2012-12-08 20:03#71519 CockneyReject :
Lmao! Yes man!!!
Can't believe you included great pats dog!!
Love the story mate 
Btw. Part 3 is dedicated to Greg aka CockneyReject, who gave me the inspiration for this part of the story, which might not have been included elsewise.
2012-12-08 23:44#71572 The FM Rookie :
Ca bhfuil mo phairta? 
What on earth does phairta mean?
Part 4: Meeting the team
10 minutes after the traumatic experience with Pat Jennings’ dog, Alan saw Tony Knight coming through the front door.
“Ah, there you are!” said Tony Knight “The Players are anxious to meet you”. Before Alan could respond he was almost dragged towards the front door.
“We should get you into your proper training kit” said Tony Knight as he led Alan through the door.
Alan was led down the side of the building and in through a door marked “Dressing Rooms”. When they walked in, Alan saw a narrow corridor with doors on each side, which probably lead to different dressing rooms. At the end of the corridor there was a double door probably leading to the reception area. “Why on earth, didn’t we go that way?” Alan asked himself.
“Right, here we are” Said Tony Knight as he opened the door marked “Home / Baile”. Alan looked around and saw that the opposite door was equally intriguingly marked “Away / Ar Shiúl”.
They walked through the door and into an almost empty dressing room. A man dressed in a navy blue training kit was busy distributing similar training kits around the benches.
“How can the players be anxious to meet me, when they are not here?” Alan thought.
“This is Pádraig Moran” Tony Knight interupted Alan's thoughts, as Pádraig turned around. “He’s the assistant manager in the club”.
“Top of the morning to ya, lad”. Pádraig said as he stretched out a hand to be shaken.
“I thought you didn’t say that anymore?” Alan said bewildered as he shook Pádraig’s hand.
“We don’t” Pádraig said without much Irish dialect at all, “I just wanted to see if one of you Sassenachs would know!”
“Right!” Tony Knight interrupted “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Pádraig could you be so kind as to tell Alan a little about the players?”
The Chairman left the room and Pádraig threw a training kit towards Alan.
“You’ll need that” he said. “Go get changed”.
When Alan was finished changing Pádraig was done distributing the rest of the training kit, he looked Alan up and down.
“You don’t have any idea what to do from here do you?” He said.
“No” Alan said after a moments hesitation. “I don’t, really.”
“Right, don’t worry. I’ll be in charge of today’s training session, you can follow what I do and if you feel confident enough, give me some input.” Pádraig said patting Alan’s shoulder “You’ll do fine, you just need a bit of practice”.
“Before we begin” Pádraig continued “What do you know of the players and the club?”
“Not much” Alan responded “I know we’ve got Pat Jennings’ son here”.
“Ah yes, Pat” Pádraig said and added “Best goalie in the club and one of the veterans at the team.”
“You should also be aware of Damien Rushe,” Pádraig added “He’s our midfield general and vice captain, he’s probably our best player.”
“I’ll keep that in mind” Alan said as the door burst open and two young men came in and sat down on the benches.
A few moments later the entire team was sitting on the benches and wearing matching training kits with the Athlone Town AFC logo on the right side of the training top. Everyone had a 2 letter acronym on the left side indicating their initials. Alan had always wanted a track top that said AT and now he had it, what an awe inspiring feeling. Alan assumed that it had been made that very morning at a local sports store.
“Right, listen up lads” Alan shouted to the team “My name is Alan, I’m your new manager. Today Pádraig will be in charge of the practice as I will stand back a bit and have a look at each and every one of you. So Pádraig you take it from here”.
Alan looked around and saw the players nodding and Pádraig stood up and guided the players onto the pitch. Alan was the last man out of the door.
“How am I ever going to be able to do this?” Alan thought to himself as he ran after the team onto the practice field.
Great update mate! Looking forward to next update
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I'm loving this story, cannot wait until you get into the games
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2012-12-10 09:44#71775 MrSharmaful :
I'm loving this story, cannot wait until you get into the games
It's in Part 5. If I'm done with part 6 and 7 tonight, I'll probably publish part 5 tomorrow.
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Part 5: The first match
Alan sat upright in his bed with a jolt. He was all covered in sweat and his heart was beating furiously. He had had another bad dream. The last couple of nights he hadn’t been able to sleep well, one of the reasons was his new house which had totally new sounds as to what he was used to and another, and probably the main reason, was that his first game as a professional football manager was only a few hours away. He looked at his alarm clock, 4 AM.
“That’ll do for tonight” Alan thought has threw his legs over the side of the bed. He sat there for a while with his head buried in his hands trying to get his thoughts straight.
He went downstairs to put the kettle on for a cup of tea. As he sat by his kitchen table he looked towards the kitchen door where his finest suit hang. He had bought a tie in team colours and a white shirt so he’d look like a proper football manager. He would certainly look the part, but at the moment he didn’t feel like it.
“What on earth should I say to these kids?” He thought as he took a sip of his tea. He let his mind wander.
“Maybe I should let Pádraig do the team talks, that would be the easiest. He’s been there and seen it being done before, then after a while I can take over - but then again, they need to know that I’m the boss and not Pádraig. I could just tell them the stuff I do in Football Manager. Go and impress me, I expect nothing but a win, Don’t worry we’re clear underdogs here - no pressure. Yeah that might work, I might even throw in a few extra words on that.” he mused as he sat on the kitchen table looking at the sun coming up behind the cottages across the street.
