Rags to Riches

Season 1 06/07/2010: Looking for work...
The time had come for me to realise my destiny. The glitz and glamour of football management in all its glory, the Nou Camp, Old Trafford, San Siro...WEMBLEY!

Perhaps one day, but for now I’m starting right at the bottom. No job and only Sunday League experience with the mighty Ashridge Park FC in my locker, it’s going to be a long and tough journey to fulfil my dreams. HERE WE GO!
So I’m starting unemployed, looking at what’s available I immediately forwarded my CV to York City of the Blue Square Premier league. Surely they’d take me on...and I got a response by the next day! Things were moving fast. Only the response I got was a headline in my morning paper “Robinson takes charge at York.” So I won’t be getting that job then. Sure enough I received a letter saying I was unsuccessful in my application and the club had decided to give the job to Phil Robinson, a man who’d previously led Stafford Rangers to...well...nothing. FINE THEN! Clearly a job in the Blue Square Premier is setting my sights to high.

No vacancies at the moment so I play the waiting game....beans on toast for dinner again tonight and down the job centre to sign on for another week. Really need a job!

Hello FMscout users, this is my first ever story and I'm going for the narrative style with some emotion as well as plenty of in depth football once I get a job. Just a quick question how do I upload screenshots, pictures etc. THANKS!

Good luck with this story, i'll definitely follow.


To upload screenshots you need to press the 'Prt Scr' button on the top of your keyboard, this will take a screenshot of your current screen. Then you must go into Paint, which should already be on your computer, and press Ctrl + V, this will paste the screen shot in, right click on it and select save, save it as whatever you wish.

You must then go to photobucket, upload the screenshot there, copy the direct link, make sure it is the direct link and nothing else. Then you must come back here, click the picture button (looks like a green box) on the top of the 'post a reply' part of the page. Press Ctrl + V once again and the URL should be posted, the image should then be added to your post.


Can be a bit confusing at times but yeah, it's what you need to do.

or u can use imageshack is lot easyier... on youre pic press alt+F9 then open imageshack and there upload youre pic(ur pic is saved in documents/sportsinteractiv/fm11/screenshoot and wenn upload copy DIRECT link and post pic here, u got above windows for pics and stuff like that... Good luck finding job!

Season 1: 09/10/2010 Opportunity Knocks

After waiting 3 months for an opening I was ready to pack it all in. I was even looking abroad for jobs but had no joy whatsoever. Just as it turned to October I decided to give it one last try. My mates, brothers girlfriend has a dad who works as a groundsman at Woking FC, apparently the board were less than impressed by Graham Bakers efforts as manager of the club and his sacking would be announced any day now. This was my chance. I declared my interest in the position and crossed my fingers.

This was it! Baker had been sacked and I'd been called in to discuss the job offer. I signed straight away on a one year contract worth £500 a week. Woooo Hooo!

http://img141.imageshack.us/i/woking.png/

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Woking set in the lovely county of Surrey are a team currently in disarray. They lie 17th in the table having been predicted a 3rd place finish at the start of the season. Following relegation last season they appear to be having quite a hangover. Time to roll up my sleeves.

My first game in charge was just one day away an FA CUP 3rd round qualifier against Faversham....ok time to get to work. Looking at the side I was alarmed to see just two out n out strikers in the side, who were both out of form. There seemed a distinct lack of creativity across the team which explained why they'd only managed 8 goals this season. This is how the table looked when I took over.

http://img39.imageshack.us/i/table8thoct10.jpg/


I called in club captain Mark Ricketts for a welcome chat and to discuss the objectives. He resembled a deflated figure, bemoaning some team mates for not matching his own level of determination. He highlighted striker Moses Ademola as being a player who thinks he's something he really is not. Clearly some new strikers were needed to boost the team. Ricketts agreed. I re-structured the training regime and brought in two new coaches that day.

Woking V Faversham @ Kingfield stadium

My first game in charge then. Faversham were 55-1 to win with the bookies, surely I could not lose. Stranger things have happened.

It was clear to see just how bad my teams confidence were. the deadlock finally broken in the 24th minute. Martins did some great work on the right before placing a peach of a cross at the feet of Ademola. 4 yards out he should bury it right? WRONG! He taps it against the post only for it to fall back at his feet. Ademola gets a push from a Faversham defender and he stumbles into the ball making it roll over the line. GOAL! My first ever in management and what a scrappy one it was. Moses Ademola follows with a klinsmann dive celebrating like he'd just scored the winner in the world cup final. Hmmmmm.

That was genuinely the only highlight. My strikers were poor. Ademola spurned chance after chance and I dont think Gilroy even touched the ball all game?

Result:Woking 1 Faversham 0

A win is a win I suppose. Much better performances will be needed. Time to look for some bargain strikers!!


