DaneBramage

December 2026 - Vihiga Bullets Pre-Season The board want us to finish in the top-half, while the media think we should be aiming for the top three. So hopefully the press have a more accurate view of our quality. The backroom staff were hard at work during the summer and autumn, bringing in 13 new players. Six are on loan deals, and seven permanent. The club is £500 per week over the wage budget, and more than £100k in the red, but since I'm delegating transfers I'm shifting the blame elsewhere for that. -------------------------------------------------------------- Second Division In a change from my previous clubs, this is a large division. 20 teams, so 38 games. None of the sparse fixture lists and long winter breaks I had to deal with earlier. Fitting eight games into December is excessive though. That's just too much, and I can thank my staff for bringing in so many new players allowing us to handle it so well. I followed the Jimbo technique of using two separate XIs (other than the goalie), with the stronger team taking weekend fixtures and the weaker team playing in midweek. And it's worked very well so far. We've won seven games out of nine, and lost just once. Star man has been Christopher Ojwang, a loanee striker with seven goals in five starts (and four sub appearances). Top of the table! It is a bit of a false position though. I've no idea why we've played so many games already compared to everyone else. Two other teams have played eight times, then everyone else are two games behind on seven. It does make for enjoyable viewing. Even if all the contenders won their games in hand, we'd still be in 3rd place. Muhoroni Youth in 2nd are the only team to have beaten us so far, they could well be our big competition this season. --------------------------------------------------------------

August 2026 - Vihiga Bullets I didn't stay unemployed for very long. When looking at the available jobs I noticed an interesting opportunity in the Kenyan second tier. The top two get promoted automatically, while third go into a play-off. And Vihiga Bullets had just missed out, finishing in 4th place. There was a massive gap between them and 5th place, 23 points, so they were by far better than most teams in the division. -------------------------------------------------------------- Game World I've made the first adjustments to the active leagues, with RNG helping decide which to bring in. Tanzania has been removed. Bolivia and East Timor have been added. --------------------------------------------------------------

July 2026 - Ndanda FC Squad Stats These players annoyed me a lot throughout the season. Given that we won promotion my words are probably harsh, but I did not like this squad. 18 goals in 33 games should impress me from Optatus Lupekenya, but he was rubbish so often. Same with Nohome Tadase, who reached double figures with goals and nearly the same with assists. I think the fact that so few average ratings are in the green tells the real story. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Job's a good 'un! I'm glad of the second promotion, but I did not enjoy this season. After a great start we just made hard work of it, never getting back into a good rhythm. From November onwards we never won more than two games in a row, or went any longer than three games without defeat. But at least we came strong when it mattered in the play-offs, and I gained my second promotion in four seasons. Now it's time to put in my resignation, as there's no point staying with a Premier Division side. I would have resigned even if we hadn't gone up this year though. Tanzania just wasn't fun. Between my scouts finding just two players all season, the chairman not letting me sign an AssMan, and only being able to arrange friendlies against our under-21s, there were too many annoying challenges. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Job Centre There are a lot of jobs available now the seasons have finished, and no doubt more will be available as it ticks over into the next campaign with all the newly relegated and promoted clubs. So I don't know whether to jump straight in to a new role now and have the summer to prepare for 2026/27, or wait a few months and see how everything shakes out. --------------------------------------------------------------

July 2026 - Ndanda FC Contracts So it turns out that my contract was expiring on 30th June, a week before the play-offs. Thus I had to sign on for another year, though I will be resigning after these games no matter what happens. The bigger issue though was that a bunch of the players also had contracts coming to an end. I'd generally left that to someone else, but now I had to make an effort to get it sorted asap. I managed to get a few players to re-sign, but five players who I'd caused to dislike me left, including a starting left-winger, central midfielder, and centre-back. My scouts had finally found one more player in the country, so I signed a new midfielder to make sure we weren't weakened too much going into the big games. -------------------------------------------------------------- Championship Promotion Play-Off Mbeya City were clearly a stronger side than us, but due to the friendlies we'd arranged we were fitter. They had a lot of possession but failed to make it count, and we were able to surprise them with a goal just before the break. Another just after the interval really swung things in our favour, and Mbeya City were rattled. When we added a third in the 67th minute the game looked as good as over, but that's when Mbeya City hit another gear. Two goals in the final 20 minutes made the score a lot more even and meant we had just the one goal advantage going into the second leg at their place. The second leg was a more cagey affair, with chances limited. And then we scored with the first big chance of the game. The lead barely lasted a minute before Mbeya City equalised, but thankfully that was it for the day. The game fizzled out, we did enough to contain them, and we ran out 4-3 winners on aggregate. --------------------------------------------------------------

