Its great to see that my choice of team has sparked a lot of conversation about the lower leagues...I think they are so under-rated. I do apologise for the lack of updates but thank you for still helping this story reach the 5k mark which I think is unbelievable to say I haven't posted for quite a long time. I can assure you that the next update will come in the not too distant future.

2013-11-12 08:39#143145 Gazbuscus :

Salisbury are my home town:P Great team;)

Actually, that was one of the best season I've ever played on FM so I have to agree. I played 8 Seasons in total and stayed at Salisbury for 6 of them. Got to the Championship but struggled and went straight back down. I got sacked... cheeky sods, after everything I did for them too. Went to Fulham after that but it was boring in comparison.

I really don't envy the task at hand with County tho!

Are they really? whats your name? i may know you...;)

It was always going to be important, if we were going to mount a challenge for the play-off spots, for us to get a few points before the turn of the New Year. I was delighted with this months results with us really managing to hit a good run of form as a result of a large number of the players getting use to my tactics and really starting to perform. The first two matches went by without a single problem; we dominated from start to finish and it was great for us to keep two clean sheets in a row.

I have to admit that we could have done without having to play Harrogate twice as it that extra match will surely hinder us later in the season. However, on the plus side, we are into the third round of the FA Trophy and will face my former employers, Grimsby Town, who I won the cup with last season. It would be amazing to get one over the team, although they never did anything wrong by me...just to show them what they’re missing would be great. I can’t say I had heard of Colwyn Bay before coming up against them and they really did play us off the park. Even our player of the month, Andrew Jenkinson, could make an impact like he had in pretty much every other game this month.

We had to ensure we got back to winning ways and we did this with a comfortable win against Solihull Moors before the hard fought battle against North Ferriby (another team I had never heard of). The league table does not look too bad at the moment with it being a close fought contest for fifth place and that final play-off spot. However, there is still a lot of the league and if our maestro Andrew Jenkinson keeps up his rich vein of form then I don’t see why we couldn’t claim that spot come the end of the season.

Player of the Month – Andrew Jenkinson

A pretty good month and going strong in the league. Hopefully you can make a late promotion charge! Need to read this more often, too.

2013-11-16 10:13#144049 Walter : A pretty good month and going strong in the league. Hopefully you can make a late promotion charge! Need to read this more often, too.

It did go extremely well and I hope our good form continues or else we are just going to slip away like I did with Grimsby!

I never left Grimsby Town on bad terms...I just simply didn’t think I was the right person to guide the team to achieve their ambitions of promotion and beyond. It wasn’t a difficult decision and it is still one I stick by despite a number of you suggesting I should have stuck around for another season. Instead I ignored you all and at the moment I am happy with my decision. However, when Grimsby came along and knocked us out of the FA Trophy, I do have to admit, I did miss some of their players. Andy Cook, who I never really played, decided to help himself to a hat trick in what was an outstanding performance. He played us off the park and just gave our defenders no chance...they may as well have not bothered turning up. Our strike force, despite now having dispatched thirty three goals in twenty matches, just didn’t get a sniff of a chance and they came out with poor ratings at the end.

This result had a damaging impact on our morale for the next two games and we just kept conceding goal after goal. The media have reacted and suggested that I am under fire and that the board should be considering my position as manger and the players’ positions at the club. Annoyingly I think we are playing fairly well in the majority of our matches at the moment. There are a few stand-out players who are winning matches themselves. Jevons helped himself to a hat trick against AFC Flyde and Jenkinson has carried on his player of the month form in this month. We just cant’ stop leaking goals.

Our defenders are appalling, which has resulted in me bringing in youngster Aaron Dawson who will provide me with a least another option instead of Robbie Booth who is absolutely shocking. We desperately need to plug the leaky defence or else we will start to slip down the table when we are currently within touching distance of the play-offs.

In order to add more flair to the attacking side of our game I have brought in Ivan D’Angelo who has already made an impact with two great performances in the last two games of the month. With him on one side and Jenkinson on the other, we will create chances that I am sure Jevons and Brandon Windsor will continue to put away. Now, time to sort out this defence.

Player of the Month – Phil Jevons

Not an awful month at all, unlucky with the three losses, but hopefully you can go on and push for promotion, considering you're just 3 points away from a playoff spot

2013-11-17 00:28#144303 The Madridista : Not an awful month at all, unlucky with the three losses, but hopefully you can go on and push for promotion, considering you're just 3 points away from a playoff spot

I can't complain too much. It would have been nice to have got a result against Grimsby but it was always going to be a challenge! Play-offs here we come...hopefully!

