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VRBones's Football Manager 2008 (PC)
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| [August 12, 2008 06:37:41 AM]
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(7h) - Gateshead Season 4, 3rd - Past the 1/2 way point in the league and we're a solid 3rd. We had a brief stint in 2nd, but Grimsby is way out in front. The team is playing well now and we're leading the goal scoring, even though we're losing some every now and then.
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| [July 28, 2008 06:17:53 PM]
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(13h) - Gateshead Season 4, 3rd - Half way through the season and we're sitting solidly in 3rd. The team is playing well and the 4 new purchases are delivering both on the field and entertaining the crowd. 2 new strikers have frontlined the attack and even Clarke is fighting for a spot. With good quality up front I've dabbled with a 4-3-3 and it seems to work well against the standard 4-4-2. Both left and right attackers have good penetration, better than the attacking wingers, although the sprints down the sidelines have declined.
We picked up an ageing AM last season not realising he would only be transferred at the start of this season. He's been playing above himself and keeps managing to get on the scoreboard. His fitness keeps him from playing every game, which lead to the formatin of the 4-3-3 instead of either 4-3-1-2 or 4-1-3-2. Exited the FA cup in a poor away performance, but we're still in for the trophies. Concentrating on the FA trophy this season so we'll have one of each when we go up to Div2.
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| [July 14, 2008 09:15:11 AM]
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(14h) - Gateshead Season 4, 14th - Raked in over 100K from the friendlies as well as testing out some trialling players. Only one or 2 that are much better than the current crop, most are on par. Still haven't quite gotten rid of my dirty midfielder. 25 yellows in a season where he was playing on easy tackling means he's just not worth his great defensive stats. Played through the first 6 or so games and it's looking a little dicy. I always seem to start poorly?
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| [July 6, 2008 10:07:10 PM]
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(7h) - Gateshead Season 3 finished 10th - After a brief hiatus I went back in to finish off the season, only to find I had just 2 games to go. We draw the first and keep 14th place, then win the last against 12th placed Aldershot to finish 10th. Moderately happy with the season, but i don't seem to be getting any serious replacements during the off season so it looks like more or less the same team will need to make it to the playoffs next year.
We do the usual home game bonanza for next season's friendlies, getting 5 championship division teams to fleece on each Saturday with more modest Blue Square Premier team to check our progress on Wednesdays. Wigan even wants a friendly at our place after our schedule is packed, but club is flushed with cash at the moment so there's no real need to push it.
Lots of staff turnovers planned for the end of the season, but 2 unexpectedly get bought out from under me. One awesome scout was pretty hard to replace, but Gk, Atk, and Def coaches all roll over to make way for fresh blood.
First friendly in the new season has Birchall break his leg! Now I'm definitely on the hunt for a striker. Maybe Byrne can step up and play as good as his stats suggest.
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| [July 3, 2008 12:49:52 PM]
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(15h) - Gateshead, Season 3, 12th BSP - We've won the Setanta Shield in front of 27,000 paying public to boost morale, the coffers and my profile at the club. I'm coming off contract at the end of this year so the bargaining table is open, open enough for them to accept an upgrade to the training facilities. I'm not going anywhere as although we've given up hope of advancing this season, we're set for a solid run next season. I could still finish ~10th as we're all clustered in the middle, but with 5 games to go there's no real need to bust a gut. Roll on July 1st to clean out the deadwood in the squad.
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| [July 3, 2008 11:51:21 AM]
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(20h) - The team is looking solid, but we just can't string together the wins needed to reach the playoffs. We're losing to poorly ranked teams, while decimating others with the same formation. It's frustrating as hell sitting back watching your team fail to fire and there's nothing you can do about it. After losing all chance of making the playoffs I pretty much autorolled through the remaining matches to finish 7th. Next season we'll go up for sure.
(16h) - Gateshead, season 2, 4th BSN - Back into Football Manager after a month or 2 hiatus after the sour taste of Gatehead's last season. The team is looking really solid now and a few more additions over the break has hardly anyone in the starting 11 ranked below Blue Square Premier ability. We're 11 games in with a 7-2-2 record to hold down 4th on the ladder. Could be a quick season.
For my birthday Sandy made a soccer cake with little dots as players in their right starting positions (albeit a 442 placement I'd been tinkering with rather than my usual 4312 tactic). The field was pretty much spot on for a copy of the game. Tasted nice too.
Figured out that the current save game has just passed 12 days. 288 hours over 3 seasons. I'm guessing others that get 20 seasons in are playing a little faster than me ...
(15h) - Gateshead, season 2, 1st BSN - Knocked out of the FA Trophy and Setanta Shield in 3 days. Pity, I was hoping for my first silverware this season. Powering on to the end of the season now with 5 points clear. Should be a shoe-in now that I'm out of all the cup distractions. Sold off Giles Coke for 60,000 to give me some bargaining money, but all my potential imports have vanished. Hope I don't rue the sale later on ...
(10h) - Gateshead, season 2, Winners - Cruised to victory with no cup to distract me. The team is looking solid with most rated at Div1 level. The end of year fire sale helped me get 40% under wage budget for next year with some better coaches into the mix.
