antonyjguyan

Season 16 We were predicted to finish bottom and it was looking rather ominous in the first nine games as we sat in the relegation zone. But a change of tactics changed things around. I thought if we’re gonna go down may as well do it in style so I went with an aggressive attacking tactic. It worked and we shot up the league and by the new year we were knocking on the door of the play-offs. The tactic was certainly entertaining and we scored lots but also conceded quite a few. It was a case of you score three we’ll score four! Sometimes it didn’t work against the top clubs like Solihull Moors, Hartlepool etc and they absolutely pumped us! I went with a slightly more conservative approach when facing them and when away. It helped and we sealed a 6th place finish. Absolutely chuffed with that considering we were expected to go down and the board saying fight bravely against relegation. We somehow beat Hartlepool in the first play-off game after going down to 10 men! But things just went horribly wrong in the semi against Solihull and we got absolutely pumped 6-1! Ratings wise it’s possibly one of the worse I’ve ever seen! The subs I brought on got a better rating so it doesn’t look as bad! We did finish 25 points behind them and the gap certainly showed and it was clear how much I’ve still got to do in plugging that gap!

Season 15 After a short break and coming back only to find my save was corrupted was really a blow to the family jewels! Especially after 14 seasons and going pretty well in season 15. I think I was sitting in 4th after 17 games and was hopeful of maintaining that only to find the file was corrupted. I really considered just ending the save there and then and just didn’t have the stomach starting all over again and wait till FM25 for the new AFC Crewe challenge. Thankfully I have rolling saves on and after a brief time thinking about it I went through the rolling saves. Sadly almost all were buggered as well and I got to the last one with a heavy heart but it loaded with no problem! It was like Christmas!!! The bad news was it was back in Season 14 with 12 games left to play! After some more deliberating I continued that save and thankfully I finished almost indentical to the one I had already finished! So finally onto Season 15 & it couldn’t have been any more different than what I had already started before it corrupted! The season was a huge struggle despite having a decent team and considered to be good enough for a mid table finish! Spent all season fighting relegation and it looked on the cards at one point being 6 points away from safety having played more games! But got a nice little run together with one defeat in 9 games but we then began to find consistency a little hard to come by but managed to grab 5 wins in 14 games to keep us above the dreaded drop zone. Thankfully we secured safety in the penultimate game not for the want of trying but more to do with others not winning as we drew two & lost two of our last 4 games. I can it see being a massive struggle in this league until the board to make us professional. Being part time is part of the problem as we continually lose out in signings or being flat out rejected due to them wanting a full time contract. Until we turn fully professional we won’t make any progress in this league unless I find some good signings and manage to get them to sign! Talking of signings there will be definitely some goings as a few signings just haven’t worked and they continuously dropped 6.1’s, 6.2’s! Even when played in their favoured roles! They also could never pair well with anyone and I could never get a good understanding with them never getting those lovely green lines and only getting the horrible broken orange lines which indicate they don’t play well together! I only persevered cos I have a small squad! Nothing to write home about in both cup competitions going out at the first hurdle in the FA Cup & only getting through to the third round in the FA Trophy. Also had yet another takeover, the fourth in about 3 years!

Been gone for a little bit as was on holiday. I’ve tried to load my game and sadly it’s been corrupted and even the rolling saves are useless going back to February of the season Ive just finished! I’m absolutely gutted and I’m torn to continue season 14 since I’ve already finished it and was 17 games into season 15 and doing so well, sitting in 4th place, or just giving up on the save!

Season 14 was always going to be a tough one as I believe the vast majority of the players were going to hit that glass ceiling of how talented they are. The bookies also saw a tough time ahead and made us one of the favourites to get relegated. And so it proved to be, except the relegation part as we secured a 16th place finish. But it was tough and by far the least enjoyment season I've experienced obviously because of the many, many defeats. Despite my best efforts I just couldn't bring in any players who could get us into the top half of the table and maybe set us up nicely for the following season. our first 23 games went ok and we were sitting mid table and not that far away from the play offs. But in FM fashion, as I believe the AI doesn't really take you that serious at first and it's a good time to get in a few surprise results in. But then as soon as the season ticks over into the second half of the campaign the AI suddenly considers you a threat. And so it proved and we only recorded two wins in the final 17 games. Thankfully we had collected enough points to be not really in any trouble of the drop, picking up valuable draws to keep us at arms length away from that dreaded drop zone. Can't say I'm sad the season is over and I've got a big summer ahead as I'm going to take a huge risk in releasing so many players who are really not good enough for this level. I'm only keeping on 6 players out of a squad of 19 players, that's not including the numerous loans I had in if you're thinking that's a small squad. But we need to put our Big Boy Pants on now along with the board who, in my opinion, were stupid not to turn the club professional and also not in finding a senior affiliate club. Which I found dumbfounding considering the clubs location in the country. Stoke, Birmingham and Villa not exactly a million miles away! I'm hoping they'll change their mind considering our professional status as this was a major stumbling block when trying to sign players as they wanted a full time contract.

