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Let's get on with adding some players, hiring some staff, and playing some in-house friendlies to assess what we have here.
I need a captain who is not only as a strong leader on the pitch but also a mentor off the pitch. Initially I thought I would use one of the youths as a vice captain but quickly realized that might be foolish if the captain goes down to an injury for a lengthy amount of time.
While looking for that captain I ran across one of the funniest names I’ve ever seen in Football Manager: Chick Legg. Hahahaha. So much funny there. He’s a GK and I don’t need him so I don’t sign him though the temptation alone was almost enough.
I do find two good candidates for captains. Eddie Macey would be a great Advanced Forward but he wants at least £2,100 per week. The second candidate is a DC named Chris Day. He’d be better as our Vice and he would be cheap, at most £230 per week.
On 29 March I’ve still not found my captains but I did get notice of major clubs fixing to release youth players so I scout the hell out of them. Turns out all of them are either too expensive, most of them are in the £2,000 per week range, or have no desire to join us.
So on 2 April I offer a contract to Macey only to learn that my chief scout completely misjudged his wage demands. He asked for £900 p/w and I bumped it up to £1,000, and he signed immediately. Maybe the promise to make him Captain helped? Sadly, that Heading and Strength are going to be a major hindrance but he’ll be our chief penalty taker.
On 4 April I scout Chris Day again just to make sure I know everything I can about him. Like that he’s Inconsistent. :-( Whomp, whomp. I offered him a contract a week later and it took a week for him to make up his mind. The pleasure of his services will cost us £500 per week. That’s twice my scouts have been inaccurate on player wage demand assessments. I’ll have to keep an eye on this.
I made some more signings too. I picked up AMC Scott Thompson for some additional MC rotation but also I think I’ll eventually switch from 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1 so I’ll need someone who can play Shadow Striker.
On 21 April I offer a bunch of young players trial contracts. I got 17 to accept but 27 rejected. Oh well. One of the rejectors is Chick Legg. And after all the work I put into writing poultry jokes!
Four of our coaches are given an opportunity to better themselves by working on coaching licenses; the club will cover the costs. Coaching courses are how the game determines if a staff member will narrow the gap between their Current Ability and Potential Ability.
I also added three scouts. I’ll have one chief scout who scouts Next Opponent and the other three will cycle through England, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. None of the scouts are particularly outstanding but what can you expect for a club with a Reputation of 1?
I added a Physio too as I somehow forgot to add one when building the database.
On 1 April I get an email saying that we have a new main kit sponsor. This company lucked out as it will only cost them a staggering amount of £4,700 per ANNUM. Another ramification of having a 1 Reputation. At this time I looked at some more financial matters and discovered that our average ticket price is only £2. I foresee financial follies ahead.
I dump the trialists into the U23s and hold scrimmages on 24 and 27 April. The “Seniors” won the first match but lost the second.
One of the weird artefacts of starting the pre-season so early is that I had to have an End of Season Team Meeting on 28 April and decide when the real pre-season begins, which will be 26 June.
Before everyone headed out, I signed three of the trialists: DC Joe Clark, MR Robbie Jones, and ST Alex Rae. I’ll post their Player Cards at the start of the pre-season. After Rae signed, Macey came complaining to me that he was worried I was trying to replace him. Dude, I made you Captain. Is your ego really that fragile? Kids these days…
On 5 May I get an email noting that Joe Clark is now considered “home-grown.” That will matter at some point I guess. Oddly, while looking at his Player Card to see if he had a second nationality I notice that his “Place of Birth” is “Unknown.” What the deuce?!
Also comes news that we were granted a lower youth category, from 1 to 2. I set up the database to have our Youth Facilities at 20, Junior Coaching at 12, and Youth Recruitment at 12. I thought these values would put us straight into a lower youth category but I suppose the game uses just the Youth Facilities number. I’m quite glad because I don’t need to see our youngins smacked about the pitch by the likes of Liverpool and the Manchesters.