The Not So Typical Journeyman

I sit on the street, wondering where my life went so wrong...

5 years ago I was living the dream as a Premiership footballer... Now look... I'm homeless and owe some very powerful people a lot of money; money which I don't have.

All I have is a thousand pounds to my name which was left to me by my Grandad after he passed; I thought to myself I'm not going to waste this on booze and gambling, I'm going to use this to make something of my life... "I'm going to become a football manager" I yell out excitedly. The people on the street just stopped and stared at me as I clutched my last bottle of beer.

This was it, I was finally going to do something with my life.

I got myself down to Gatwick with the thousand pounds in my pocket, approached the ticket desk and the lady asked me "Where are you flying to today sir?"

That was a question I didn't know the answer to... Where was I flying to...?

The Lady at the desk asks again " Sir where are you flying to today?"

I look at her blankly, thinking to myself 'What am I doing? I haven't thought this through properly, Where would I go? Who's going to hire a 35 year old has been with no qualifications?'

I walk away from the ticket desk and ask myself 'Where do I want to go? Where can I start this idea of becoming a manager?'

Asia? South America? Oceania? Who knows? All I know is I can't stay in England for long without those people coming after me for their money.

Who were those people you ask?

They were powerful Russian loan sharks who I borrowed a lot of money from to satisfy my need for gambling and alcohol. I owe them 100,000's of pounds; that's money I don't have, money they would kill people for. I need to leave and leave soon.

I walk back up to the ticket desk, this time no turning back, I'm ready to start my adventure...

The lady asks "Where are you flying to Sir?"

There was a long pause until I said "A one way ticket to.....?"

I sit at the airport waiting to board my flight; a number of thoughts are going through my head, my main thought being 'Am I making a terrible mistake here? It's been almost 5 years since I left the world of football'

But at the same time I was also excited about what the future holds and the prospect of finally managing a football team and doing something with my life instead of gambling all my money away.

Let me give you a background as to who I am:

I am Josh Brown, a 35 year old ex-footballer with the highlight of my career being my 1 international for England. I spent my career at Wolves until a horrific tackle completely snapped my right fibula and I was forced to retire from football, which left me in a state of depression and my way of getting around that was alcohol and gambling...

Now 5 years later I'm homeless with no money to my name, sitting in an airport making a decision that could completely change my life.

The speaker bellows out around the airport. My flight is ready to board. This is it, there is no going back now. This is my chance and I'm taking it. Goodbye England.

So what was the country I was heading for?

A couple of years ago I had never heard of this country until Wolves went on a training camp there. I instantly fell in love with this countries beauty and always told myself that i was going to go back there and maybe even play there once I hit the much later stages of my career. Sadly that never happened.

Why did I fall in love with this country as soon I got there?

Well the skyline was beautiful, skyscrapers everywhere and just an all round busy country.

However at night time, the skyline completely changed, everywhere was all lit up and it was like the whole country was having a massive party. It was at that point I realized this is where I want to live once my career had finished, maybe even start my own academy here, who knows?

From seeing the country at night, I quickly realized why people call this the Las Vegas of Asia.

Nice start interesting to see if you can earn enough to pay back the debt you owe. Also guessing you are heading to Macau

Looking forward to this, liking the diary entries

At approximately 6:30 in the morning my plane touched down in, you guessed it, Macau.

The skyline is still as beautiful as I remember and after gazing at it for about 30 seconds, I thought to myself, wait how am I going to get a job out here? I have no agent or anything?

Then I remembered from 8 years ago I met a guy called Antonio Aguiar from the training camp as he was also a fan of Wolves and he gave me his number as he was the owner of a small club in Macau named FC Porto de Macau. They were a small club, but after I expressed my interest of coming to play in Macau towards the end of my career he insisted I came to play for his club.

I phoned him and asked " Are you still interested in me becoming part of your club?"

Aguiar sounded like he was in shock that I actually took him up on his offer and said " Yes, we have a managers position open right now, you must come for an interview"

With no other options available I went to the interview which was where I realized just how small a club FC Porto de Macau were. They were a small amateur club playing in the second division of Macau. They had no staff whatsoever and a limited amount of players. I saw this as fantastic first project and a chance to establish myself to bigger and better things.

I breezed the interview, and was offered the job straight away. Sadly it was only an amateur contract but I could probably find some part time work to do as well. But this was it, I was about to take my first steps into management with FC Porto de Macau

Having looked through the squad, I realized there is a lot of young talent here which could potentially turn us into a top club in Macau. Other than that there's not much in terms of talent, with Daniel and Rodison Gama being the only two players to possess some sort of talent.

I also forgot to mention the rules of this save:

I'm only allowed to join teams in the bottom division of a certain nation
I'm not allowed to leave a club until I win the top division of a nation
I'm not allowed to manage in England, France, Germany, Spain and Russia
I must reach the amount needed to pay back the Russian loan sharks by the age of 65 - The Debt currently stands at £600,000

Transfers:

Shortly after arriving here, I realized my team was not capable of even being competitive in the league. So I had to search all across the small nation of Macau to find some talent to at least make my team competitive, I would play myself but that horrifying tackle that ended my career still haunts me.

Now with these signings we have a good spine in the team, with Lao Si Yan being the stand out signing. The 21 year old left back is by far the most technically gifted member of our squad, he's pulling off tricks in training that no other members of the squad have even seen before, let alone could do. With Lao Si Yan leading the defense and organizing the defense well, I can see him being a great captain of this club.

The other stand out signing would be Zhu Zhanpeng, from looking at him in training, the guy is a brick wall in goal and will massively help our chances of a promotion push this season.

I'm feeling confident about our chances and I'm loving this management role already

I was delighted when Rodilson Gama came up to me and said he was rejecting the top division clubs to stay with us. It makes me happy to see that even though I've only been here for a short time that I'm already making an impact on the players and that they want to be at this club with me.

I'm ecstatic that we have a player of Gama's quality, he is our star player, and without him the squad would be so much worse. The squad think of him as a 'Messi type player' and I agree with them. He is way too good to be playing in this division and I'm amazed he is staying with us.

These were the kinds of things I went into management for (apart from running from the Russian gangsters of course) but I'm glad that even a 35 year old has been like me can still make a positive impact on a players life.

Great news and a good start to this story mate, keep it up!

This was it, this was my first game in management, I was excited and nervous at the same time.

Being a former player I knew exactly how the players were feeling as well.

But I had belief in my squad, I believed we could go out and dominate any game this season. I simply told the boys what my old manager told me "Go out there with no pressure lads, I have faith in you." I didn't know if my team talk had inspired them in any way, they just all nodded in agreement.

There was then an awkward silence in the dressing room until the captain, Lao Si Yan, stepped and said, "Look this is managers first game in charge of a football team, we should all respect what he's done for this club already, and the fact that's given all of us a second chance to show what we can do. We owe him enough to try our hardest out there and make Josh's first game in management a win, come on lads!"

That talk did the trick, the lads were buzzing, they were ready to get out there and show to me what they could do.

The ref called us out into the tunnel and this was it, I was about to walk onto the pitch for the first time being the manager. It was an amazing feeling walking back out onto a football pitch again. There wasn't many fans but I could tell what I had at this club was special and this club was going to take me far.

The ref blew the whistle. it was time for kick off.