After what turned out to be my last month in charge of Stockport County, I was positive and feeling that we could push for the play-off spot. Even now I have left, that last position is still in reach of the club but the board have taken the decision to sack me well before the end of the season. I went into the first game of March against Boston United with being made fully aware that we needed a good result; Boston were sat in 20th place so it should have been a routine home win. Instead we ran out two nil losers which was beyond devastating and it meant the board requested I attended a meeting. I apologised for the result but they didn’t accept it and instead I had to resort to promising we would get a win against Lowestoft Town...this didn’t materialise. I have been left quite gutted that the board didn’t really give me a chance from the start and that I couldn’t do better for a club that I was determined to do well for and help push for promotion.

Instead I am heading back into the unemployment wilderness and have joined the pile of managers seeking their next club. It is a lonely place and quite a tedious process which is starting to become all too familiar. The only thing that gets me through are the two aims that I referred to me in my first post. (http://www.fmscout.com/q-10203-The-Unemployment-Challenge.html). What will now follow is yet more cliff hangers about which club I will be joining after I have set bored on holiday for probably the rest of the season. Here I go again on my own.....

That's really unfortunate mate but hopefully you can push on and find a new club!

Unlucky mate good luck with your next club, I am in love with your style of updates!

The Madridista: I was so annoyed. I had been doing an alright job with them so feel it was a bit abrupt! Nevermind, onto the next challenge...whatever that may be.

HamoudiLFC: First, thank you for posting the 100th reply to this story and secondly, thanks for the good luck message; I haven't had much success so far so I am really hoping that it will be third time lucky.

It was a very disappointing end to my time at Stockport County with them deciding that I wasn’t the right manager to guide the club to the promotion that they so craved. Ever since, I have been on holiday for about four months waiting for a club to offer me a job which is actually tempting and that I would actually be interested in taking on. With me past footballing experience set to Sunday League Footballer, there are absolutely no higher reputation clubs that would want to employ me. Instead I applied for the job at Bury and they quickly dismissed any interest I showed in being their manager. To be fair to them they have since employed Adi Boothroyd who is not the worst manager ever. Havant and Waterlooville came along towards the end of the season, who were sat bottom of the Skrill South, and were destined for relegation...so I turned down that interview offer.

Next came along Tamworth United which was another club struggling and that I had absolutely no desire to be their manager...are my ambitions too high? They could possibly be...but I just don’t want to go through another episode of taking over a poor team that are destined to do badly despite my leadership. I am learning from this terribly tedious journey and I know that eventually my fortunes will change and things will go well.

On a final note for this update I thought it would be interesting to let you know, Stockport County didn’t achieve a play-off position at the end of the season and are still now in the Skrill North in my third season of the unemployment challenge.

In previous updates I have left you on cliff hangers before announcing the team that I have been given the responsibility of managing. In this update I will not be leaving you on a cliff hanger but instead, by the end, you will know which team I have now become the manager. Despite having resigned from Grimsby Town and being shown the door by Stockport County, who ended up not getting promoted, my career statistics are not too shabby bearing in mind the standard of team I have been in charge of but then again they are not exactly at a world class standard. So far I have been in charge of 49 matches, with me guiding the team to 23 wins, 9 draws and 17 losses; this has given me a win percentage of 46%. The only notable achievement so far is the FA Trophy that I won back in my Grimsby Town days which I guess has helped me get recognised by some of the lower league clubs who are craving some domestic cup success. The most depressing fact is, that as a result of my resignation and sacking, I have been on holiday waiting for a club to offer me a job for 54.35% of my game time so far on Football Manager 2014.

This statistic alone is giving me the motivation to keep going and to change my fortunes and become a success on this game; a game which I feel is a lot more challenging than what I experienced in my unemployment journey back on FM13. I intend on changing this statistic and turning my new club into a successful side after, hopefully, more than a few months in charge. Despite this renewed vigour, my new club’s current league position is not going to provide me with the momentum I need.


That’s right, I have decided to take over a club that is sat rock bottom of League 1 that are destined to get relegated no matter what I can bring to the club. We are currently 9 points away from safety and possess a team that have the lowest of low morale. I headed into managing Grimsby Town and Stockport County nervous about the road ahead...but this challenge has to be the most nerve racking of all.

Notts are actually a decent team, surprises me to see them bottom in the league :s