Table of Contents

Boston United
Season 1 - A Pilgrim's Path (this post): An American with negiligble football experience gets hired by Boston United due to a misunderstanding.
Kettering Town
Season 2 - Football Nightmares: Kettering Town: After falling out of contract with Boston United, newly-promoted Kettering Town hires the ex-Boston manager to keep going upward, but instead sink like lead.
FC Halifax
Season 3 - Shaymen, not Shaymin: After resigning from Kettering Town, Shylo Elliott gets hired by a newly-relegated team to carry them back up.
Season 4 - The Nomad Finds a Home: Elliott actually manages to stick with his former team and manages to beat the odds.
Season 5 - Halifax Promoted: Elliott adjusts to life managing in Conference National.
Season 6 - Professionals
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I was interested in getting a job coaching a soccer team, but it would be tough for me. I had no previous management experience, and the Sunday League experience I claimed to have, I lied about. I had never played soccer before, although I was a fan. I sent off many applications to minor-league soccer teams in the United States, but I never expected to hear back from any of them.

Today I checked the mail, and to my surprise I found a letter from Boston United, one of the teams I sent an application to. I was surprised to find the letter came from Boston, Lincolnshire, England, and not the U.S. Boston. I thought I had only applied to U.S. teams, but somehow I must have made a mistake. Anyway, the letter read like this:

Dear Shylo Elliott,

I have no idea why you insist on calling the sport soccer, but nevertheless I am pleased to tell you that we are interested in taking you on as our side's next football manager. We'd like to invite you over to Boston next week to get you up to speed on what you'll need to know in order to take Boston United to glory.

David Newton

P.S. You'll have to pay for your plane ticket and lodgings.

Oh f***.

PSH soccer

Good start though, quality writing, will be following!

EDIT: First comment!

Good luck mate, hope this one goes better than your last one did

Good Luck with this. I'll be following

Preseason Update 1

The first thing they had me do when I came in was sign a contract. I looked it over, and it wasn't much, only £28,500, or US$43,500, but there are much worse ways to make that kind of money. They also had me on a short leash, the contract was only for 1 year, but I was so happy to even get a contract I signed it as soon as I could, lest they snatch it away from me.
I was also introduced to the club's staff, and they allowed me to reshape it however I saw fit, but I didn't want to rock the boat too much, so I retained them for now.
I installed two tactics for the team, a 4-1-4-1 and a 4-4-2, with a controlling, attacking, short-pass style. The roster looks pretty good, lots of stars amongst the players, but there are some weaknesses. I could use another striker or two.

Signings:

Until 6.30.2014, 2900 pounds/year

Until 6.30.2014, 1300 pounds/year

Until 6.30.2014, 21,500 pounds/year
- Kevin Donovan, signed as U18 coach for 8750 pounds/year
- Graeme Atkinson, signed as a scout for 9500 pounds/year
Used up all my wage budget though, so this will likely be it for this season.

Injuries, Already?

Preseason Update 2 - Friendlies

7.21.2012 - Lincoln 1 @ Boston United 0

A boring, inauspicious start to my career. It was a boring game, few highlights, Lincoln had all of them. Solomon gets a fluke goal in the 94th minute to steal it.
7.28.2012 - Boston United 2 @ Bury Town 1

Can never turn away a win, but I think we could have done better, especially in light of the sending off.
7.31.2012 - Preston 2 @ Boston United 1

8.4.2012 - Boston United 0 @ Dereham 2

Last Few Signings

- Until 6.30.2014, 4700 pounds per annum

Promotion Odds

16:1

A good start to the story mate and a decent preseason. Good luck!

August 2012 Update

Matches

8.18.2012 – Boston United 3 @ Droylsden 0

Can't ask for much better than this to start the season, we converted our chances, they were wasteful with theirs.

8.21.2012 – Histon 1 @ Boston United 1

Can't really complain about not losing this one, but we really should have done much better here.

8.25.2012 – Hinckley 1@ Boston United 3

Dominated the first half, stepped off the gas in the second. Keeping players fresh in lower leagues is much harder.

8.27.2012 – Boston United 3 @ Bishop's Stortford 1

Another solid win. I was afraid that we would come out flat because of exhaustion, but they were tired too, and not only did we survive, we thrived.

Signings:

(From now on all signings are 2 years unless otherwise specified)


- 7000 pounds/annum


- 1900 pounds/annum

Injuries:

8.18.2012 – Charley Sanders out 3 weeks (damaged elbow)

Standings After 4 Matches:

Attrincham came out the gates fast but their loss in their last match cost them the top of the table. We still have a lot of work to do, of course. No one ever won a title after four matches, but this is a great start, and we should be able to continue it.

