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As London Bridge burns down Brixton's burning up "Let's Push Things Forward" -- The Streets
So the monthly training report indicates that Dunne, McMaths, and Barness made good progress in Tactics, while Egan, Bowerman, and Hill regressed in Fitness. McMaths improved A LOT, not surprising really. Hill’s drops are vast and significant. This is where FM14 really falters and I think the programmers of FM really did a disservice to the fans. When you have really good coaches (Brixton does) and phenomenal facilities (Brixton does) we shouldn’t have to wait until the end of the month to find out someone is struggling bigly. It’ll be months before Hill recovers his Attributes back to the beginning point, if not a year or more.
vs. Cray Valley, 3 May 2014
Starting Formation: 4-4-2 ControlThis 2-0 hammering business stuff needs to stop. At least there is some variance in the game: Allan doesn’t score. Matter of fact, his form is only 6.7 and he gets yanked after 64 minutes and Murdoch gets his first match. Unregardless™, Miles gets his first PoM award along with his first career goal, a powerful header from about 12 yards out that went through a forest of traffic. West’s goal comes from the 18-yard line after the teams play give-away for exactly a minute. It was like nobody wanted to play football properly. Oh well, it was nice to get a league home game in and the 1,300 fans certainly helped out the bottom line. Our profit for the season is down to £30,000 now.
And true to my word, I did some rotation. Mellor gets a League start! Kinniburgh and Metcalf also get their debuts.
POM: Gary MilesWell, it looks like I was a little off on who would get the first international call-up. It’s “White” Walker! Northern Ireland have three matches to qualify for the Euro U19 Championship against Israel, Switzerland, and Germany. Do well, Walker, and come back healthy! (Matches are 12, 14 and 17 May.) He’ll miss our final League match of the season but should be Fully Fit for the FA Vase Final.
May 10th was another hole in our fixture list so I again arranged a friendly with a Premier League U21 team near Brixton; this time versus Fulham. It was another 2-0 win for us but this time it wasn’t a “hammering!” But it brought out 1,251 fans into the London rain and we made a whopping £653! We now only have £12.7 million in the bank. Bowerman scores the two goals, 8 minutes apart half-way through the first half. It’s kind of weird how I’m playing a Control mentality but we get a lot of launches from deep. McMaths launches from about half way into our territory to about half way into Fulham territory where Allan heads the ball over the head of the Centreback trying to outrace Bowerman, who buries it from the 18-yard line. Second goal is off a simple Allan cross from inside the big box to Bowerman who has an easy header from two yards out.
Sunday, 11 May sees a whole slew of coaches, seven in all, start coaching course, all covered by the club.
Walker gets 50 minutes in his first international, getting an assist with a 7.6 match rating against Israel. Pretty damn respectable for a debut. I don’t have this competition set to a high amount of detail but it looks like he played as a left Central Midfielder in a 4-4-2. I also notice for the first time that he’s drawing attention from a club. It’s Hamilton Academical in the Scottish Championship.
vs. Whyteleafe, 17 May 2014 (Final League match of the season)
Starting Formation: Arrow [DR, DC r, DC l, DL, Regista, MC c (BBM), AMR, AML, ST r (AF), ST l (DLF-S)]Now That’s What I Call Hammering! Of the starters, the lowest rating was for Madley at 7.7. The lowest outfielder rating was 8.4 and five players were 9.0 or higher. Bowerman got things started in the 3rd minute and we are up three-nil after 12 minutes. Bowerman and Allan both had two goals but Allan took his sweet ass time, getting his just before the half and 70th minute. West, Osborne, and Smith also score. Oh, and Bowerman got Player of the Match. We end the season with 76 points.
POM: Steven Bowerman
A lot of why we got this hammer, I believe, is that I finally rolled out my favorite formation. When I got into FM2014 back in October 2019 I struggled to remember all the nuances of positions from my youth days. More notable, I was kind of obsessed in figuring out pairings for Central Midfielders and Strikers. I finally settled on Advanced Forward with Deep Lying Forward up top but struggled longer in the middle of the field. My research eventually led me to Andrea Pirlo and the Regista role.
(Trust me, there are many videos out there of this Pirlo and you need to watch them. I really wish I was into football back in his heydays so I could have watched more of his action.)
So I decided that I want a formation with a Regista but I also wanted two Strikers and by this time I warmed up to the idea of forward wingers. But I also wanted an MC. Hence the Arrow. Also around this time I learned about the counter-press. It works like a charm. The Regista never really gets great match rating and the statistics aren’t amazing but the wins are pretty much guaranteed. I may have found a loophole in the match engine accidentally.
One last note about this match: I got the Whyteleafe coach fired! Too bad that isn’t a Steam Achievement! I find the firing odd as Whytleafe were third in the league table but I guess the Chairman has a low Patience rating.
