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We lost £2.1 million over the season. Wow. This is not sustainable. Even though we have a Sugar Daddy I’m not sure what happens if we run out of money. Looking at the finer details it appears that £1.9 million of our losses are taxes, almost all of it “Corporation Tax”. I’m not sure if we’ll get a lot of that back having run a deficit for the year. Frankly, I don’t remember if that news will come in soon or on 30 June, which is technically the end of the season.
Turns out that news comes in on 17 June. We avoid a tax hit but we don’t get a refund. I don’t understand English taxes, no surprise!
Also on that day we get news on kit sponsors. We’re going to get a grand total of £16,000 for the season. A mere drop in the bucket...
The chairman scales back our transfer budget to £149,000 and I’m sure we won’t get anywhere near that. He also injects £110,000 into the coffers, bringing us just an RCH above £2 million. (A few days later I realize that £149k is our scouting budget. Our transfer budget is still around £6 million.)
The 27th of June sees us publishing our losses for the season. An interesting line item is that £275,000 is ground maintenance for our “new stadium.” I don’t know if that is for Brockwell Park (our current stadium and future U23 stadium) or Windmill Gardens (our future stadium), or both.
On 2 June I go to make an offer for that kid out on the “West Coast,” Shane Pilcher. For some reason I can’t make an offer. I poke around for a while (cuz FM18 is still kind of new to me) and then watch some YouTube videos. I didn’t find an explanation why I can’t make the offer but I do discover that I can instruct my Director of Football to do so. I don’t actually have a DoF but my AssMan handles things.
I promise the kid Rotation because he will def be our third best DC and allow the AssMan to offer up to £10,000 and £450 per week, what my chief scout says would be his highest wage demand. (Full disclosure: My scouts are notoriously wrong about wage demands…) A couple of days later Bristol Manor Farm accept a bid of £0 (what the fuck?!) so my AssMan offers Pilcher £425 until 2020, with a one-year club option. I don’t like that he offered a 25% promotion wage rise and 5% yearly wage rise. I wish I knew why I couldn’t do the negotiating.
Also on 2 June I address the matter of expiring staff contracts. My two crappy scouts are due to expire at the end of the month (JK, they aren’t that old) so I offer Mutual Terminations, which they accept for £1,000 apiece. They were emergency hires back a year or more ago; neither scout is really that good. One had 7 and 6 for Judging Player Ability and Judging Player Potential, while the other had 5 and 7. Yeesh!
I make an offer to Paul Gordon is who is 15 and 15 in JPA and JPP. I also make an offer to Ron Bunce who is rated 14 and 13. Quite the improvement! Within a couple of days they both sign.
As we advanced to the new season on 25 June I got notice that we are now in a U23 competition. I did not expect that. I had to hire a U23 Manager and find a pretty good one sitting on his thumbs.
Sure enough, O’Donnell is a target. The first offer comes in on Sunday, 10 June from Chesterfield, a mid-table League 2 team. They offer a whopping £3,000 and 40% of next sale. I do not accept. Four other teams are interested in him but the only ones that have a chance are Wolves and Queens Park Rangers. Four days later Chesterfield try again but they don’t even bother to up their price. This is one of the failings in Football Manager. Year after year this has not improved. (Your results may vary, I’ve yet to put much time in the 2020-2022 versions and have not even bothered to buy 2023, and 2024.)
Carlisle, in League Two, offer £3,000 for O’Donnell on 17 June and of course I say no.
Leyton Orient show up on 15 June with their hats in their hands, wondering if Duckett is available for £2,500. Oh! So close!
In a twist, a Championship team, Barnsley, asked to take Duckett on trial for a week. Nope. He’s with us until 2020 and is Indispensable. You got your own youths! A bit jealous I suppose, QPR asks a week later to take O’Donnell on trial.
Final tally:
O’Donnell, 5 teams, £8k highest offer
Duckett, 3 teams, £3.1 highest offer.
Pearson, 4 team, £4k highest offer.
At one point O’Donnell got pissed that I denied him an opportunity to go to QPR. Their bid was pathetic so I couldn’t accept it. Hopefully he’ll calm down once we start the season and win some games. Hopefully.
For the EPL fans in the house, here are the ranking in this AU:
1. Liverpool
2. Man City
3. Man United
4. Chelsea
5. Arsenal (you can’t say “Arsenal” without saying “Arse.”)
6. Tottenham
7. Southampton
8. West Ham
9. Leicester
10. Newcastle
We are 694th. :-D
Shadi Al-Ziod comes to me right after Pilcher was signed asking for a new contract. He’s making £200/week and really deserves more but I don’t want to start a trend so I give him a “Don’t mess with the good dressing room atmosphere” speech. He agrees and backs off. He’s due for a 15% raise due to a new contract year coming up and a 15% raise due to our promotion. He also is under contract until 2019 plus Brixton have an option to extend. Once the season starts and our new season ticket numbers come in I’ll probably offer new contracts so long as we can afford it. (Later in the month I get an email showing early indications are that our new ticket prices average £6.)
I did not set up the database correctly. Under the Clubs section there is a subsection for “Regional Divisions” which is where you set up the progression up the pyramid, I guess. I left that blank. Brixton should have been moved up to the Isthmian League First Division South but instead when the game advanced to the 2018/2019 season we were moved to Southern League First Division West. I checked out my other computer where I ran the simulation for 3 game years to make sure the database wasn’t broke and to make sure the Brexit variable wouldn’t make the game unenjoyable. I never thought to check the league progressions.
It doesn’t “break” the game but it does “break” the immersion of the game as we’ll be playing out west and not in the London area. I’m going to continue ahead and chalk it up to a learning experience. I have since fixed the database.
On the flip side, all the cup competitions appear to be right.
(On the Ironic News Front, the league we promoted into is home of Bristol Manor Farm, the original team of our new DC Shane Pilcher.)
Let’s commence preparations for rumbling!!! The start of the season is right around the corner! The kiddos report on 2 July and we are going to do wonderful things.