Another secret to raising cash for low league teams is to get in early to arrange friendlies with high ranked teams. Even in BSN I was able to get Sheffield Utd and other Championship teams to come for a friendly at our place so we can fleece their supporters. +100K in one month is enough to get you into the good books financially.
(8h) - Gateshead, season 3, 12th - A dozen games in and it's a so-so result so far. Even though the team is ranked well individually the bookies still have us behind most matches, and there are some teams who pay pro's over 2000 pounds a week. Seems like some of the difficulty further up the league is flowing down this way.
(4h) - Gateshead, season 3, 15th - Still in the FA trophy and Setanta Shield, but not travelling too well in the league. Uni assignments and the arrival of Rachael made the week fly by!
(6h) - Gateshead, Season 3, 8th BSP - We played poorly to get dumped out of the FA Trophy, but we're up to the 1/4 finals of the Setanta Shield. Playing much better in the league now and sitting in a firm mid-table position with only 8 points shy of playoffs. I had ruled out a serious challenge for the title once I saw how poorly we were going in the first couple of rounds, but we might just jag a couple more and be in with a shot. Cook finally broke an 18 hour goal drought so we now have 3 strikers I'm confident with. Clarke really doesn't have the stats to be playing as well as he does, but he's the crowd favourite and keeps banging them in. Once he gets a goal drought I'll probably permenantly bench him.
(2h) - Gateshead, Season 3, 8th BSP. Semis for Setanta needed some extra help.
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| [July 3, 2008 11:36:21 AM]
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(18h) - Finally got a hankering to get back into footy manager. Gateshead push up into the middle of the league and , apart from a crazed chairman selling up and firing me in a parallel universe, we're travelling Ok for a lunge to the finals. We've lost all but the FA Trophy earlier than the board would have liked, but hopefully a good finish to the season will wipe away any misgivings for employing me.
It's interesting with the confidence screen giving more feedback from the board and fans about how you're doing in a variety of aspects. Seeing what they think of your signings makes you think twice about hiring anyone with a pulse. I found out that you can squirrell away poor acquisitions by sending them for a trip to a feeder club. some of their picks I wouldn't have agreed with, but I certainly picked up some crappy players just to get a team fielded at the start of the season. I think I'm up to 20 players recruited this year.
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| [July 3, 2008 11:36:04 AM]
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(2h) - Still debating whether to write up the Gateshead games from a manager + history buff wife's perspective.
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| [July 3, 2008 11:34:34 AM]
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(5h) - Managed to look through a couple more possible players, but on the whole it's been putting me to sleep rather than making time disappear.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jul 3rd, 2008 at 11:35:14.
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| [July 3, 2008 11:34:11 AM]
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(5h) - Been mulling over the Gateshead issue and tested a couple of other scenarios to take over the club. It seems unlikely and a waste of good playing time to rush through to the end of a season playing a team I no longer cared about.The optimiser in me couldn't bare to put up with the thumb twiddling. One night I dream-thought about restarting from the beginning of the season. Just ignore the work put into Barrow and move over to Gateshead for a fresh start. As it turned out it was a real fresh start as there was NO-ONE at the club apart from youth players and greys. Not even a coach. After giving Barrow the flick they accepted my offer to coach immediately.
First up, an assistant manager. Without an AM it's really hard to weed through the chaff when looking for players and coaches. you either get useless people clogging up the lists or people that simply won't sign no matter what you throw at them. I found a couple of likely AM's, but nothing like the Wunderkind from Sweden they had under their wings in the mid-season save. The AM that eventually signed had been on my shortlist from my Barrow days. Good judgement all round and a 6 star defensive once all the other coaches take the burden off him.
With the 'interested players' filter back in place the next order of business was to find another couple of specialty coaches. I eventually picked up another 4, but no real standouts as they struggle to teach at 6 stars. Might need a couple more by the time the season is through, but there isn't anything out there that is interested in the position.
Next up is to get a team together. At least I don't have any useless players on the books soaking up a weekly wage, but without any real comparisons every potential player is seen as a 'must buy' by the scouts. I ended up bringing a lot on trial so the coaches could give me some more relevant feedback. After paying heavy for some solid players in key positions it at least gave the scouts something to compare to.
The team looks shakey, but we haven't even made it to the first warmup match so there's time to keep digging ...
I've also considered writing this stage of the game up as a blog akin to the Andy Preece one. Since Sandy's family came from that area I could write it up as a fake, yet autobiographical log from the perspective of myself in the game as well as Sandy's ventures into antiquity. With the lack of effort I'm showing on this blog it's not looking like a sustainable idea :( ..
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| [July 3, 2008 11:32:45 AM]
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(6h) - Barrow, 14th EC, Season 2. A few more weeks under the belt to get to the December holidays. I found out that many of Sandy's relllies came from Gateshead, and I'd tried to play them at the start of this version after seeing the stadium size in the Andy Preece writeup, but they had dropped out of the conference. Seriously looking at swapping over and keepign them up as Barrow is lacking something at the moment.
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VRBones's Football Manager 2008 (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Thursday 25 October, 2007
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