much Tyne and Wear anyway).
My previous attempts are Kettering (FM13ish, didn't even make it through a season), Blyth (FM18, got to League 2 before finding out a bug in the game meant I could never have a youth team) and South Shields (FM20, succeeded).
Season 1 - 2022/23 - National League North - 3rd - Promoted via playoffs
My first pre-season as manager was overall a success. It's all one year deals and free transfers at this level anyway, so aside from keeping a few key players I overhauled the squad entirely to assemble a squad which was predicted for upper-mid-table. We finished with a 100% record, admittedly against much weaker teams other than Rochdale.
Game 1 proper began alright, at home to one of the stronger sides in the league Gloucester City we went into half-time at 1-1. However, within a minute of kicking off after the break, Liam Noble was sent off, and we eventually fell to a 2-1 defeat. We only had to wait 3 days to get our first win though, as late strikes from Lewis Warrington and Sam McClellan saw us come from behind at Tamworth.
The season progressed pretty steadily, we stayed in and around the playoff positions for most of the year before ending the season unbeaten in 12, a run that elevated us to 3rd and crucially got us a bye to the playoff semis. We were drawn at home to Chester, the only team to do the double over us, the team we conceded the most goals to, the only team to beat us by more than 1 at home (2-1 and 3-1 losses). Disaster. But, the transfer window had re-opened, and in came striker Rob Harker. He had a storming game and bagged himself a goal in a 3-0 win, setting up a final against the team we lost to on the opening day.
To be honest, I thought we didn't stand a chance, Gloucester had 100 points and by far the best GD in the division and had missed out on the title by 1 point. We went down there and were behind inside 7 minutes. But then Liam Noble redeemed himself for the opening day red card, whipping in the perfect corner which was nodded in by Jeff Henderson. A stoppage time own goal meant we went into half time in front, somehow. We grew into the game more in the second half, but it wasn't until Matthew O'Neill's 78th minute goal that it really felt like we were up. Final score 3-1.
Despite the great final run, the team never really clicked in the way it did in the following seasons, and we were somewhat lucky to gain promotion at the first attempt. 3 players were tied for top scorer on 12, someway short of Gateshead's Martell Taylor-Crossdale's 41, who finished top scorer. It was largely a season of great defensive performances from centre back Lucas Gamblin, who helped us become the 2nd best defence in the league.
Financially we were OK, as every time we went into the red chairman Ken Beattie would invest some extra cash.
Effort in the cups has so far been minimal in this save, though we did alright reaching the 4th qualifying round of the FA Cup, only to lose to Grimsby.
Season 2 - 2023/24 - National League - 1st - Promoted
Promotion to the national league meant saying goodbye to Craik Park, which wasn't suitable for this level. We took up residency at Kingston Park in Newcastle, home of Newcastle Falcons Rugby Club, 10,000 capacity (this shouldn't be allowed since it is an artificial pitch, but the game incorrectly has it listed as grass...). We again made some good moves in the transfer market and braced ourselves for a relegation battle. After a mixed pre-season, we began very slowly, winless in the opening 7 (4 draws 3 losses).
The tide turned with a 3-0 win away at Chesterfield, kicking off a 6 game winning run that included putting 7 past Boreham Wood. Honestly we absolutely pissed this league, but the start made it interesting and almost had to go into the playoffs. The squad gelled incredibly and largely remains intact a few years on. We were again built on a solid defence with new signing Adam Long being the pick of the bunch, but this time we were also a threat going forwards. Rob Harker scored 25, missing out on league top scorer by 1.
The finances took a turn for the worse this season as the club was sold to McKenzie King, who no longer is clearing our debts. Despite this, he thought it wise to begin planning for a new stadium, with a smaller capacity than the one we were paying minimal rent for. An FA Cup 3rd round visit to Premier League Stoke offset this a little bit (saying Premier League is generous as they matched Derby's 1 win and 8 draw record season, though with 10 better GD).
Season 3 - 2024/25 - League 2 - 3rd - Promoted
This season was set up to be a struggle due to the large debt we'd accrued. I managed to get a few signings in before the 1st of July, when the promotion wage rises kicked in and wiped away my pretty meagre budget and then some. I was just about able to get all my first team players onto full-time contracts without having to cut anyone important, and my DoF handled all the staff. Luckily, the team was more than equipped to handle this league. With everyone fit, we were comfortably the best team in the league, but due to lack of budget out depth was atrocious and we really struggled during stretches of having 2 games a week, so ultimately settled for 3rd place. Automatic promotion, though we could've really done with a trip to Wembley and the ticket money that brings.