Is there any point updating how we are doing on this challenge? There seems to be no updates on how we are all doing! Has it ended cos it’s the end of the season or is the challenge ongoing until FM25 comes out?

Season 13 and it’s a Double winning season! Champions of the Northern Premier Division & promotion to Tier 6 plus adding the Integro League Cup! We didn’t make things easy for ourselves after a great run of games giving us a 10 point lead! The typical FM mid season wobble struck seeing our advantage being pulled back to four points. We managed to get back on track and again got a comfortable lead back up to about 9 points but despite going the final 10 games unbeaten we drew five of them which saw our lead again down to only 2 points! Blyth were just restless and with a trickier final few games it looked liked they could pinch first place off us! A switch to a 4-4-2 Diamond, mainly due to injuries & untimely suspensions, saw us batter Warrington Rylands 6-1 in the penultimate game and Blyth losing to Chorley handed us the title! Stuck with this formation in the Final against Milton & we won 5-1 after going down 1-0 as well!

Season 12 So close to getting into the play-offs but a defeat on the final day of the season to Newcastle Blue Star, the only team who could catch us, meant another season in the Northern Premier. Can't be too disappointed as it was completely unexpected as I didn't or more like couldn't add much in the terms of better players to the squad. It was a mixture of either just not having the wage budget to sign anyone on a free or the players signing for better teams higher in the pyramid. Knockout competitions were nothing to write home about and it was early knockouts across all three competitions.

Season 11 After a mid table finish last season I was quietly confident that I had the building blocks in place for a play off challenge if not maybe a whiff of a title challenge this season. I had a good nucleus to my squad and a few additions to it was all it needed for us to finally get out of this division. Although we did our best to make it as difficult as possible. Never truly making a break for it as every time we got our noses in front we just seemed to throw the opportunity away, no thanks to our keepers trying their best to have as many howlers as possible. They must had cost us four wins, at least. We just kept trading blows with West Didsbury. One week they’d be top, the other us. It was going down to the last ten games as our most important run of games as we had six teams to face who were trying to get a play off place and two crucial games where we’d be facing both West Didbury & Bury for what were basically title deciders. Our worst performances were actually against three teams in the bottom six with the other 7 games against the aforementioned play off & title potentials going rather well. Despite the poor performances against those three bottom six teams we drew all three 2-2 & picked up 7 wins against our fellow top 6/7! We went into the last game three points clear but had a +20 goal difference so we were basically champions and it was nice to go into that game knowing we didn’t need to win! but we sealed a win and with West Didsbury losing we finished six points clear and finally champions! I was also offered the Peterborough, Cardiff & Barnsley job!

Season 10 A season to forget in the league which promised so much. We were always floating about the play off places but never threatened the top two places occupied by Milton & Stalybridge. They simply disappeared over the hills and fought out the title between themselves with Stalybridge clinching it on the last day. But as always my better players were cherry picked and there was a massive drop off when three of my best players up and left for pastures new! It couldn’t have happened at a worst time as the season was drawing to a close and we were sitting pretty in the play off spots. As I said the wheels just came off in the last 7 games winning only one and drawing another. This run of bad form saw us drop to 8th and no chance of a play off spot. After three failed takeover attempts we finally got taken over on the fourth attempt and wiping out our huge debt (albeit with a large bank loan taking its place). Then like London buses we had a second successful takeover in a matter of months of the first! After a few seasons of poor cup runs we had our best season concerning cup runs. Reaching the 3rd Qualifying Round of the FA Cup, 4th Round of the FA Tropy & reaching the final of the Integro League Cup where we lost on penalties to Bromsgrove Sporting despite being the better team and out XG-ing them!

