Blarney

So, Blarney, what's up with the strange title? Can't you make up your mind... is this an FM23 save? An FM24 save? Or how is it a FM25 save when that hasn't even come out yet? Are you having a breakdown? No, my friends, but thanks for asking. Allow me to explain. I like Notts County. They're my club.... as much as any English club can belong to an American that spent a little time in England. But I have this thing.... I like underdogs, as I explained. And to me an underdog is someone or something that overcomes adversity. When Notts County was floundering in the National League that was adversity. Two years ago they overcame that and went on an amazing run (along with Wrexham) and made it back to the Football League. I'm very happy for them... but at the same time when I'm doing MY story, I want to be the one to write it. So instead of picking the story up "this season" or "next season" when FM25 comes out, I want to go "back in time" to 2 years ago when they were still in the National League and rewrite their story and make it mine. However, FM24 was a much more polished game than FM23 was..... and I assume FM25 with their alleged changes and upgrades will be even more polished and I'm planning on purchasing that. So I'm going to start the game in FM23.... immediately port it to FM24 and start the career there.... and then when FM25 comes out I'll port it to there and continue the story. It all makes sense in my mind, but hopefully that explains it.

Hey... it's me again. It's personal story time. Some may shake their heads at this and wonder why it's posted here. Others may be going through the same thing and understand why I'm posting it. Personally I feel I need to say it because there's still a stigma - especially here in the good ol' USA regarding mental health. What does that have to do with football? Not much. It has to do with me appearing to be flaky or not being able to finish things and disappearing at times in the middle of stories that I'm invested in or trying to be invested in. I think this will be my 6th or 7th attempt at a FM story. I've had 2 end with data failures in the game. I've had another end when I was absurdly fired from my job. I've had a couple of others that I just completely lost interest in because I wasn't "feeling" it. And I've had 1 or 2 that I loved.... that I just lost because I lost myself. My last story ended that way. I truly loved my Torquay story - from my perspective it was an interesting story with a touch of reality to it and it was fun, even though I know absolutely nothing about Torquay. But mental health got in the way. I took a couple weeks off to get myself right, which turned into a month and by the time I thought about getting back to it the feeling was just gone. I question myself a LOT, even sitting here writing this I've deleted what I was going to say 3 times now and rewritten it because it doesn't come out the way I want it to. I'm not even sure why I feel the need to explain -- because I probably don't need to. But at the same time it's something that I feel very deeply about and want to explain where my head is half the time when I'm writing these stories. And hopefully for anybody else suffering from mental health issues, I just want to express support and understanding and say I know what you're going through and how hard it can be to maneuver through the day. So why do I keep coming back? That's a very good question. While I was "away" getting my life back together I actually downloaded and played FC24 on my PS5..... it was terrible. Then FM24 became available for free on the PS5 so I downloaded that and started playing it. And with apologies to the creators of the game..... FM24 console edition is horrible. It's so bad. It's virtually unplayable. Give me the PC edition every day of the week. It did re-ignite my passion though. I missed the game. I missed the creativity of writing the stories. I like to write. I'm not nearly arrogant enough to say I'm really good at it but it is something I love. However, I need to get back to basics. My team - the team I fell in love with when I lived in England is Notts County. I've said before don't ask me why. I didn't live in Nottingham. I lived near Cambridge for 4 years. But Nottingham was one of my favorite cities in England and I visited there often and ended up going to probably a dozen Notts County matches. Strange... I know. You'd think I would have preferred Forest but that's not the case. Yes I did go to a few of their matches as well but I've always been drawn to County. I have a tendency to like the underdogs... not the bigger clubs in any sport. I hate the New York Yankees in baseball because they're the giants. I prefer the Tampa Bay Rays because they have to overcome being the small fish in the big pond. So the choice between Forest and County was easy for me. Give me the underdog. Give me the club that has to overcome. Maybe that's just how I see life overall. So I'm going back to Notts County. I'm doing what I love. For anybody that feels like following along.... I welcome you. For anybody else shaking their head and saying "here we go again" I understand.

Looks like a lot of quality moves, hope they work out for you.