June 2026 - Ndanda FC Championship Promotion Play-Off During the regular season we lost twice to Pan-African, going down 1-0 both home and away. In the two week break between fixtures we played the under-21s a couple of times. Losing the first of these games to them probably wasn't ideal, but it did mean we were prepared. Pan-African however, were not. They rested during this period and that gave us the edge. We ran rings around them on their patch, having 63% possession and making twice as many passes. Two goals within the opening 25 minutes took all the wind out of their sails, and from that point on we cruised, adding another late on to kill off the tie. At home we just needed to avoid doing anything stupid, admittedly something we've struggled with a lot this season. But Pan-African didn't offer much, and a goal in each half gave us the 5-0 aggregate victory. Mbeya City finished 14th in the Premier Division. They then lost 4-1 on aggregate in the first stage of the relegation play-off. There's now a three week gap until our two games in July, so again I'll put together some friendlies to keep our players sharp. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2026 - Ndanda FC Championship Transit Camp had earned 10 points in 27 games, and had a goal difference of -49. They hadn't won a game in more than six months. They had a player sent off after 26 minutes Easy win, right? Nope! 34 shots compared to their four, an xG of 3.25 compared to their 0.17, and all for a 1-1 draw. Pathetic. We let African Sports score with their only shot on target. Meanwhile, we had 23 shots and could only get three on target. Pathetic. Completely bottled it. We now go into a two-legged play-off against Pan-African. The winner then takes on the loser of the Premier Division relegation play-off. --------------------------------------------------------------

April 2026 - Ndanda FC Championship I hate these players. Every single one of them. I don't even care that this lad has scored four times in the last three games, he's been crap for long spells of the season. Every time that it looks like we're getting back on track we manage another stupid loss. I've been offered a new contract but I've turned it down. Obviously if we get promoted to the top tier I'd have to quit anyway, but even if we fail (as is looking increasingly likely), I don't want to stay here for another crack --------------------------------------------------------------

February 2026 - Ndanda FC Staffing Issues My AssMan left to join another team in our division. And in his infinite wisdom, the chairman decided we don't need someone in this role so I can't hire a replacement. Brilliant, thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------- Arrivals I wanted to bring in some new players this window, but my scouts managed to provide reports on just one player over the last six months. In one of his last acts before leaving, my AssMan signed that one player. But he's rubbish, I haven't even bothered registering him. I did bring in a new starting left-back though, from an agent offering his services. -------------------------------------------------------------- Championship Abdalla Ferouz returned to action after eight months out with an ACL injury and scored a brace on his comeback, then added another two in the next few matches. We've managed some good wins in this period, but also some really poor losses. We lost to Stand Utd due to my useless centre-back giving away a penalty in the second-half, but really I think most of these players are useless. I don't like any of them. We beat one Premier Division side in the cup before losing to another, but neither result matters. We're still 2nd with seven games left, but I'm not feeling good about the rest of the season. We're losing too many games, could easily bottle this. --------------------------------------------------------------

December 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship Losing to Majimaji is disastrous. They were in 15th place at the time, yet they bossed the match. We only managed one shot all game, and that was from the spot. Then we hosted Fountain Gate in a top of the table clash, and smashed them with ease. Bafflingly inconsistent. Both my strikers ended their goalscoring droughts in this match (after 10 and 15 hours). We also won a cup match, but I don't care one bit about that. It's all very close at the top. We hold pole position at the moment, but only because of goal difference. One badly timed slip-up and we could easily fall to 4th, but at least there's then a small gap down to 5th place. --------------------------------------------------------------