“What kind of tactic should I have them play today, we’ve practiced the 4-4-2 as this is what they played before, but they’ve also practiced the 4-2-3-1, the one we played at Hardly Athletic and was inspired on Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham from last season. I might have the players, but are they good enough? I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m not sure the players are good enough. I think we’re going to fail miserably this season”
Then the tea calmed him.
Later in the day Alan was sitting on a bench in the dressing room getting ready for the game. He had started building a few ideas as to how they should play today and was confident that he could convey his ideas to the players. They would press all over the pitch but they wouldn’t lunge into tackles. Alan had seen Brendan Rodgers do this last season which provided Swansea with some great chances whilst also giving them a good defensive base. That was what he was going to ask the players to do. Hopefully they’ll be talented enough to do it. He got up and walked around a bit.
The game was now a few hours away. They would have to take the bus to Galway to play Mervue utd. Alan had found his office and was sitting there and reading through the very limited scouting report, Pat Jennings, the Goalkeeper, walked in.
“Hey gaffer” Pat said, everyone in the club was calling him gaffer or just gaf and was the only thing Alan had gotten used to in his first few days at the club. It felt great.
“Hey Pat” Alan responded looking up from his papers. “What can I do for you?”
“I just wanted to let you know I was here and wondered if you had anything we could use against the opposition.” Pat said
“Not really, Pat” Alan said “I’m looking at the scouting report and it just tells me if they’ve won or lost and which players were playing. Well, more or less.”
Alan got of the bus as the last person, he had spent the entire trip to Galway, which was about an hours drive mainly on motorway, talking to Pádraig, who was keen on the idea of the style of play, but a bit pessimistic as to whether the players could pull it off. They all walked towards the dressing room, most of the players had been here before either playing for Athlone or another club, so Alan wasn’t left standing not knowing where to go. Alan spent the next 45 minutes discussing the tactics which left most of the players looking bewildered. The young Val Feeney raised his hand. “Gaff, kick-off is in 30 minutes, shouldn’t we be warming up?” he asked.
“Woah, right you are Val” Alan said as he discovered that he had lost track of time, “let’s go grab that win!”
Some sexy-assed Irish story here!
Go grab the win for Uncle Nick!
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Good luck man, can't wait for next update!
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Part 6: The Long Road Home
They would play at Fahy’s Field in Galway, this was a completely new experience for the team as it wasn’t until last year that Mervue made it live up to the standards of the FAI. It was basically just your average football pitch with a few banner ads around the pitch it looked very much like the Sunday League pitches Alan was used to. When they arrived at the field Alan found his spot in the dugout. He put his notepad and pencil on the bench and turned around in order to get a better overview of the warming up.
What a rush of adrenaline it was to be standing there looking at his team warming up. The ref came up to Alan and stretched out a hand.
“Hi I’m Kelly” The ref said
“Kelly?” Was the only response Alan could muster as he shook the ref’s hand
“Surname, first name is Graham” he responded with a smile “I just wanted to welcome you to the league and make sure that you know the laws of the game.”
“I do” Alan said, “But I might still yell at you if a disagree”
“OK” Kelly laughed “Good game”
“You too” Alan said and the ref jogged off.
30 minutes later the referee blew the whistle and Alan Thompson was officially an active football manager in charge of a team in the second best league in the Republic of Ireland.
“What on earth am I doing here” Alan thought to himself as the game got underway.
105 minutes later the referee blew the whistle for the last time in the match. Alan sat in the same place he had done all game, completely motionless. He looked up at the scoreboard, Mervue had won 2-1. Mark McGoldrick had secured an early lead and it looked like victory was certain until the 81st minute when a Mervue player thumped the ball into the back of the net and equalised. 11 minutes later Mervue got another break and eased the ball in for a 2-1 win and that’s when the referee blew the whistle for the last time. Alan hadn’t done a single thing to prevent it, he had used no subs, he had shouted no orders, he hadn’t made a single players shift his position.
An hour later Alan got on the team coach and was heading back to Athlone. He had only muttered a few things to the players in the dressing room and had remained quite whilst the players showered and dressed. As Alan sat looking at the raindrops race along the side window young Brian Gill came up to him.
“Gaff, why is it that you didn’t sub any of us? I mean their last goal was because neither me nor McCarthy could keep up with their left back. I even signaled the last ten minutes that I was spent.”
Alan looked away from his battle of the raindrops and looked at Gill.
“I didn’t know what to do” he said out loud for the first time.
“OK” Gill said uneasily “well, Gaff, it was only a game you need practice like the rest of us. Don’t worry - you’ll get there.”
Nice writing, I accidentally thanked you for post 5, but you deserve it
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I have to say I love this tyle of writing. Gives the reader something different than most stories. What areyour long term plans? Eventually end up in the big leagues or take Athlone Town to the continent?
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2013-03-28 14:50#87702 Spurs_Fan_89 :
I have to say I love this tyle of writing. Gives the reader something different than most stories. What areyour long term plans? Eventually end up in the big leagues or take Athlone Town to the continent?
I believe I've stated the long term goal in the Prologue
I don't think neither you nor me can argue with his dream
