Motlhen

My team of Enfield-based players ended our first season in tier 9 (3rd season overall) with a 10th place finish.

After losing our Assistant Manager at the start of last season and resorting to bringing in a sub-standard ass man as a short-term replacement, I am delighted to have upgraded to an ex-player with a phenomenal career record. Scott McGleish brings a wealth of experience with him!

We've had another takeover. I've been struggling to keep the finances above zero. And we now have two bank loans to contend with.

Other Enfield Clubs We battled with Cockfosters all season, just pipping ahead of them at the tail end of the campaign. Enfield FC finished mid-table again.. ..as did Enfield Town. All-in-all a pretty unremarkable season for Enfield-based teams.

2024/25 Season We're predicted to be well up against it and are favourites to return to tier 10. Board Expectations Staff Out We lost our Assistant Manager to a Manager role. Whilst I understand the decision, this one really hurt as we are struggling to bring in any Enfieldian staff. Staff In 25 days later, I resorted to bringing in a very under-qualified Assistant. Someone is better than no-one, right? On a more positive note, the club now has a decent (for our level) GK coach. Which leaves our backroom staff in a healthy position for the start of the season. Transfers In After successful loan spells last season, GK Dipre & Mace join us on a permanent basis. Cheek & Martin both play in midfield and the loanees will battle for the same spot in the team. We also brought in a right-back, left-back, right winger, left winger and a new defensive mid. Transfers Out Purslow left quite late in the window as he had lost his position in the team. Conteh was brought in this season, but wasn't content to be a backup so left in late Feb to leave us slightly short at LB. Youth Intake Adams & Hendey are very exciting prospects! Plus we got our first Enfield-born GK through our youth intakes. Fixtures FA Cup We were quickly outclassed after the preliminary rounds. FA Vase I feel we were unlucky with the draw here, drawing giants Vauxhall Motors early on. We battled well to force a draw, but lost to the lottery of penalties. League After a rocky start & no win in September, October's results made me start looking up the table. But the rest of the season we could not find any sort of consistency. I'm happy we stayed way clear of a relegation battle and am happy with our mid-table finish. (Especially as we finished just above other Enfield-based club Cockfosters!) The Squad I want to highlight three players for their consistent high performance levels over the past 3 seasons.

Best New Youth Prospects from Enfield (at other clubs) Current Enfield-born Best XI GK DEF MID ATT

Other Enfield Clubs Enfield Town & Enfield FC had great first seasons in their new league, both steering way clear of a relegation battle. Cockfosters also had another decent season. BUT remaining in the 9th tier means we will now be facing them in the coming season!

Thanks! But no, not even close to any cups yet.

I had quite a few clubs interested in my services, but I'm sticking to Enfield!

Managed to win promotion from level 10 at the second attempt with my team of Enfieldians!

2023/24 Season We have changed the regional division we are competing in at level 10 from the Eastern Counties League First Division South to the Spartan South Midlands League Division One. Our odds have dropped from last season despite what I had hoped to be some squad improvements. Maybe there are better teams in this division than last season's? Staff Ins/Outs We lost our Sports Scientist as he didn't want to sign a new contract. I managed to get our HoYD to sign a contract agreeing to also work as a scout before we brought in an out-and-out scout. We also managed to pick up a fitness coach, who joins me & my ass man as the only coaches at the club. Transfers Out We released the worst player who was at the club when I joined as well as Charles as we did not need additional cover at LB and I didn't see any benefit of keeping him around. Transfers In We needed cover at goalkeeper with only one on the books, so as a priority I brought in Dipre on loan from Enfield Town. The next two signings I made were the same two signings I made last season, except we are now bringing Purslow and O'Neill permanently to the club. Sackey-Mensah & Mabete's additions will mean we have a much improved defensive line and I brought in Goss as cover & Mace became available at RB where no one had stood out to keep the first team spot ahead of him. Youth Intake 10 of the youth intake came from Enfield and Sanogo could feature as a backup although I don't expect much from many of the others. Fixtures We managed to hammer Tower Hamlets in our most satisfying win of the season, knocking out the team that stopped us in the promotion playoffs last season. But our cup run didn't last much longer. In the league we started incredibly well and it looked like we would walk to the title, but a big mid-season blip required an impeccable end to the season to claim top spot ahead of East Socon who capitulated at the end of the season to finish 3rd. The Squad Josh Davies brings in another huge season as our box-to-box midfielder with an outrageous set of stats (18 goals, 14 assists, 28 chances created & 137 key passes). Ridiculous from a player not rated at all by our staff. Last seasons backup striker turned into this season first team starter and Stockhill hit 46 goals in 34 apps to claim the league's top scorer trophy. O'Neill also continued his incredible form after last season's impressive loan spell.

Yep, that's me! My scouting emails are almost all 5* A+'s which tells me that there are definitely much better players out there, just not from our borough: In the first two seasons, I have managed to bring in 3 signings + 5 loanees to boost on the players from Enfield coming through our youth intakes. It's definitely a smaller pool of players, but like @lionel messi said: ...so it's not been too difficult down at level 10. How are you finding doing it youth academy only?