Good start to the season after a bit of a ragged pre-season. Can you make top spot your own already?

Great start mate. Good luck!

September 2012 Update

Honors

Matches

9.1.2012 – Workington 1 @ Boston United 1

It really sucks to get equalized on almost immediately after finally breaking away, but at least we're still unbeaten.

9.4.2012 – Boston United 2 @ Oxford City 3

Had to adjust and play more of a long ball style after going down 2-0. We got it back to 2-2 but they broke away once again. We had to lose eventually, let's just hope we don't make a habit of it.

9.8.2012 – Boston United 1 @ Colwyn Bay 2

Time to call a team meeting. This isn't acceptable at all.

9.15.2012 – Chester 0@ Boston United 3

Exactly what we needed here.

FA Cup Second Qualifying Round
9.22.2012 – Lowestoft Town 0 @ Boston United 3


9.29.2012 – Boston United 0@ Bradford PA 1

This losing needs to stop. They came out in a very unorthodox formation, only two players on the defensive line, one sweeper, 5 mids, and two strikers. It worked well enough for them to get the goal and the victory.

Injuries:

9.12.2012 – Charley Sanders out 6-8 weeks (twisted ankle)

Standings

We're definitely not riding high on top of the table anymore. We've got a lot of work to do to put our names forward in the promotion talk.

A tough month that followed a great start but keep going and you'll be in contention.

October 2012 Update

Honors

Matches

10.2.2012

Gainsborough 0 @ Boston United 2

http://bulk.destructoid.com/ul/user/2/20262-104943-ff709jpg-468x.jpg

10.6.2012 - FA Cup Third Qualifying Round

Boston United 1 @ Droylsden 1

They scored right at the end of stoppage time to equalize it. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

10.10.2012 – FA Cup Third Qualifying Round, Take Two

Droylsden 1 @ Boston United 3

This really should have been a shutout, even the game agrees that Droylsden's goal shouldn't have stood, Chalmers took down the defender from behind. Nevertheless, we finally get through, and the longball strategy I changed to seemed to work well. I will try it out in the next few matches and see if it's just better suited to my players.

10.13.2012

Boston United 3@ FC Halifax 1

Ethan Mannion scored a hat-trick; our second in two games. It's really great to see a player you signed yourself go out and earn himself a hat trick.

10.20.2012 – FA Cup Fourth Qualifying Round

Kidderminster 1 @ Boston United 0

A game of missed chances. They just had more of them and finally got one in.

10.24.2012

Solihull Moors 1 @ Boston United 1

10.27.2012

Worcester 2 @ Boston United 2

Will gladly take the equalizer and the draw while down to 10 men.

10.30.2012

Boston United 1 @ Stalybridge 1

Another draw, more painful because FM disagreed with the penalty given to Stalybridge that they converted into a goal.

Injuries:

10.6.2012 – Jordan Nuttell out 6 to 8 weeks with twisted ankle suffered in U18 match.
10.9.2012 – Deale Chamberlain out 2 to 3 months with lower back stress fracture suffered in training.
10.21.2012 – Charley Sanders out 5 to 6 weeks with pulled hamstring suffered in Reserves match.

Standings

We're falling farther behind in the title race, but we are just a couple of points off the playoffs. We could use a good month, though.

Some decent results, unlucky going out of the cup to Kidderminster

November 2012 Update

Matches

11.3.2012

Boston United 1 @ Gloucester 2

Hate it when I have two should-be goals bounce off the woodwork.

11.10.2012 – FA Carlsberg Trophy Third Qualifying Round

Barwell 0 @ Boston United 2

11.17.2012

Guiseley 1 @ Boston United 4

Why am I on the verge of the sack already? Ungrateful bastiges...

11.24.2012 – FA Carlsberg Trophy First Round

Boston United 2 @ Macclesfield 2

A pretty big result given the circumstances. It forces a replay on our home field, so we have a chance to steal it.

11.28.2012 – FA Carlsberg Trophy First Round, Take Two

Macclesfield 0 @ Boston United 1

Very surprisingly, they had some chances but failed to take them. We struck lucky and won, York Street will be celebrating tonight!

Injuries:

Pretty serious injury obviously, and he's a very versatile player, being able to be used as a mid or striker. I've got plenty of capable mids though, and Emerick Hippias will emerge as the third striker, he wanted more playing time anyway.


He is the most injury prone dude ever. This is like his fourth injury this season.

Signings

Another developmental goalkeeper to groom while Chamberlain is out injured, and backup goalkeeper in a pinch.


On loan from Grimsby until end of season, basically a free player, will definitely help out with the rotation.

Standings

Not much of a change, not surprising since we only had two league matches this month.