I haven’t played the full version of FM for 3 seasons, now I am back on the bandwagon and thought I would document my first FM18 story here.
I gave a lot of thought to this first save. I was tempted by inevitable quest of taking over the team I support, but fancy doing something different.
I was certainly keen to start outside the professional levels of the game, but remain within a league that had some personal context for me. That left English or Welsh pyramids open to play.
To cut a tedious introduction short I settled on the Welsh pyramid and using the pre-game editor opened the Welsh pyramid down to tier 4, beginning my journey with tier 3 club Pontypridd Town.
I will expand further in my next post, for now it was just a case of getting this up and running, setting down the introduction. The context and objective will come shortly...
Intro continued...
Background
Pontypridd is town in south Wales on the confluence of two rivers that are synonymous with Wales – the Rhondda and the Taff – and is more or less a junction point of three of Wales former industrial valleys. Its population of 33,000 means the Pontypridd area is Wales' 13th largest urban area.
Pontypridd (Ponty) owes its historical growth to the iron and coal mining industries that dominated this part of Wales after the industrial revolution. Prior to the 1830s, Pontypridd was merely a crossing point over the Taff and the famous ‘new bridge’ that was built in 1756 for this purpose still stands and is Ponty’s most famous landmark.
With the iron and coal long gone from the area, in modern times Ponty has evolved into a commuter town for predominantly the Welsh capital Cardiff. It’s recent fame is generated by being the birth place of singer Tom Jones and for the exploits of the town’s rugby union team.
Pontypridd Town AFC were formed in 1992 as a merger between Ynysybwl FC and Pontypridd Sports & Social Club. After some initial success in the Welsh Football League, they fell into a period of decline, their fortunes only turning around in this decade when businessman Phil Gibb became involved in the club and the fraternal management duo – Dominic and Damien Broad – have overseen the club’s rise from near relegation from the Welsh Football League (WFL) to being many people’s favourites to gain promotion to the WFL Division One this season.
Welsh Football League comprises tiers 2-4 of the Welsh domestic football pyramid, covering the whole of south Wales. It is the highest level of domestic football in south Wales outside the nationalised Welsh Premier League. In north and mid Wales the Cymru Alliance is tier 2 with four regionalised leagues at tier 3 and 4. Within the Welsh pyramid, WFL Division One is the equivalent of the English Championship, Division Two is League One, Division Three equivalent to League Two. Below the Welsh Football League is further regionalisation.
Ponty Town are equivalent to an English League Two side, except with a tiny fraction of the resources available to them. In real life the club are ambitious and I believe there is a long-term goal to reach the Welsh Premier League (WPL). For this save I thought it would be interesting to take on that challenge; setting myself the goal of not just reaching the WPL, but taking Pontypridd Town into Europe for the first time in their history.
Put this in the wrong forum, delete or lock as you wish.