The fourth attempt succeeded and they cleared the debt as well! Also had a very good run in the FA Cup & FA Trophy which improved the bank balance even further so looking good on that front for the next couple of seasons! This probably means I can now add to an already improving team next season and challenge for the title! Although we had two great cup runs it had an adverse affect on our league campaign with a huge fixture pile up and we were playing games every 3 days and with a small squad my players were just knackered & having to rotate all the time it also affected team cohesion!

Season 9 The board were expecting a mid table finish and the media were slightly more optimistic of our chances and predicted us to finish 6th. Things started off well with 6 wins & 3 draws in our opening 9 games saw us sitting in the top 3 places. But, then everything turned sour and we only recorded another 4 wins in the next 13 games with 9 defeats! Turns out that was it for defeats in the league for the remainder of the season. The bad form put paid to our title hopes but we were still with a chance to get into the playoffs. Which we did. We got to the final and it was to be a derby against town rivals Alsager Town! Sadly it was a bridge to far and we lost 4-3! We did have 2 goals disallowed for offside which looked very dubious at best. The fact no replay was shown made me think even more how bad a decision the ref/linesman made on both occasions. Cup competitions were nothing to write home about, going out early in all three competitions we were in! we had three takeover bids fail as well which was frustrating as our finances are far from healthy and we could had done with a takeover to alleviate those problems!

Season 8 NWCL Premier CHAMPIONS!!!! Didn’t see this coming at all! I knew we’d be within a chance of a play-off place but I just didn’t have any faith in some of the players having the minerals when it came to the big games as they have proven in previous seasons gone by! Well, they proved me wrong and only 3 defeats against top 5 opposition, 2 against FC Isle of Man! The other 5 defeats coming against opposition we really should had beaten. We were always there abouts throughout the season with the gap to the leaders only ever getting to six points and we only went top after 43 games! It was the complete opposite to the previous season where in the last 10 games we completely fell apart and recorded only one win! The last ten games this time round saw us only lose two but 8 victories, six on the bounce in the last six games, saw us clinch the title with a game to spare! For some reason I didn’t get the trophy presentation cut scene, maybe the new skin I’m using but hey that’s the only dampener on winning the league!! FA Vase, FA Cup & Macron Cup A disappointing season in the knockout cups with only the FA Cup bringing something to cheer about by making it to the Second Qualifying Round. We went out early in the other cups and I do believe it’ll be goodbye to the FA Vase as it’s only open to teams below the 8th Tier! Also cheerio to the Macron Cup. Shame I didn’t add them to my trophy haul!

Season 7 First season the NWCL Premier Division and the board are expecting me to win the thing. Well, its was looking good and with 10 games to go we were sitting in top spot with a healthy 12 point gap. Unfortunately and this always seems to happen to me on FM we went on a horrendous run of form, winning only one of the last 10 games and ending up in 3rd place. Did not help that my on loan keeper got injured for 2/3 months, my first choice striker picking up a two month injury and my star defender, who weighed in with his fair share of goals from corners picked up a horror injury and will be out for 8 months, along with crucial suspensions. We managed to squeeze into the play off final against Bury where yet another shocking performance in a play off final ended our promotion hopes. Bury set up that horrendous tactic of seven at the back after taking the lead and we just couldn't do a thing. The game just petered out with only one highlight in the second half. Why is it when you go on very attacking absolutely nothing happens? Anyway we had an excellent FA Cup run and got to the Fourth Qualifying Round. FA Vase was again a wash out bowing out yet again at the first hurdle. The Macron Cup bought mixed results and a shocking showing against relegation threatened Skelmersdale saw us go out on penalties after a 0-0 draw. Hopefully the board will stand by me after not achieving automatic promotion but next season, if I'm still here, looks tough as we are horribly in debt and I can't offer new contracts to my best players whose contracts are up.

Continued from last post of an incredible double winning season! Season 6 complete! Onwards now in the NWCL Prem!!

FINALLY! SUCCESS! Season 6 completed and finally success! After the punch to the stomach on losing the title on the final day of the season to Winsford & then the kick to the never regions in losing in the playoffs for the third year straight the previous season we finally gain promotion. I wasn’t sure of our chances in season 6 although I had signed some good young players I felt they weren’t quite ready (how wrong I was going to be) but the board, despite our poor financial position, increased the wage budget and I was able to add to a good squad. But the caveat to the wage increase was to gain promotion and get to the quarter finals of both the FA Vase & 1st Div Cup. Things didn’t get off to a good start by losing 9-8 on penalties in the 1st Qualifying Round of the FA Vase. But things were about to get better as we went on a tremendous run in the league! It was almost an unbeaten season as we finally lost our 1st game of the league campaign in Game-day 33! Two games from the end of the season from being invincible in the league! So, at the fourth attempt we finally win the NWCL Div 1 South! And to top it all off we seal a league & cup double by winning the 1st Div Cup!