For those of you who may be worried, they wont all be as long winded as this haha!

delete this http wenn add ur pic

Cheers think I've got it now.

Ahh no more beans on toast Keep it up and good luck with Woking mate, I'll be reading.

More of a full english now eh?

After the Faversham game I made it my first priority to sign up some new players, on the cheap obviously having a transfer budget of £0 at my disposal. Here’s what I got

http://img140.imageshack.us/i/sampson.jpg/
Jack Sampson ST - Free
A young and ambitious striker aged 18 who had been released in the summer by Bolton Wanderers. He had fairly good physical stats for this league anyway, but more importantly he’s more clinical in front of goal than any other player I have. I’m looking at the youngster to start banging the goals in for me

http://img848.imageshack.us/i/sakali.jpg/
Abdeltareck Sakali AM/R – Free
A French winger formerly of Blackburn Rovers. At the age of 24 he’s yet to play a professional football match so a bit of a risk. However he is physically outstanding compared to the rest of my lads, he clearly spends less time in the pub and more time in the gym than they do! He’d be getting to the byline and whipping them in for me.

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/spartanj.jpg/
Tasos Kapsolapodas DM – Free
Another youngster with fire in his belly. The 18 year old was released by Man City and I snapped him up. Now I couldn’t find a photo of him so being that he is a Greek I decided to go with the Spartan pic. I think I’ll nickname him Spartan given his strong mentality and high aggression. He’d hold the middle of the park for me.
Business done and dusted. Now to my next game, the first league matchup of my career brought me to Wheatsheaf Park in Staines.

http://img823.imageshack.us/i/staines.jpg/
http://img708.imageshack.us/i/bluesquarebig.jpg/

Staines Town V Woking
All three of my new signings started and I looked to play a counter attacking game and hit them wide on the break with the pace of Sakali. We defended well restricting Staines’ ability to play the final killer ball however we failed to create anything of substance in what I would describe as a forgetful first half.

In the dressing room I told the lads to get at them this half and take a few more risks. That they did but it didn’t have the desired effect. In the 56th minute Staines got the ball out left to a tricky lad called Smith. He cut inside captain Mark Ricketts and tried to beat him. Mark tackled superbly sliding in and taking the ball away. To his dismay the ball slid straight into the path of Staines’ Dean Thomas who powered the ball past Pigedley in goal. 1-0 to Staines.

Time for some tactical genius. I took off Sakali and McGrath swapping them with Gilroy and Martins. This set us up in a 4-3-3 formation. However the extra man up-front wasn’t helping, Staines had more chances and had a goal ruled out for offside. I couldn’t see us winning this. But then to my delight in the 71st minute out of nothing David Gilroy got the ball out left, he cut inside his man and floated a cross in with his right foot. It swung towards the back post. Ghosting in at the back was only the controversial man himself. MOSES ADEMOLA. He watched the ball all the way and placed a perfect head into the net. 1-1!

82mins in, just 8 more to go. Mark Ricketts walked the ball into the opposition half. Urging his players to get forward and muster any energy they had left, he spotted the run of new boy Jack Sampson who’d been lively all game but hand no reward....yet. Ricketts played a lofted through ball towards the centre. Sampson beat the offside trap and was in the clear. I stopped breathing, The crowd were shouting but I heard nothing. To me it was silent, like time had stood still. I watched Sampson get closer and closer, the Staines keeper had decided to take him on one on one. Come on lad, do something. The keeper was closing him down with little time left to act and from 12 yards out Sampson blasted a shot at goal. Sweet, sweet sound of ball crashing into the net. All the sound came back to me I stood in amazement before I was bundled to the ground by my assistant. GET IN SON! The debutant had done it. 2-1 up!
When the final whistle came I was happy with my team, everyone loves a comeback and the drama of the day had taken my breath. Gotta love football.


Result: Staines Town 1 Woking 2

Great result, new signings looking good!

Being a lifelong Staines fan I was rather supporting Staines in that match

The signings look good, especially Sakali, I signed him for Staines in a save similar to yours - unemployed Sunday League footballer. He won player of the year and the best thing is he can get past every fullback in the BSS with his lightning pace!

Right here's what's up.

There was a massive problem with my game, for some reason Woking appear to have no board on my game so I literally cannot interact with my board. Worse still when I try the game crashes and I lost about 2 months worth of games which was really annoying. I loaded the game up again but everytime I interact with the board it crashes. I dont want to play a game where I cant do this at the end of the day so this story has to end here I'm afraid.

Ive since re-installed fm11 on my laptop and with a few trial games there no longer seems to be a problem. Sorry to anyone who was following this. I will be starting a new story shortly and will get much further with this one. HOW ANNOYING!