Walker gets his second U19 start but Northern Ireland lost to Germany, 2-0. He got a 6.9 rating so that isn’t too bad. Looking at his player card reminds me of something…
A brief look at what interest my players are getting:
Also, some end of season stats:
vs. AFC Rushden & Diamonds, 22 May 2014 @ Wembley (FA Vase Final)
Starting Formation: ArrowNow That’s What I Call Hammering II! I was actually a little worried about this match seeing as AFC R&D are a league above us and has something to play for. Luckily, a seven-minute, 4-goal blitz in the second half sealed the match.
Again, Gary Allan got things started with a 13th-minute powerful kick from 8 yards out that came from a counter-attack; Dunne supplied the assist. Dunne’s first goal came from some simple short passes on the right side touched by about half the team. Rushden pulled one back after McMath fails to understand that we’re the ones in red jerseys and then Miles is caught staring at the pitch-side adverts.
Then begins The Blitz. 52’ Ward sends in a corner kick right to Osborne’s head. 54’ Miles makes up for his earlier error, beginning a counter-attack culminating with Bowerman sending in a cross to the far side where Ward makes an easy header. 58’ another Bowerman cross but this time at the near post where Dunne gets an easy header. 59’ another Bowerman cross, another Dunne goal, but this one off his left foot. Booyah! We win the FA Vase! One season, two trophies! I am the best ever!
POM: Sean DunneI was expecting a bigger crowd but it was still large enough to net us almost £22,000. That allows us to only lose £5,645 for the season. We still have over £12 million in the bank!
In the year-in-review for the FA Vase, we are listed as the Biggest Overachievers. We had already made it to the Semi-Final before I returned from my “holiday” with a bunch of youth talent in tow, so I would say were we overachieving considering it was the “greys” who got us there.
(For those not in the know, “greys” are procedurally-generated players automatically added to your squads if you don’t have enough players. They are called “grey” because they don’t have actual faces just a dark gray outline of their heads. They are not the aliens that are stored at Area 52.)
(For those not in the know, Area 52 is like Area 51 but one better, like Angus McSix.)
Additionally, Steven Bowerman is the Top Assists producer for the cup with 4. Gary Allan scored 4 goals but some shmoe playing for Shildon scored 6.
Some of you astute ones in the audience may have noticed that I have made no mention of the FA Cup. That’s because you cannot enter the FA Cup until your club has been in existence for 5 years. In the initial database I set the founding year as 2011 which I believe means we won’t be able to participate until the 2016/2017 season. I think we’ll be in the Conference South by then.
The season is over and I have some decisions to make. I have to hold an End of Season Team Meeting and decide on the start of the pre-season. I screw the pooch on the team meeting; 5 players reacted poorly and their Morale dropped from Superb to Good. Jerks. The board are pleased with my performance and thus my Job Status is Very Secure. The board suggested that I start the pre-season on 7 July but I’ll be bringing in a lot of new players and introducing some new formations so I’ll need as much time as possible; I elect to start on 23 June, one month from now.
I also learn that the board has decided to upgrade our training facility. Or maybe I asked them to. Unregardless™, they are spending £2.5 million to keep our facilities in line with some of the top clubs in the world.
Queens Park Rangers make a deal with the Brixton board to become some kind of weird parent club. We get to host a yearly friendly (and keep all receipts) and they get to use our training facilities, all for the reasonable price of £14,000 per year. Q.P.R. are currently in the Championship. It seems weird that they would choose us. Brockwell Park is 6 2/3 miles from Q.P.R. That’s nothing in western Oklahoma but in London?! That’s a 40 minute drive in the late evening. Probably much worse during the London rush hour.
A lot of financial emails come in on the 25th. We avoid a tax hit due to our season loss of around £2.35 million, thanks to the outlay for the facilities upgrade. We also get a new kit sponsor and luckily it’s only for a year as its £9,750; hopefully we’ll get more next year. The board also inform me of the initial budget: £105,000 per week and £5.84 million transfer budget. I won’t need anywhere near that amount. We are currently spending £3,851 p/w and I’ve barely spent any money in transfer fees as I’m finding worthy players for free. And any way, if I were to find a player worth spending big bucks on, he wouldn’t want to play this far down the pyramid.
I spend a lot of the month looking at pretty much every youth player with double-digit Determination and Natural Fitness; can’t let those scouts loaf about! Much as I expected, I found some good players but they don’t want to come to Brixton.
Some player awards make a late arrival.
So ends the 2013/2014 season. Thank you for reading about my adventures. I should be posting soon about the 2014/2015. Until then, Kick On!
Yessss, with a late season like that I think Brixton will push things forward and burn up the league tables. (insert evil laugh here)