November 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship Ugh. We've lost any semblance of form, just blindly stumbling from one result to another. It's basically just a roll of the dice. We had made it six home wins in a row, but now we haven't won either of the last two. We hadn't won any of the last four away matches, but then we picked up our biggest win of the season. I've lost count of how many players were fined over these two months, there were a lot of individual terrible performances. We've tumbled from first place down to third. We're still strongly in the mix as we approach the halfway stage, but I'm feeling a lot less confident now than I was in September. --------------------------------------------------------------

September 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship My scouts very helpfully managed to not find a single player in Tanzania to recommend. In addition to that, my AssMan didn't bother to arrange any pre-season friendlies, so I had to scramble together a few last-minute matches against the under-21s. Thus we didn't go into the new season in very good shape. No additions to the squad, and not fully fit. Yet somehow we flew out of the gates, smashing newly-promoted Majimaji on the opening day. We followed this up with three more wins before the streak was ended when we only took a hard-fought point from Mwadui Utd. We were straight back to winning ways next time out though, beating second-placed Pamba SC to open up a six point lead. All good things come to an end though, and we were comprehensively outplayed by Mbao for our first loss of the campaign. Top of the table, I will take that. Top two go up automatically, 3rd and 4th go into a play-off system with two teams from the Premier Division. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship Pretty good results. We won half of the remaining matches, including a hammering of JKT Tanzania which screwed up their push for automatic promotion. We nearly upset the eventual champions Prisons SC too, but they escaped with a point due to a missed penalty from our left-winger. Away form was a bit of a worry though. We only gained three points from a possible 12, compared to 10 at home. We gained one place in the table and turned the goal difference into a positive, so we'll call that a decent enough start to my time here. Before my arrival the team was averaging 1.18 points per game, during my time it was 1.63, so there's a big improvement which hopefully we can carry over into next season. -------------------------------------------------------------- History The immediate improvement in results shows there's some quality in this side, but additions are definitely needed in the summer. I don't know if we'll manage it next season, it might take another year, but I think there's potential for a promotion here. --------------------------------------------------------------

February 2025 - Ndanda FC One successful interview later, and I was off to Tanzania. Pre-season expectations were for a midtable finish, so the club is doing about as well as expected. And that was enough for the previous manager to get poached by the side bottom of the Premier Division. There's £115k in the bank, and the balance has steadily been increasing over the last year, so it looks like a well-run organisation. Training facilities and youth facilities are poor, junior coaching is fairly basic and youth recruitment is basic. All the board want from us for now is to avoid relegation, so I can use these eight games to get a handle on the squad and see what we need to improve on. --------------------------------------------------------------

November 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia A - Group B Our record for the second half of this stage was near identical to the first. Two losses, followed by a win and a draw, then another loss. The defeat to Olimp Comrat was a disaster. We somehow conceded twice despite them having an xG of just 0.15. The first was a mistake from our keeper, the second was a great volley from the edge of the area. There's definitely a clear divide here. We lost all our games to the sides above us, and our only points came from the sides below. We did the double over FC Ungheni and they were our only wins during this stage. Points are now reset to zero, and we go into an eight team relegation stage with the corresponding four from Group B. Bottom two go down. -------------------------------------------------------------- Available Jobs I'm a few months into the winter break now, and we return to action towards the end of March. But with no prospect of promotion this year, and since we're so far off the pace probably not next year either, I'm keeping my eye out for other opportunities. I did apply for a job with the team 5th in the Algerian second tier, but they just laughed at me. An application at Ndanda in the Tanzanian Championship may bear more fruit though, as I've been invited to an interview. --------------------------------------------------------------

September 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia A - Group B The second tier has a bit of a wacky set-up. There's 12 teams in the division, but split into two groups of six. The top two from each group then qualify for a promotion stage, and it looks complicated at that stage so I'll worry about it if and when I need to. For now though, we haven't made a great start to life at this level. Performances haven't been as bad as results suggest, but ultimately it's the points that matter. On the opening day a draw would have been a fair result, but the opposition were clinical and we were not. It was the same story against Olimp Comrat, but even more extreme. We had an xG of 2.60 from 22 shots, but only five were on target and we didn't trouble the goalkeeper anywhere near enough. We battered FCM Ungheni for our one win so far. It should have been more emphatic, but I can't complain. I can complain about dodgy defending letting Spartanii Selemet steal a point though. And we were just rubbish away at Speranis Nisporeni. It's not looking good for our chances of reaching the promotion stage, and that's even having played a game more than a couple of teams. We'll need to do a lot better in the second half of this group, but I wouldn't put any money on it. -------------------------------------------------------------- Available Jobs There's a few jobs currently available in Tajikistan. I considered Lokomotiv-Pomir, with seven games left they were seven points off of 2nd place, which would see them get promoted. But their squad looked too thin, just one winger and one striker. So I'm sitting tight in Moldova for now. --------------------------------------------------------------