Is Torquay nice... it seems their club is up for sale as well. I wonder how much they want for it. Yeah, I appreciate all the support and help but I think maybe I'm not made out for lower leagues at the moment, as cool as it sounded to start a club but others here are much better at this than I am. Torquay seems like a nice opportunity and maybe a good story, I'll think about that one if I can't find my passion again for this story. I think my first mistake was wanting a seaside club for some reason and not just putting one in Gravesend and planning on becoming the king of London... I had a much better story planned there but I fell in love with Bridlington and just jumped at it and then just lost it. As you said, it happens.

****** out of character ****** My updates have been very slow with this even though I'm doing them monthly because I'm feeling a big disconnect with this save right now. I'm not very good at managing in this game to begin with given my track record but I'm just lost in the lower leagues and having a hard time seeing a way forward, despite the fact I've read some very good "stories" from others that have done exactly that with smaller clubs like I've built here. My problem is we have no money.... and I was advised multiple times not to spend money anyway. But NOBODY and I mean NOBODY is willing to come here on a non-contract... nor have I even found a single loan to bring in players. I'm basically playing with 14 guys given the number of injuries I have and they are exhausted. My keeper is just terrible and couldn't stop a shot to save his life. We have no money and I don't know how to make money.... and every single other club in the league is spending money and bringing in players but mine. They're just not as bad as I thought they would be. I think I made a grave mistake (no pun intended) with not putting the team in Gravesend so at least maybe I'd have a better opportunity to make money in a larger territory but I don't know how that works in the game.... but even then we'd be a small club with no funds and I'm just not figuring out how to make it work. So for now my updates will probably be slow and few until I start feeling this save again -- if I do -- or maybe I'll just be done until FM25 comes out and I figure out how to run a club correctly.

October in Review Schedule It sort of all came crashing down this month, which I somewhat expected. We did win our 3rd Qualifying Round match in the FA Trophy and our Integros League Cup match.... but then lost in the first round of the FA Trophy later in the month. And then in league play our lack of depth really caught up with us as most of my players were just exhausted and started playing very poorly. We ended up with 1 win, 1 draw and 3 losses for the month where we scored 1 goal in those 3 matches. Table Those losses have moved us right down the table as other clubs just keep winning. Team Stats Overview Somehow our offensive numbers in comparison to the rest of the league are still excellent. Player Stats Overview Sani is good. Attacking Data We're still scoring a lot of goals overall.... except this last month. Almost everything else has returned to league average. Defending Data Our defensive numbers are basically average with the exception of possession won.... but we're HORRIBLE at keeping the ball out of the goal. Mostly because our keeper is horrible. Finances Well that's more like it. We lost over 16k this month and once again are bleeding cash.

Britton's Private Blog I'm 2 months into my tenure as the manager of Bridlington United and it's been quite a ride so far. There have been some definite highs and lows. We just lost a FA Cup match to a club that I really would have liked to beat but probably knew we wouldn't. The thing is their manager called my club out before the match and said he was happy to have such an easy match on the schedule. I never want to hear someone else talking about my club like that and we really wanted to go out and make them regret their words, but the fact is they were just better. It happsns, but I hope my boys take that and turn it into something they can use for the rest of the season. We haven't lost in league play yet (quickly knocks on wood).... but it's not like we're necessarily dominating either. We do lead the league in goals scored -- mostly thanks to my 18-year old striker, Glen Sani. He leads the league in goals scored and has 19 goals across all competitions. He has been incredible. Other than him we're relatively average at best on the attacking side. The problem is we're probably slightly worse than average on the defensive side -- especially at the goakeper position. We are just... not good there. I have also brought in a couple of dozen players on trial and have tried to find guys willing to come in on non-contracts but no luck there, so I'm sort of stuck with what I have unless I spend a little money and go get a new player or 2. For now I'll keep trying but I'm a little backed in a corner here. I'd rather not spend the money but if we start to slip in the league I may be forced to find a couple of extra warm bodies because my guys are getting a little tired with the number of matches they've been playing. Otherwise I really can't complain. I wasn't expecting to have a lot of money -- or really any to spend -- so it's nice I've been able to put a decent amount back from our winnings. And we're doing very well in league play with 2 games in hand on the teams right around me and only 2 points back in the league currently. We have 7 more matches on the docket this month with another FA Trophy match and Integro Cup match scheduled as well. Hopefully the guys can keep their legs under them.