DISAPPOINTMENT AGAIN! Season 5 done and dusted and yet again we fail at the semi final stage of the play offs consigning us to a 4th season in the NWCL Div 1 South! We went into the final game of the season needing a win against table topping Winsford United, our nemesis! Win and we go up as champions on goal difference. Lose and it’s the play offs again. Obviously we lost, a 5th game on the trot against Winsford we have lost. Getting a straight red early in the first half didn’t help matters. But we were given a chance when Winsford themselves were given a red as well evening out the numbers! It wasn’t to be and typical FM fashion the game fizzled out without any highlights! Quite frankly I’m glad to see the back of them! I was confident going into the play offs but the suspension from the red card meant a change in formation. It didn’t help and a pathetic performance against Cammell Laird ensured another season at this level. I’m finding it soul destroying being stuck at this level and not looking forward to yet another season in this division! It’s not helping our finances and we are heavily in debt with no hope of increasing our wage budget and getting better players to take that step towards promotion.

Season 4 Summary A tough season finishing 4th & a whopping 27 points behind champions Staffordshire Victoria! They were clear favourites so no surprises there. Anny Road FC were also a class apart and finished 2nd, 14 points clear 3rd! We did hold onto their coat tails for a while but a really bad patch of form (wouldn’t be FM without the inevitable mid-season slump) saw us tumble out of the play-offs but a run of 6 games unbeaten at the end of the season saw us clinch 4th and a repeat of last seasons semi final! It also ended the same way with Winsford United clinching victory this time on Penalties! So a second season in the NWCL DIv One South beckons! What made it tough and probably contributed to our poor form was having my best players cherry picked from teams in Level 9 & 10! At one point I only had 14 first team players with another 3 injured. It was also my first trophless season with Anny Road knocking us out of the NWCL Div One Cup & an early exit to Jersey Bulls in the FA Vase.

Despite the capitulation at the end of the season and basically handing the title to New Mills FC we end the season on a high, just! We bag the NWC First Div Cup! We took a 2-0 lead after only 19 minutes and were cruising! But like in our last 6 games of the season we just seemed to switch off and we had to survive an absolute onslaught! It was back to the wall stuff as they pulled one back in the 36th minute. Same in the second half as we just couldn’t hold Campion FC back and an unfortunate own goal by our keeper when the ball crashed off the post only to hit the keeper and roll into the net! It was tense stuff for the last 31 mins as we held them off! So on to penalties and our guys buried all 5 with Campion FC missing their 5th for us to lift the cup!

Season 3 done and dusted and it’s ended in disappointment. We basically bottled it with only one win in the last six games. We traded punches with New Mills FC all season until those six games with atrocious performances. The title was basically lost when we were 3-1 up against Altrincham U-20’s only to receive a straight red late on in the first half! This seemed to affect the players and we capitulated with Altrincham winning 4-3! As it turned out if we had held on we would had won the league on goal difference. It also went pear shaped in the play-off with an absolute abysmal performance in the semi against Winsford United with a 2-0 loss and players recording 6.1’s across the board! So another season in the NWC Div One South. We have a final to look forward to in the shape of the NWC FL Division One Cup. Our form is bad so I’m not expecting a win and clearly our players don’t have the stomach for big games!

I had no problem keeping players when amateur but the club turned semi pro in our second season when we achieved promotion in our first season and it was quite hard to keep hold of players! Also any free agents available near the end of the season were asking for stupid amounts of money for Level 11! By the end of the season I had only about 13 players left and was relying on my reserve team and youth players to fill the bench! Thankfully I had the title sewn up with 9 games to go cos injuries and suspensions made it worse in those last 9 games! I had about 9 fit players left after a few more were poached and I had to use some reserve team players until a few more returned from suspension or minor injuries! Thankfully the moral was so high we got through without losing any of those 9 games!

Just finished my second season with AFC Crewe and it’s another title in the bag! Two on the trot!