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Poll: Shamrock Rovers: Season 1

Trust me its worth the read
Started on 7 May 2012 by johnsmith123
Latest Reply on 14 May 2012 by mwichmann
  • POSTS3
  • VIEWS7176
 
should i continue my story (9 votes)
Ok lets kick things off with the transfers i signed Abraham (lw) on loan, Manuel Cervini (amc) on a free, and Carlos (gk) also on a free. Abraham and Manuel Cervini where signed mainly to booster my teams numbers and add strength in depth. Carlos on the other hand is a very solid goalkeeper who i intended to be my first choice for a few years. I decided not to sell anyone as since the Irish Season is out of sync with the rest of Europe i knew i would have to slowly introduce my signing and let them get to grips with the style of the league and my team.

Well i might as well start with the domestic cups, i took charge part way through the season as the league are out of sync (as already said), and was pleased to see that we where still in both cup competitions.

I'll start with the Irish League cup:
2nd round vs Cobh Ramblers 4-1
Qtr Final vs Cork City p1-1
Semi Final vs Sligo Rovers e3-1
Final vs Limerick FC 1-0

We never Really got out of second gear in the cup, and just scraped results where we should have won much more comfortably but never the less a trophy is a trophy and it was good to get more first piece of sliver wear so early in my reign.

The other domestic cup is the Senior challenge cup (results listed below):

2nd round vs Avondale 2-1
3rd round vs Athlone 0-0
Replay 6-0
4th round Mervue Utd 2-0
Semi Final vs Longford 2-2
Replay 1-0
Final vs St.Pat's Athletic 5-1

I was very pleased with are results throughout this cup especially the thrashing of St.Pat's Athletic in the final.

Ok so iv won a cup double can i make it a treble with the league???

Well lets find out, as i started half way through the league season (the out of sync thing) i had some catching up to do we where 15 points behind the leaders having played 19 games. I knew i would need a massive effort in the final 17 games so i got to work and we won 16 games and drew the other. The results are listed below


Galway utd 5-0
Sligo Rovers 2-2
UCD 2-0
Dundalk 4-1
Derry City 2-1
Bohemians 4-0
Drogheda Utd 4-0
Galway 6-0
Sligo Rovers 4-0
St Pat's Athletic 3-1
UCD 2-0
Bohemians 1-0
Derry city 3-1
Drpgheda Utd 2-0
St Pat's Athletic 2-1
Dundalk 2-0
Bary Wanderers 4-1

But was it enough... Put simply no. we finished with 79 points 4 behind the leaders Sligo Rovers on 83 points. At the other end of the table Galway where relegated with 7 points and a goal difference of -95 lols. I was very disappointed with finishing second and knowing that we wouldn't be in the Champions League next season.

Ok well moving on from the league disappointment to the one you've all been waiting for... the Champions league!!!

Shamrock started in the Qual.2 of the champions league (whatever the means)

Anyways to drew Shkendija the first leg stated off well and we where 3-0 by half time but the second half lead to the sending off of are center back Gartland and they pegged us back to 3-3 with 20 minutes to go fearing the worst i switched to a defensive long ball style of football to ensure we where still to the match come the second leg, and to my surprise we actually manged two more goals to win the match 5-3. For the second leg i rested a few key players for the league as i decided it was "in the bag" we lost 1-0 but that didn't matter as we still went through 5-4 overall.

We drew M.Haifa in the next stage. In the first leg we where pinned back in are own area throughout, but they only scored the one goal giving us a fighting chance ahead of the second leg. In the second leg my team put on a much more impressive performance and won the match comfortably 3-1 on the day and 3-2 overall.

We where now only 180 minutes away from the group stages of the champions league and i was getting excited!!! we drew Rosenborg, a solid team but i was still confident of getting the result my team where in great form thrashing everyone in Ireland and getting solid results in Europe. The first leg was a bore and ended 0-0, the second leg however was an epic football match they scored first then we went 2-1, only to be pegged back to 2-2 and then coincide a late 89th minute goal to give them a 3-2 lead, before a wonder strike from Manuel Cervini in the 94th minute to make it 3-3 on the night. And now i bet you wondering which leg was the away leg... It was the second! We where probably (to the best of my knowledge) the only semi-pro team to ever reach the group stages of the champions league.

The group stage draw was cruel we drew Chelsea, Valencia, and Fc Kobenhavn, but despite the cruel draw i was still aiming for third place so we would be able to compete in the Euro Cup knock out rounds this season.

Ok are results where:
Fc Kobenhave 2-0
Chelsea 0-1
Valencia 0-1
Valencia 0-3
Fc Kobenhavn 0-0
Chelsea 1-4

so we manged to keep the score lines against Chelsea and Valencia mildly respectable and pick up points home and away against Fc Kobenhavn, but was that enough for third place, well have a look for yourself:

1st Valencia - pts 15
2nd Chelsea - pts 13
3rd Shamrock Rovers - pts 4
4th Fc Kobenhavn 2

so that means were into the knock-out stages of the Euro Cup but that will come in next seasons post as since the Irish league is out of sync the knock-out stages actually happen at the beginning of next season for me.

And to finish off this post ill quickly talk about are finances and thing like that we managed to make a 6 million pound profit this year mainly due to 7.5 million pounds in price money mainly the 6.5 for getting into the group stages of the champions league. And in other news there's a plan to expand the stadium from 7500 seats to around about 9000, and the board also rejected my request to become a professional club :/

But anyways its was a good season and i look forward to challanging for my first league title next season!
sorry for the bold writing in places that was a mistake.
Hmmm, I tried to vote "continue" but the site was sure I had already voted, which wasn't true...

Did an experimental game once with Drogehda (worked out I came in as a mid-season replacement again because they're on that different schedule, and ran 1.5 seasons. Didn't win a title, but improved a side that had fallen off badly after having qualified for Europe the season before, the first half-year took them from the bottom end of the table to the upper end, the full year 2nd by just few pts.). The Irish game is certainly a "challenge". It doesn't seem overly hard to pick up players who can fit in from Scotland, and sometimes England, but it's a bear trying to hang on to any players you find or develop who are any good, the poachers are always lurking... and because of the season out of sync with Scotland/England, you tend to suffer mid-season squad changes that you'd hope to avoid.

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