September in Review Schedule Let's focus on the league first. Due to all the competition matches we only played 3 league games this month but we won 2 and earned a point in the other one. In competitions we played 3 FA Cup matches... winning in the First and Second qualifying rounds but then losing to FC United in the 3rd qualifying round. That one hurt because their manager called us out before the match and said we were no competition to them and it would be an easy victory. I don't know that I'd call 2-0 "easy" but they certainly outplayed us. We also played 2 matches in the FA Trophy and won both of those, so we're moving on there. Overall it was a very good month and with lots of competitions -- and wins -- comes a decent influx of money as well. Table So despite all our winning -- we still haven't lost a league match -- we find ourselves in the 4th spot on the table because there are other clubs in the league having great seasons so far as well. Stockbridge hasn't lost a match yet either. Pontefract, Belper and Stockton are all playing very well. One thing we do have is 2 games in hand on all those clubs due to our competition schedule... and we're only 2 points off the lead currently. League Player Rankings Sani continues to be not only the player of the year for us... but for the league as well. League Team Rankings Team Attacking Stats Sanie's 19 goals across all competitions paces the club by a large margin. Without him.... we'd be in trouble I think. Team Defending Stats Finances A very profitable month for a small club.

This issue killed a Notts County save for me. I got back-to-back promotions and had signed a lot of the players to new contracts the 2nd season I was in charge. By the 3rd year - a single year after a bunch of new contracts were signed - about half those players demanded new contracts and the few that I didn't capitulate to created all kinds of problems in the club. By the time I ended up giving in on most of them we were spending more than 100k per week as a League One club and I had a couple of players on contracts worth more than 10k per week. There was no way it was feasible and we couldn't make near enough money to support it.

Bridlington Echo Brid's Free Monthly Newspaper We sat down with Bridlington's own Britton Burton, manager of the Bridlington United Football Club to ask him a few questions about the previous month. I would imagine you're quite satisfied with the results of your first month in charge? Yes, very satisfied. The boys have been playing good football and are enjoying themselves out there. Is the good attitude part of the winning formula? Absolutely. I think no matter what field you work in if you're happy with your job and you love coming to work it makes your job easier. When things aren't going well no matter how professional you are it's going to creep into your mind and affect your attitude and make your job that much harder. In sports that's a really big thing since half the job is between your ears. So the mental aspect of the game is something you push in training? It's certainly one big part, just like the physical part and the technical part is... those are probably the 3 main aspects of training. The more prepared you are in each aspect of training the better you're going to perform on the pitch. You've brought in quite a few players on trials but as of yet haven't announced any new contracts. Can you update us on the status of those trials and are there any players you're trying to sign? Umm, yeah, we've definitely brought in quite a few players and there's reasoning behind that. Obviously the financial side of where we are in the English football pyramid at the moment isn't conducive to spending a lot of money and it being a good business decision. We are trying to grow the club and as we do that there will be more money available for us to improve the things we need to improve. So right now bringing in players on free trials gives us the opportunity to scout players without having the need to send scouts across the country which costs a lot of money and it gives us the opportunity to determine who - if anybody - we might want to keep around. And yet you haven't announced any new signings to date. No, we haven't... because the 2nd part of those financial constraints is the fact that we just don't have the funds to bring in a lot of new players, so our best bet right now is to find players willing to play on non-contracts -- basically an opportunity for them to play and show they're worth getting a shiny new contract from some club that can afford it. But obviously most players aren't very willing to do that so it's just a weeding out process to find guys that are, and that fit the club. You've managed 2 wins in the FA Cup preliminary rounds. How happy are you with that and how far do you think the team can go in this tournament? It's been a big boost to the club. It adds to the belief system that we can win games that some others may think we can't. As far as how far we can go, let's not get ahead of ourselves and as much as I hate to sound cliche, just take one game at a time. The team's attacking stats have been quite outstanding so far, to what do you attribute that success? Training... and belief. Again, it's somewhat simple. If you don't believe you can do something you're probably not going to. But that belief is only part of it, the second part is that you have to be prepared. That preparation makes going out there and doing it much easier. So not to be a broken record but you need the mental side, the physical side and the technical side all working together. That's what you train for. And when training goes good, your attitude and belief that you can do something is good as well. We've taken that and we've put it all together on the pitch so far. Now it's just a matter of keeping that belief up and the training good. Well things are certainly good so far, we wish you continued success out there this season. Thank you and thank you to our supporters as well.