September 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Facilities We have over £60k in the bank so it made sense to spend some of it, even if the benefits from this probably won't come to fruition while I'm still at the club, but at least when it is time to go I'll be leaving the place in a better state. -------------------------------------------------------------- Departures The AssMan spent most of the summer tying players down to contracts now that we're semi-pro, but he couldn't keep hold of our best midfielder who chose to retire. -------------------------------------------------------------- Arrivals While there weren't many leaving, there were plenty joining the club. First, three of last year's loanees were renewed for another year. Then we added a new first-choice goalkeeper and a pair of midfielders, plus a sub defender and striker, The latter shares a name with a defender already at the club, hence the ST at the end of his name to differentiate them. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Squad Stats This season was all about our four attacking stars. We scored 75 goals, and 65 of them came from this quartet. Ruslan Yefremov came out on top, with 22 goals, 13 assists, and an average rating of 7.93. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Wahey! The first promotion is in the bag. Admittedly it wasn't much of a challenge, but you've got to start somewhere. I have a decision to make next though. To quote The Clash, should I stay or should I go? Will having a crack at the second tier with this team give me the best shot at another promotion, or do I look elsewhere? --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia B Nord It was never in doubt really. We had a decent lead going into the run-in, and we just kept winning when it mattered. The 6-0 win over Edinet was a record victory for the club, and eight wins in a row was a record streak. Dmitry Lisitsyn scored in the 1st minute of a match for the third time this season, improving the record fastest goal in a game from 47 seconds, to 32 seconds, then 22 seconds. 23c Vadim Chiper scored the first goal of an academy graduate. The final winning margin was 15 points, We were top of the table since week six, and after the winter break in particular no one could keep up with us. The title was wrapped up with four games to spare. We averaged over three goals a game, setting a record for the most goals scored in a season. FC Cahul embarrassed themselves, but at least they finally got some points on the board. --------------------------------------------------------------

March 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Departures Just the one player left during the winter transfer window. Ordinarily losing the 5.0 star prospect from the last year's intake would be a disaster, but when the player in question is Turkish and we can't register foreign players in this division, it doesn't really matter. -------------------------------------------------------------- Arrivals We were busier bringing players in. I signed a midfielder, while the AssMan brought in a couple of defenders. All will go straight into the starting line-up. -------------------------------------------------------------- Youth Intake I've decided there's no point providing the full screenshot of the youth players, as few if any will make an impact on the team before I move on. So I've just included the top-rated, those who may appear next year if I'm still around. Only one player from the 2023 batch has featured for me, though they have played in every game so far, so there is a chance. --------------------------------------------------------------

December 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia B Nord Ruslan Yefremov had a great run through October, scoring four times in three matches, then adding another at the start of November for good measure. Then Sergey Rodin took over the baton, scoring six times in four games in November. We flopped in the final game of the year though. It was a low quality affair all round against FC Olimpia, but they were clinical with their chances and we were not. We're in a good position going into the winter break, five points clear at the top and with a far superior goal difference. Spare a thought for FC Cahul at the bottom. --------------------------------------------------------------

September 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia B Nord A win on the opening day is the ideal way to start the season, but following it up with a loss to last year's runners-up wasn't good. A draw would have been a fair result, but a defensive calamity doomed us - their free-kick hit the crossbar, and then my left-back's attempted clearance hit the goalie in the face to ricochet in for an own goal. We were back on form over the next five games, picking up some big wins. In particular my wingers were flying, with 13 goals between them already. Ruslan Yefremov scored in all five of these wins. In comparison, my strikers were struggling a bit. Dmitry Lisitsyn has four goals despite missing some time with a knock, but Ion Bobrov has had a stinker with no goals yet. The loss to FC Singerei was dreadful. We had plenty of chances but just couldn't hit a barndoor. We're looking good, but that loss at the end of the month was a blow and allowed FC Olimpia to catch up. Edinet are also only a point behind. --------------------------------------------------------------

