Gateshead - can they make it?

On a cold summers day in the north east of England, Rich Reay settled down at his desk. Contemplating his days as a player, he'd finally taken the first steps to becoming a manager. "Manager of Gateshead, who would have thought it" he muttered to himself.

After years of mid-table finishes, the club needed to move forward, and Rich knew that this season would be hard with Fleetwood, Ebbsfleet and Cambridge all pushing for promotion. But Rich knew that with some luck, and a couple of good loan players from Newcastle, he could write a new history for the club.

After a long phone call with Alan Pardew, Rich smiled in the knowledge that Ole Soderberg (GK), Paul Dummett (DL) and Phil Airey (ST) would be arriving in the morning.

Tomorrow, the real work begins.......

Nice start, hope you do well

Very nice intro, good luck for the season ahead (or what's left of it)

**I'm just rounding up the pre-season as I'm slightly further ahead into the season so I'll give a bit more detail then**

Pre-season started well for Rich with wins against Morecambe (3-1), North Ferriby (2-1), Blasckburn Reserves (3-0) and Workington (3-0), But the next two friendlies would really testing their character, matches against Leeds and Newcastle.

After a fantastic first half, The Tynesiders held Leeds at 1-1 and Rich told his players that they were playing well, but disaster struck within 10 minutes of the second half starting and Gateshead were loing 1-4, with seconds left on the clock, Phil Airey pulled one back and the game finished 2-4.

The final friendly of the season was against newcastle, which ended it humiliation for poor Rich in which he saw his team slaughtered at the hands of a rampant Newcawstle. The final score saw newcastle beat Gateshead by 8-0.

This was no time for feeling sorry for yourself, now was the time to show what real en were made of and to start the season running.

Love the intro. Found the bit where you say in the story, "Manager of Gateshead, who'd have thought it?" Made me laugh