August In Review Schedule What a brilliant opening month for the club. It started with a 3-0 win in our opening match of the year, which happened to be a FA Cup match. Then 2 wins and a draw out of our first 3 league matches... one of which we knocked in 5 goals. Add in another win in the FA Cup to advance. And then follow that up with a 4 goal victory and a 2-2 draw.... assisted by an own-goal - but we'll take it. All-in-all not a bad way to start the season. Table A great opening month puts us to the top of the table early. We're one of only 2 unbeaten teams in the league... and hold the best goal difference in the league as well. Team Stats Overview We've almost doubled the next highest amount of goals in the league, plus we are top 5 in possession, pass completion, shots on target ratio and conversion. I'd say that's not bad at all. Player Stats Overview I said Sani had a chance to be speical and so far he's playing like it. I don't want to put too much pressure on the young man, but it's a good start to his career. Attack Data Our attacking stats are just off the map right now. Defend Data Those possession won numbers are outstanding. Financials Not bad. Not bad. It's always good to make a little money... even if it is a little.

Season Ticket Sales Our heartfelt thanks to our 60 hardcore fans!

Whatever gets the job done... or fits the narrative.

FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round Preview You make your managerial debut on the road in an FA Cup extra preliminary round match versus Westbury United. How are the butterflies? Yeah, they're there. I don't think you could count yourself alive if you weren't feeling something at this moment. You've previously said that your main objective this season was league play and that everything else was just secondary. Does this mean a result here doesn't matter? No, I wouldn't say that. My intention was to say that our main goal this season is to be competitive in league play, that's what the supporters want more than anything. But that's not to say that we're just going to lay down and roll over in these competitions. That's not in me or this club. We're absolutely going to go out there and give everything we can and go as far as we can. We owe that to our fans. Good luck out there. Thanks!

Bridlington Free Press Exclusive Interview with Britton Burton First off congratulations on the new job. Thank you, I'm extremely happy to have the honor of leading my home-town club. For those that don't know you were born and raised in Bridlington. Your family owns AB Graphic - who own Bridlington United. Your great-uncle - Charles Burton - is the current Chairman of the company and your father - Stanley Burton - is a sales director. AB Graphic is one of the top employers in the area so to say that your family name at least is pretty well known would be an understatement. What was the reasoning behind AB Graphic deciding to start a new club, especially with Bridlington Town recently going defunct after not finding a new owner when it was put up for sale. And why wouldn't they have just purchased that club? Well you'd probably have to ask Uncle Charles and the board he put in place to determine whether purchasing that club or starting a new one made more sense.... or if even starting a club in the first place was a good investment. If you're asking my opinion, I think they wanted to do something from scratch and make it their own, rather than take on the old club and their history. In the end it's really more of a next chapter for Bridlington football... with the name Bridlington United. So a little about you for our readers who are curious who the new gaffer is. You are from Bridlington - which we've already established. You are an ex-football player, having gone through the academy at Leeds United until you were injured playing a match when you were 17-years old. The injury was significant enough that you decided to give up on your playing career and instead decided to coach. You stayed with Leeds and worked in their academy, where you've been for the past 3 plus years. From everything we've been told by the head of the Leeds Youth Academy you were a very successful instructor there. They said you had a great passion for teaching the game and that the kids that went through the academy really liked working with you. Can we assume that you enjoyed teaching as much as it seems the players enjoyed learning from you? I'd say it was a passion of mine, still is. I liked playing. I won't be arrogant enough right now to suggest that I would have been a great player or even a good player, but I had enough talent to play. Unfortunately that was taken away from me so I turned that passion elsewhere. It's a source of pride to hear that the players I worked with enjoyed learning from me and I enjoyed learning from them as well. So that's a brief history obviously but it brings us up to current times and you being hired as the manager of Bridlington United. It would obviously be easy for everyone to assume you got the job because of your family connections and I doubt many would have issue with that since you at least do have a background in the sport, but Charles Burton actually said that they interviewed several other people before settling on you and that you weren't just given the job. Well truth-be-told regardless of my status as Uncle Burton's great-nephew and my father sitting on the board as well... they actually hired someone else as Chairman of the club and that individual sat in on all interviews and had as much say as everyone else on the board did on who they wanted hired. Now, I was told early on that they were planning on starting a new club once Bridlington Town closed down and I was asked if I had any interest in coming here in some capacity - which wasn't necessarily going to be as the manager. So I went through the interview process just like everyone else did. Whether I had a leg up or not is for others to argue. Personally I'd like to think I got the job on my merits alone and I hope to prove to the supporters here that I did deserve the job. Despite being a lower tier club and obivously not in a hot-bed for the sport, Bridlington Town was nonetheless somewhat successful in their own right. Where a lot of other small town clubs are drowning in debt, Brid was solvent. You mentioned that one of the conversations had by the new owners of Bridlington United was whether it was financially realistic to start a new club, so we can assume that the answer they came up with was yes, since they did start a new club. What are the expectations with United? We can obviously assume you want to stay within whatever budget the board sets, but are there hopes of growing the club at all? Is this a Ryan Reynolds thing where you're planning on taking Bridlington all the way to the Premier League? *laughs* I think we'll start by getting the club up and running first. Maybe baby steps to start. I think any comparisons to Ryan Reynolds or Wrexham at the moment are a little far fetched. Maybe our supporters don't want to hear that but we have to be a little honest with ourselves. Does that mean I think we can't fight for promotion... absolutely not. But whether it's in the cards our first year or it takes a couple of seasons, we just want to do things right. One more question then. What type of football can the supporters expect on the pitch? Again, if we're being honest, at this level and with our players I think you are just wanting to see physical play. You want to see the guys out there giving everything they've got. We don't want to make things too complicated, but you do want to see effort. So the one promise I'll make the supporters is we're going to play hard. Thanks for your time. Thank you.