In the FA Cup, we were knocked out immediately by League 1 side Wycombe.
Debt continued to be an issue, and so naturally it was announced at the end of the season that we were taking out a £5m loan to begin building the new stadium, meaning the following season would be our last at Kingston Park.
Season 4 - 2025/26 - League 1 - 16th
Despite the debt, I was given a little bit of extra wage budget to bulk up the squad, though our new signings were disappointing and the starting 11 remained largely the same, at least depth was less problematic. We struggled for wins but never got too close to the relegation places. We were OK going forwards but far too leaky at the back, finishing with the 4th worst defence (behind 2 relegated teams and, bizarrely, 1 promoted team).
The season was ultimately a bit of a slog, the only truly notable game being another Premier League team drawn in the cup - Brentford battered us 3-0 at home, but we got a huge 9502 crowd, more than doubling the previous record.
Rob Harker got 20 goals, this time 3 behind the league leader.
The Future
We moved into the Ken Beattie Stadium in June 2026. Financially, we are still in a poor situation, but are starting to show signs of recovery - the projection has us still in the red, but less so than the current balance (and financial projections in FM tend to be overly pessimistic in my experience). I was able to free enough budget to be able to scout all of England, where previously I had only been able to afford the package for our division - this will mean we are finally able to find good loan opportunities, an area I feel has held us back considerably. I've also made some key several to the team (with more to follow before the window shuts) which I'm a lot more confident in than last summers lot, though it does mark the end of the era at Kingston Park and of the squad that played in it.
5659 fans attended the opening game at our new home, where we came back to win 2-1 against promotion favourites Preston, and Rob Harker scored the winner.
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Proud of my lads, coming back from 3 goals and 2 men down. One red rescinded as well (and the other dubious but upheld).
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7 hours ago, Smurf said:
This would be slightly better https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/FX504GD-E4603T-ASUS-FX504GD-E4603T_2354095.html
However, this has more hard disk space - https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/FX504GD-E41275T-ASUS-TUF-FX504GD-E41275T_2458989.html
If it was me - I'd go for the more hard disk space and add an SSD as a primary drive later down the road.
I saw you recommended the first one earlier but judging by the amazon reviews it has a very common fault. Will look into the other, thanks.
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Can someone give me a rough idea how significant an increase in performance I would get with a new laptop?
My current one is over 5 years old, but has 8GB RAM and a processor with quad cores and 2.16GHz (Intel Pentium N3520) so seems to align with what you recommend for low/mid price range.
Graphics are poor, of course, I'd be interested in a new laptop to start playing other games as well but for FM I'm more than happy with putting the settings on minimum.
How would it compare to something like this:
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/1TT86EAABU-HP-Pavilion-Power-15-cb004na_2416064.html
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dafuge's FM22 challenge
in Challenges, Sign-Ups & Experiments
Posted
Morpeth Town - Part 5 - Champions
Season 16 - 2037/38 - Premier League - 1st (Community Shield, Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup)
Table - Best XI - Europe
An unbelievable season, with a lot of the praise due to our only first team signing. We picked up young striker Enrique Molina for £84m - a club record - from Dortmund. It felt like a bit of a risk, we scored a lot of headed goals where this kid is small and quick, and my scouts rated him similar to van Dalfsen (but with higher potential) - which is fine, though not quite what I was hoping for when looking for a big name striker, but we aren't in a position to throw £150m+ at the already established players. His first month or so was OK, scoring a few goals but getting low ratings when he didn't score, however as the season went on he progressed rapidly. By Christmas we were 10 points clear, and got to a gap of about 17 when the title was won - this closed off a little bit later on as we gave the kids a few chances and focused on the other comps.
Our Champions League group was Milan, Marseille and Rosenborg, relatively straightforward and we won it with a game to spare. Round of 16 put us against PSG - they still dominate French football but they aren't the European powerhouse they usually end up becoming (and as it happens Lyon are defending Ligue 1 champions this year), it was a favourable draw and we won 3-0 away then put the reserves in to see it out. Barcelona in the quarters was a similar story, nothing to worry about really (the top level teams currently in my save are Juve, Bayern, the Manchesters and Newcastle, plus ourselves) - won 4-0 at home and rotated heavily after. The semi final against Juventus was a thriller - 1-0 down, 2-1 up, 3-2 down (end of first leg), 5-3 up, 5-5 to then win 6-5 in the 90+2nd minute. In the final, against our neighbours Newcastle, we win 2-0 with our record signing getting both.
Enrique Molina