Rise to Greatness

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Rise to Greatness

Introduction

My recent stories have, well, flopped. I was a victim of the unfortunate data loss on the website so my former Rise to Greatness story was lost which focused on my journey with Havant and Waterlooville. That journey went well with me being promoted in my first season and pushing for the play-offs in the following season. It might have gone well in-game but the story seemed to lack something. I moved onto a totally different challenge where I took on AFC Fiorentina with the aim of getting them back to the top of Serie A but...alas...I got bored so ditched it within an hour of work on the story.

All my previous stories have gone down the route of it being written in third person. This time round this will change. I will be writing it in first person in the hope to get across the emotion of the game. There is set to be plenty of emotion, highs and a lot of lows as I am jumping back on the lower league management (LLM) bandwagon and going to get myself back into either the Blue Square Bet South/North division of English football. I just hope that this story will help portray what I go through on this journey to either get my chosen team to the higher leagues. I am still yet to decide if I that I want to get this team to the higher leagues or if the story is going to focus on my own personal rise to greatness.

The next post will share with you the team I have chosen, the reasons why and my first few days in charge.

2012-12-02 01:45 Permalink Login to Quote

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Rise to Greatness: FC Halifax

Why would I choose FC Halifax?

There are a couple of reasons behind this decision. One simply being that they are a local team to me and I always like to see my local teams do well, even though they are not the teams I personally support.

Game-wise the team are predicted to finish in 2nd place. This would suggest that I have taken any easier option; why would I not take a team predicted to finish in a lower position and challenge myself even more you may ask? In my previous save FC Halifax were a team that had some great players (who I will introduce later) and I loved coming up against them in my first season. I don’t think I ever got a positive result against them. I admittedly want to try and get up the leagues as quickly as possible and having a team with the quality to mean they are predicted to finish second will surely help me achieve this, won’t it?

Club Background

The club was founded in 2008 and they are a semi-professional club who are currently in the Blue Square Bet North. The club play their home games at The Shay with their training facilities being graded as adequate. The club lack youth facilities which are in fact rented and graded as basic. The club also has fairly basic junior coaching and a basic youth recruitment network. The club is affectionately known by fans as The Shaymen.

The club enjoyed success as recently in 2011 and they are a club with a growing history. FC Halifax won the English 7th tier for only one time in 2011 and had the season prior had won the 8th tier of English football.

Kits

2012-12-02 02:32 Permalink Login to Quote

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FC Halifax at Current

Players

I have started by having a quick glance over the team and there are going to have to be some immediate changes. The team has far from any depth and the players are poor, very poor. There are a couple of standout players who will be able to contribute a lot to the team and in fact my team will probably focus in and around them.

I think the goalkeepers are dire but I think I will stick with them for this first season, but if they don’t perform in the first few games then I will have to be quick to react, get them out of the club, and get in replacements.

My defence is made up of a mixture of old and experienced players and youngsters. I think the defence, along with the midfield, will have to be my primary focus in the transfer market. It is going to be very difficult to decide on a starting back four and I think I will have to try different combinations in pre-season.

The issue I have with my midfield is that the majority of them prefer to be set as a ball winning midfielder with the mentality to defend. This is surely going to cause issues in creating chances for the men up front. I will be looking straight away to bring in players with good passing ability and creativity; I do personally think this will be really difficult to do.

The strikers the club possess have the potential to cause problems for any of the defences in the league. It looks like the first names on the team sheet will be Gareth Seddon and Jamie Rawford who I expect to form a good partnership.

Staff

After having a quick look at the playing staff I moved onto the backroom staff and was appalled by what I found. There is literally no-one in the club to support me. This has now given me the dilemma of how I spend my wage budget; do I get players in on wages, or aim to sign players on non-contract terms so I can spend the wages on add people to the depleted backroom staff.

2012-12-02 12:00 Permalink Login to Quote

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FC Halifax: Changes

It was important that drastic changes took place out on the field and behind the scenes. I went into the market looking for some extra coaching staff so the work load could be shared out between them. I was hoping to bring in some youth to help add depth to the defence and help increase the attacking potential of the midfield with players who will be looking to attack the game.

Players

What a signing this lad might just turn out to be. He has signed on a very reasonable £150 a week wage and I really do think it is going to be worth every penny. He has helped change the ethos in the midfield to a more attacking emphasis. The most notable statistics are his passing (15), first touch (14) and work rate (16). I really do think the attacking flow will have to go through him. I just hope he stays away from injury.

