An old face in a familiar place

January wasn't quite has packed as December was, but we still played in eight games. Port Vale is the second consecutive League One team that we dismantled on our march for the FA Cup. Later in the month we played Leeds in the 4th round and our fellow Premier League outfit (currently 8th place) was also dispatched.

We drew table rivals Man City in the semifinals of the League Cup, and after edging them 2-1 in the away leg, we demolished them at home to win 6-1 on aggregate. We will face Birmingham in the finals as we try to retain the cup for a seventh consecutive season.

We won three and drew once during league play and we now hold a 4 point lead over second place Man City. Liverpool and Chelsea are starting to fade further and further back, with the two teams both 11 points adrift in third and fourth place.



No Champions Cup updates this month, but we begin the 1st knockout round vs Olympic Lyonnais next month. We travel to the Stade de Gerland on the 23rd of February for the away leg before they come to Newport County Stadium in March.

February was another slower month for us with only six games played. Yet another undefeated month ended with a bang as we brought home the League Cup for the seventh straight time. Our performance was somewhat lackluster, however, with Caca rifling home the only goal of the match only minutes after the start of the second half.

We demolished yet another unfairly outclassed League One team, this time crushing Hereford 5-0 in the fifth round of the FA Cup. The sixth round promises to bring better competition with our opponents either being Championship side Wolves or fellow Premier League rivals Arsenal.

We had a perfect 3 game run in league play that saw us outscore our opponents 13 goals to 2. We now hold a six point lead over second place City, an eleven point lead over third place Liverpool, and a fourteen point lead over fourth place United. With only ten games remaining, we can look to clinch the league crown for an eighth straight time sooner than later.



We had a very strong showing in the first leg of our knockout round vs OL. We were down 0-2 at the half and were playing like shit in the second half. Even after one of Lyon's players earned an early bath from a straight red card, we still couldn't seem to break through. In the 84th minute, Dominic Vose finally scored, giving us an important away goal. Then Caca decided he wanted to go into the second half dead even, so he bagged a goal three minutes later. The end result was a stunned and silenced home crowd and an unexpected draw from our side. With two away goals in the bag, we should be strong favorites to advance to the next round.

Ok, everyone. The time has come to start putting the final touches on this career. I will no longer update this story until I've retired from my post at the helm of England and Newport County. At that time I'll post up a summary of my coaching career and hopefully I will have taken the #1 spot in the Hall of Fame. I'm currently 3rd behind Ernst Happel (988) and Sir Alex Ferguson (970). I only have 760 points to my name so far.

Joannes3000.... Thank you for entertaining me in work for the last week! i have been reading your "journey" at every opportunity in work and was actually sad when it came to an end.
I'm going to attempt to do something similar myself, but with far less success i assume!

It was a bittersweet moment when I decided to step away from my post at Newport County. After all, it was the only domestic team I had managed for so long. Had it really been 19 years? Where did all the time go? Did I make the fans proud?

19 years ago Newport County went on a limb and hired a foreign manager to take over their semi-professional team. Back then, what was there to lose? Newport had just promoted to the Blue Square Premier but that wasn't anything momentous. So even if this Filipino coach was in over his head, at worst they demote and a lesson is learned. The lesson learned was that we were able to take a team and transform them from local afterthought to international power.

On the strength of my domestic success I was also given the chance to manage England and we accomplished several feats there. We won the World Cup, the European Football Championships, and the Confederations Cup. It felt good to bring national success to the nation that I coached in for so long.

In the end, my success for both club and country led to the number one ranking in the Hall of Fame. It took quite some time but I was finally able to run down Ernst Happel and Sir Alex Ferguson. Not bad company to keep for this unknown foreigner.

So why the abrupt exit? Some will tell you that I grew tired of coaching. What else was there to accomplish? Some will tell you that I wanted to go home to my native Philippines to enjoy life away from football. And some will tell you that I had found a new challenge. Something different, yet so similar.