September 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Qualifications First qualification ticked off. My reputation is obviously still very low, but it's given my stats a little boost. -------------------------------------------------------------- Departures A starting centre-back and goalkeeper were both stolen away. I also kicked out the crap right-back mentioned previously. So this left us a bit short of numbers at the back, so that was the priority for the transfer window. -------------------------------------------------------------- Arrivals My staff weren't as active as I hoped they were going to be. The only early movement was a new first-choice goalkeeper on loan (Alexandru Popa), so I had to get involved. I picked up two defenders from Inter Soroca. Neither are good, but they'll work as back-ups. Towards the end of the window my assistant brought in two more players; a sub striker, and a new first-choice right-back (Vyacheslav Zhikarev). --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia B Nord Should have won my first game in charge, but right-back Artem Lobanov missed a 95th minute penalty. Goals goals goals! Inter Soroca were 3rd in the table so it was a big win over them. We led from the start, but kept inviting them back into the game. Our attacking force had a field day. Then our attack one-upped themselves the following week, battering bottom club EFA Visoca. Ion Bobrov scored a hat-trick in his third game for the club. We couldn't continue in this fashion, though, and were again let down by Artem Lobanov. We were winning 1-0 until he got sent-off in the 31st minute, and we were never in the game after that. He's never playing for us again. We managed to allow Riscani to score with their only shots on target to give them a point, before getting back to winning ways at home. Our final games of the season were against a succession of midtable sides. Three good wins, and our strikers and wingers continued to fill their boots. A three place gain, I'm very happy with this. Just the one loss and we brought our goal difference up to a positive value. -------------------------------------------------------------- Squad Stats Artem Lobanov will be ditched this summer, two mistakes to cost us games is a career-ender under my management. Ibrahim Misyura and Ruslan Yefremov on the wings and Dmitry Lisitsyn and Ion Bobrov up top proved to be a potent combination. I've been using a fairly standard 4-4-2, as I'm pretty much tactically incompetent at coming up with anything else. -------------------------------------------------------------- History A good start, and one that gives me encouragement for next season. --------------------------------------------------------------

CF Locomotiva Ocnita - 2023 Youth Intake Before I'd had my first match, the youth intake for the year came through. These probably won't be massively important throughout the save as I'll likely be moving on before there's any impact (hence why only four players have been tagged, though all have been signed), but a 5 star CA player will always catch the eye. Unfortunately, it's not as good as it looks. The window to register players ended just a few days ago, so we can't start playing anyone yet. And we can't use foreign players in this league. So the top two, 23a Enes Aksu and 23b Tadas Juska, can't be selected anyway. Bummer --------------------------------------------------------------

February 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita League and Expectations The media expectations at the start of the season were for a solid season, a top-half finish the target. But things haven't gone that way and with just three wins from 15 games the side are languishing in 10th. Only one team get relegated, so with a seven point gap down to EFA Visoca, we're probably safe barring disaster. -------------------------------------------------------------- Finances and Facilities We've got almost £21k in the bank. Doesn't sound like much, but everyone at the club is on an amateur contract and not being paid, so it may well be a healthy amount. Training facilities and youth facilities are poor, junior coaching is basic, youth recruitment is limited. Improving facilities isn't necessarily going to be something I focus on, as often times any upgrades made won't have any affect while I'm still there. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Squad At the moment I've delegated most jobs to the staff, though I did have to take back control of outgoings when they tried letting one of my best rated players go. I joined with a few weeks of the winter break remaining, so most of my time was spent asking players to stay at the club instead of moving elsewhere. Luckily no one chose to leave, and the club brought in another striker too (Ion Bobrov). There are a lot of horrible average ratings in this group, and apparently not a lot of quality in defence. Terrible personalities and determination too. The attack looks a lot better though, we should be able to get some goals out of these players. Dmitry Lisitsyn has a one-in-two record so far, we need this to continue but with more support around him. --------------------------------------------------------------