Introduction
This will not be a traditional story, but rather just a series of 'blog posts' about my long-term save with Wellington Phoenix in the A-League.
The Phoenix represent an interesting challenge in Football Manager, as they are a New Zealand-based team in an Australian (and therefore Asian) league, which means they are not eligible for continental football. In Australia, continental success is really the only way to boost your reputation and attendance significantly. This means that despite a lot of domestic success, my average attendance has risen from about 6,000 at the start of the save to about 9,000 over twenty-five years later.
So no continental prize money, pretty small gate receipts, how does one stay afloat? Much like the real-world situation the A-League currently finds itself in, I have relied on transfers to grow the club or in many cases keep the club solvent, investing in my training and youth facilities to churn out good prospects which can then be sold to East Asia or Europe for a tidy fee. It's made the save quite fun and engaging, focusing on blooding new players constantly and never getting too attached to star players since they likely won't be here very long. Also, I've limited myself to only using New Zealand players throughout the save.
But anyway, that was just an intro to the save. This story will just contain various reports, articles, tables, lists and other things whenever the inspiration strikes. Hope you enjoy.