Adam has simply been brought in to add depth to the defence. He will not necessarily get much game time with me thinking a focus on experience may be better. However his good teamwork and bravery ratings might come in handy if we need to see out games.

Ryan has been brought in to add a bit of pace to the full back positions. The team typically went to set up defensively but when Ryan plays I will be looking for him to get forward and contribute to our attacking play. He is a young player but he does have the potential to do well when he is used.

This guy has the chance to come in and be a focal point of my central defence. He has ok ratings but he has quite a few of them. I can see him playing quite a few games with most of them being in the starting 11.

Leon has been brought in, as with Adam Field, to add depth to the squad. He is far from an outstanding player and I don’t think he will contribute anything of note over the season. He is simply at the club for extreme circumstances. I will be looking to reduce the wages he has been signed on in the future.

Staff

My former Head of Physio had appalling ratings for physiotherapy so he was asked to mutually terminate his contract, which he did for a small compensation fee. This guy has a much better physiotherapy rating so I am happy with that area of the backroom staff for now.

I was desperate to have some help with the coaching of the team so Dominic was a perfect choice. He has great motivation which my team will need over the course of the long season. He also has good determination which will hopefully rub off onto the players. I think this is a great addition to the backroom staff.

Mark has been brought in to add depth to the coaching team. He too has good motivation and determination ratings which I think is going to be vital. He also specialises in coaching goalkeeper handling which is good as I seem unable to sign another goalkeeper coach...I don’t even have one employed. Another good addition to the club.

2012-12-02 14:00 Permalink Login to Quote

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FC Halifax: Pre-season

Results

I don’t think I can actually have any complaints about how pre-season went. It is a mixture of good and bad results which I expected from the off. Even with me not really counting the match against the reserves I feel that the team have made a positive start to the season. The blip against Carlisle was down to me trying out a new formation which, as you can see from the score, did not pan out. It also did not help that Gareth Seddon was injured for that match. The other matches did provide my team with a challenge and I think the performances can only get better when the season starts proper shortly.

2012-12-02 15:22 Permalink Login to Quote

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FA Cup

FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round

How my side did not progress from this round at first time of asking I do not know. Yes I had made changes by giving Seddon and Johnson (who has been on top form) a rest as they were in need of it but I would have at least expected others to step up. I think it is actually going to be a nervous tie when we have to go visit them. Annoyingly it is another game, that could have been avoided, in what is already a long season.

FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round Replay

That was much more like it. It was a confident performance in which we dominated from the start in terms of possession which rightly resulted in a comfortable win. The board are expected the team to reach the first round and I‘m confident we can do this as we are now pitted against non-league Worksop Town in the Third Qualifying Round.

FA Cup 3rd Qualifying Round

FA Cup 4th Qualifying Round

FA Cup 4th Qualifying Round Replay

Why this tie took so much effort and went on for as long as it did I don’t know! It was ridiculous. We totally dominated the first match against Runcorn yet couldn’t get a winner. To be fair to them they did push us to the wire and we were lucky that they scored an own goal when they did; for some reason I didn’t fancy my teams chances with penalties. I think this game has highlighted the need for my defence to be revamped come end of the season. I am even more worries as we have been given a tough home tie against Doncaster Rovers of League One.

FA Cup First Round

So the journey in the FA Cup is over for another season for FC Halifax. I can’t fault the teams determination in the match, as you can see from the statistics it was quite an even game on the possession front. Having Gareth Seddon be injured part through the game did not exactly help the team. The team also responded quite well to be set out in a different formation to the normal one. We set out more defensive which is the reason behind the lack of shots and clear cut chances created. We had a good run, we enjoyed it, and achieved the expectations achieved by the board so all in all, not too bad an effort.

2012-12-02 16:30 Permalink Login to Quote

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2012-12-02 15:58#70603 Glenn T : That sucks! Must have been a bummer getting kicked out at the First Round

It has its positives and negatives. It means I can focus on my good start in the league but the money in the later rounds would have been brilliant (the club's finances are deteriorating). It would have also been a chance to give the younger players some game time. The season is a long one as it is, nevermind with the cup involved so fitness will get a boost from being out of the cup.

Time to move onto the FA Trophy.

2012-12-02 18:40 Permalink Login to Quote