Another cool thing I noticed.. On the staff front, we only have one staff recommendation (from Enfield) in the staff search. But Stacey Salis is waaay too good for our club, so for her to be interested ahead of much, much worse staff with way lower reputation was very surprising. That was until I noticed that she has a tendency to want to work in the lower leagues (not something I'd ever seen / noticed before!) Apologies if these are commonplace parts of the game that I've missed 'til now, but I guess I'm noticing these things now as I've not played with these sort of restrictions before.

Of course I haven't won in 3 games since posting this

Hey guys, I noticed that after my Chairman retired due to wanting to only take up part-time roles in football moving forward that he popped up as s DoF / Scout. I had no idea that board members could transition into employable staff and wondered if this was common knowledge or if I've seen something pretty rare?! ...

I've never seen (or noticed) this before! My old Chairman has retired from hands on roles in football and is only looking for part-time roles now.. as a director of football or a scout! I will definitely keep trying to sign him, despite him not wanting to come back to the club yet.

I'm enforcing this rule on myself at the moment and in our 2nd season in tier 10 we are storming the league. First season we got in to the playoffs but with a few key additions our squad is in cruise control after after a dozen games so using only regional players might not make a huge difference. The players at other tier 10 clubs really are some of the worst players I've ever come across in FM

...luckily I have been given a quick escape from financial turmoil! This has meant we have arranged our debt into a loan and have a positive balance again.

Finances I usually do alright managing finances, but this season I've made a huge mistake. Despite not having any scouts, we somehow spent £114k on scouting costs in the last 12 months. I (wrongly) assumed, no scouts means no scouting costs. I've created a big hole I'll have to help dig us out of.

Hey guys, I'm trying this challenge too With a slight twist: I am only signing players & staff from the borough my club is in (Enfield). So I might be making a lot slower progress than some of you will! My profile: Our first season we managed to finish 5th, losing out in the semi-final of the playoffs.

Transfer Activity from Other Players born in Enfield Josh Onomah was released by Fulham, but picked up immediately by Hellas Verona where he helped keep them up in the Serie A. Jake Livermore has been placed on the transfer list at WBA after a mediocre season. His career could be winding down. Another player picked up by my scouts having been born in Enfield was 40yo Gibraltarian international Roy Chipolina. He may well be the most capped Enfield-born player of all time! New Youngsters The three biggest players produced by other clubs this season.

Other Enfield Clubs Cockfosters finished a respectable 6th and will remain in the 9th tier. Enfield FC absolutely blew away the competition to be crowned champions and win promotion to tier 8. Enfield Town battled through the playoffs to make it up to tier 6.

2022/23 Season We were predicted to do pretty poorly, but there's no relegation to worry about from the 10th tier. Transfers In No permanent moves, but three waves of loanees boost our squad with quality and numbers for depth. 5 of the 7 players come from the other teams in Enfield. Youth Intake 8 of the youth intake came from Enfield. I was hoping we'd manage to get a backup goalkeeper, but it wasn't to be. I'm very happy to get a central defender and a defensive-minded midfielder as they were two positions we struggled with this season. Fixtures After a blockbuster win in the first qualifying round, we were out of the cup with a whimper in the second qualifying round. We started pretty well, but inconsistency crept in. Winning 7-2 then two games later losing 7-2 sort of summed up our season. We did out-perform our preseason prediction and overall I'm happy with the league performance, despite ending with disappointment with a loss in the playoff semis. The Squad Bringing in O'Neill on loan was key. He was our best player by a mile! Youngster Harewood was key after I retrained him to play as a centre-back. Josh Davies was the surprise package of the season with a phenomenal all-round performance.

Players (In Depth) GK Our number 1 (and only) goalie. DEF We only have fullbacks. Two players can play at centre-back and so I guess they will have to. Harewood will be retrained as a centre-back as he has the best attributes to adapt to his new position. MID All of our central midfielders are attack-minded. We need reinforcements! ATT We have good depth up front, but not much quality. I sincerely hope that we never have to use Garside. Potential Signings Our staff have only recommended 2 potential loans and 2 potential transfer targets so we might not be able to strengthen the squad as much as I'd hoped. At this point, any players we can get in will be helpful. Players from Enfield (plus youth prospects) We haven't signed these guys, I'm just keeping an eye on the best talents the region has produced.

Staff (In Depth) I'm happy that 3 of the 4 staff members I've kept at the club (the Enfieldians) have fairly professional personalities. We have a pretty decent HoYD for this level. I'm hoping to keep him around! We have a physio who can do a job for us, hopefully he can improve. I am in half a mind to release our Recruitment Analyst as he's pretty poor. I'll give him to the end of his contract and see if I can find any better replacement. We have a sports scientist, but I would like an improvement here too. Potential Staff Signings I may have got my hopes up a little.. there's only one recommended staff signing and she wants 600% higher wages than what we can offer. I guess I'll be doing all I can to keep hold of the four staff members I do have! Staff from Enfield These are my pick of the top 3 most famous staff members from Enfield: