How helpful are your Board?

I'm playing in BSP, having been promoted from BSS last year.

Last term the Board couldn't do enough for me, upgraded facilities, and are still building an academy which is due to be completed in two months (I’m in April 2012 game time), they allowed me to increase my transfer budget and relay my pitch when it fell into disrepair.

This year, I can’t seem to buy a lucky break. The options to improve facilities and relay pitch have not come back online, and the only two options that I did use (about wanting to turn professional and asking for a parent club were dismissed out of hand). I have been successful in my second season, winning the league, making the 4th round of the FA Cup, and am due to play the final of the FA Trophy soon.

I just can’t think why the options haven’t come back yet and why the Board are being so unhelpful. I have plenty of cash on hand…I know I will just have to wait, but has anyone else had to wait a year for the facilities to be upgraded again, or have had bad experiences with their Board despite the success on the field?

Oh, and is it normal to have to relay the pitch every year. I re-laid it last year, and already the pitch state is “poor”. What gives?

The options come back after 6 months or after the current work has finished on them, if you hover your cursor over the blacked out option you'll get a reason why you can't select it.

I've noticed that if you get your board to relay the pitch once they'll do it every season without you even asking or wanting them too, probably a bug but you won't have to worry about asking them again.

" if you hover your cursor over the blacked out option you'll get a reason why you can't select it.
"
Learned something new again

Thanks Evo, I'll check that tonight, or at the weekend depending how busy I get.

It's weird too, Wembley looked quite lush in comparision to York Road, and I would have expected that to have been used more than just for my home games.

Thanks for the head up, and I'll be interested to see how I go in league two.

Thanks Evo - that little gem gave me a fair bit of insight - I can't upgrade my training facilities becaause my academy is still being built, most of the other options have been "used recently". The only one that might be misleading is my staff numbers. When I click over the option, it says I can employ more coaches/physios/scouts but in the Board list, I am fully staffed.

I'm going to wait until I get my budgets for the assault on league two and see whether I can employ more....leads me to a salient point though.

What league are you currently playing in, and how many backroom staff do you currently employ and in what roles?

I still remember with FM06, there was not restrictions on staff (seems a bit daft with hindsight), so when you became so powerful that funds weren't an issue for you or your board, you would have 15 ass mans and 25 coaches and 50 scouts.


Ah, the days of notes saying you will pay Porto 3M compo and just pushing "accept". LOL.

The reason the pitch state is already poor is because different grounds have different deterioration rates. As for staff, I'm managing a PL team and I have 32 staff. 1 Assistant, 2 F. Coaches, 2 G. Coaches, 4 Coaches, 3 Physios and 20 scouts.

Think that is something for me to aim towards - I got the nod to appoint more staff and then obviously didn't, was more concerned with keeping the finances tight. Third season, League Two, 36.5K wages and 4.4M transfer spend with a top half of the table finish....I hope I am not setting myself up here.

Re the pitch deterioration, I can only hope that it gets better as I upgrade the stadium. I haven't as yet has a sell out, and crowds were on average 750 on a 4,500 capacity. So I think it'll be a while before I can sell that as an idea to my Board.

I'll post my staff when I have finalised my roster, have successfully transferred Welsh midfielder Sean Geddes in, and a French CB Melvin Bouvier I think his name is (I'm not at home right now). I am still trying to see whether I can cope with only free transfers, and there are some talents in particularly France and Italy I am finding, but none want to sign with me at the moment. :-(

Is there any advantages or disadvantages to not running a reserve or r-18 team, because you are "invited" to do so. I'll be the first to admit I want to be a developmental club, but as we all know, that is a 20-30 year plan, and my first object is to be successful in terms of EPL and Europe and stay within Board approved budget guidelines.

What I am doing at the moment is playing "friendlies" to keep the cash reserves up and effectively dumping my overflow from the first team into the reserves and working them like slaves. I would think by playing in the reserve and R-18 league, I am taking days where I could be earning cash? I am also certain that none of the players could cut it in league two.

Oh, and as an aside, I didn't renew Ashley Gomes contract when it expired. He was my CB from my first season who scored 16 goals but didn't perform as well in the second season - granted his chances were limited by the arrival of Lynch, Ekong and Ferrotti - and spent most of his time in the reserves. I couldn't sell him either, but now my Board and Fans are well annoyed and my approval rating has sunk! He was "favoured personnel", along with last seasons top scorer, Harry Bunn, and me......guess I'll have to have a successful season to sway them over!

# 6294 : The reason the pitch state is already poor is because different grounds have different deterioration rates. As for staff, I'm managing a PL team and I have 32 staff. 1 Assistant, 2 F. Coaches, 2 G. Coaches, 4 Coaches, 3 Physios and 20 scouts.