Thanks, mate, I truly appreciate it.

Season Preview Wow...... according to those that think they know we're just not a very good team and most likely facing relegation. This also fits the talk I had with the team when I told them I thought we were good enough for a top of the table finish and they were all very upset. I capitulated and said "okay, how about mid-table" and they still got mad. It appears even my own players don't think they're very good or stand any chance this season in the league. I hope everybody is wrong, because I do think there is some talent here. Of course I have no idea how the other clubs look, so I guess we'll find out soon enough.

No, sir. Please and thanks for any and all advice. I'm an American which means my understanding of your game is already somewhat limited, even though I have spent time in England which is where my passion for the sport started. And I have followed it and have tried to learn all I can but my knowledge of tactics and the English pyramid system and the ins and outs of the sport are somewhat sporadic. I'll look at how to do trialists, I've never done that but I have an idea of what it is. I figured worrying about youth development wasn't going to be much of a concern because anybody at this level wasn't going to be worth much in a few years anyway unless you got very lucky. And I definitely wasn't going to go out and try to find any big contracts.... because we couldn't afford them anyway. I don't understand signing someone on a non-contract but I'll look that up as well. I already have several players that are out of contract and I assumed I'd need to re-sign them to keep them but maybe I'm wrong there. I'll figure things out by trial and error but I truly appreciate the advice.

What are we doing here? We're playing football!!! Okay, in all seriousness what is the goal here? Is taking Brid to the Premier League really a thing? Probably not in real life, in the game... I don't know, never tried from this low on the pyramid and honestly I've failed with much better clubs, but we'll see. We're starting off in the Northern Premier League Division One East.... which is in the 8th tier. That's a lot of steps up the ladder to get anywhere. Our manager is 21 years old with zero experience, no badges, no shortcuts, no smart pills to take to make him an uber-manager. We're starting from scratch. We're going to attempt to be as realistic as we possibly can with our signings - whether staff or players, which means we're not going to go to France and sign some wonderkid. What am I missing? Nothing I can think of right now, so I think that means we're ready to go.

Board Vision They're not really asking much here. Are we supposed to be concerned about being relegated? Maybe I'm overestimating how good this club is. 4 seasons of staying in the same league? Hopefully we can do much better than that, but if that's all they're asking then there shouldn't be much pressure on me to perform. Supporter Profile Almost 50% of our support is either hardcore or core... that's nice. It should mean we'll put some fans in the seats on game day. Right?

Tactics Formation We're going to keep is pretty simple and relatively boring with a standard 4-4-2 formation. We don't really have the players for much else nor do we expect them to be talented enough at this level to understand complicated tactics. We really like our chances up front, we think our attack is going to be very good. Everyone else is just going to sit back and either support or defend. In Possession In Transition Out of Possession

Meet the Squad Forwards Sani is a stud... especially at this level. We need to get him re-signed immediately. I can see him tearing up this league and probably the next. He's also just 18 so he has plenty of room to grow as well. Middle-men We have some really good players in the middle... Aydemir, Dennison, Cunningham. And not too old either. Defensive Line Not bad, not great. To be expected. Keepers We have.... one keeper. And he's older and not great. Not horrible... but not great. Overview I'm not sure what I expected since this is my first lower level save but I knew I wasn't going to have much depth or really great players but I'm actually somewhat pleasantly surprised that I do have a few that really do look like good quality ballers. We obviously do not have much depth or really any at all. We also don't have any money, which I assume will be a theme for years to come at this level, so we will deal with that. I'm going to imagine that loans will come in to play, which will be the first time in any save that I've used that avenue to get players, but I can see how it's something useful at this level when you don't have money. We do not have a senior affiliated club at the moment so I may ask the board to pursue that but otherwise I'm going to have to find out how to go out and find loans from bigger clubs and bring in a few more players. I don't know anything about this level or the quality of competition but I can't imagine that we are any worse than the best clubs in this league with the quality of the players I see here. I'll see what the season preview looks like to see if I'm right.

Meet Britton Burton So truth be told I've had 3 different back-stories in play for how I was going to do this save and who the manager was going to be.... and I deleted each one of those and rewrote it a couple more times. For some reason each time something felt.... off. In the end I decided to go with something more "local" and somewhat plausible given the case that I'm starting a new club and that obviously it would be some local business person most likely purchasing the club and funding it. In this case I chose one of the larger employers and most successful businesses in the area, AB Graphic... which is owned by the Burton family. Now, I don't want to make the whole save about nepotism and in the game the chairperson's name is Smurthwaite... while our manager's name is going to be Burton. So we're going to say that the Burton family is starting the club, they're putting up all the money but since they know nothing about running a football club they've hired Peter Smurthwaite as the Chairperson while being the money that runs the machine. So where does Britton Burton come in? Well Britton is the 21-year old great-nephew of Charles Burton - who is the current Director of AB Graphic. Britton is a footballer... or he was. A pretty good one as well, if you ask him. He was in Leed's youth academy... and had been from the time he was 9-years old until he turned 17 when he got injured in a match and was unable to continue playing football at a high level. He quickly learned that those that can no longer do... can teach. And sometimes teach very well. He was hired by Leeds to help teach in their youth academy and found a real love of helping other "kids" learn to play the game. In fact in just a couple of years he had become one of their top instructors. Which brings us to today and Bridlington United. When Charles Burton decided to start a club the met with several potential managerial candidates but when one has someone in their own family that has played the game and taught the game, why look elsewhere. Especially when you're a Tier 8 football club. It's not like you're going to go out and get... really anybody. So why not allow your great-nephew to show what he can do? It's a good question... and the answer is you probably would. At least in this world we are. Let's see what the kid can do.

We are Bridlington In honor of our seafaring past -- and present -- we will be known as the mariners. Our logo will be an anchor, which is symbolic of our fortitude as a club, our fortitude as a town and our fortitude as a people. We will not be divided. We will not be conquered. We are United!

Bridlington United FC Welcome to AB Graphics Stadium Disregqrd that it says Bridlington Town... we're acquiring the stadium - in my vision, I have no idea how it's handled in the game. Capacity is somewhere around 2800 in real life.... in the game it says 3000 warm bodies. Grass pitch is in really good condition. There's a nice little hospitality suite... for both home and away. And a really cool bar attached to the stadium as well. And I mean really cool... and quite large. You could hold conventions here on the side to make a little extra cash. Heck, maybe I'll move to England and buy the club, I wonder how much they want for it. I could be the next Ryan Reynolds... although I'm not sure that Bridlington is quite Wrexham.