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Usually this would be the month when I do the team rundown but we did that in May. So what will this month entail? Scouting players and fending off offers in the final week when the Transfer Window opens. I'll also spend some time setting up friendlies but that's all you'll hear about them until July.
So that sponsor money and solidarity payments mean we exit May having made £230,612.
Late in the month one of our original strikers, Ben O'Donnell, moves on from Brighton to Fulham for £7,750,000, with escalators of up to £10,000,000. In the meantime, we get £2,300,000 up front and another £800,000 in unspecified installments. Not too bad.
On 25 June the game formally advances up to League One and with that comes news that over the course of the season we'll make £431,000 from TV rights. Pretty darned cool.
Of course it's still 100%.
I figured I might get another interview offer, maybe by a League One club or even Championship one that just had a rough season. I was not expecting a French Ligue 1 club, RC Lens. Or a French Ligue 2 club, Stade de Reims.
And then comes 24 June. I get interview offers from eight teams. Three are Ligue 1 and five are Ligue 2. Wow. And eight more on 25 June. Same breakdown as the 24 June offers. This is getting ridiculous. Nice offer an interview on 26 June.
Things take a Teutonic turn on 29 June, with German clubs DSC Arminia Bielefeld, BMG, Düsseldorf, Karlsruhe, Bremen, Heidenheim, and Sandhausen offering interviews. The next day it's seven more German teams, two in the First Division and five in the Second Division.
No updates.
I'm not expecting much here but some kids are on international duty so they may improve. Let's find out!
I'm glad I kept Chick Legg around. His Tutoring of Niall Crook continues with Niall's Personality improving to Driven and his Determination now 18.
Don't know how but Ben Evans saw his Anticipation and Determination increase a point while on Holiday. And Pat Lawford had three green arrows: Off The Ball, Positioning, and Strength!
David Caffrey must be hitting the gym in his off time as his Agility, Stamina, and Strength increase. He also had eight arrows: Finishing, First Touch, Passing, Tackling, Technique, Anticipation, Composure, and Decisions. (You'll find out later it's because he was in several international matches.)
Yossi Berkovic and Stephen McGregor must be hanging out together as the former's Determination went up a point from the latter's Tutoring.
Somebody who isn't being Tutored but saw a Determination increase is Gary Leary. Don't know why but I'm glad.
Tutoring comes to an end on 30 June. McGregor's mentoring of Berkovic paid off as the latter's Determination went from 13 to 15 and his Personality from Balanced to Fairly Determined. Charlie Nash says he is delighted from spending time shadowing Stephen Lemon as evidenced by his Determination going from 3 to 6 and his Personality from Unambitious to Balanced. Giannis Veloudos says too he is delighted with his Eddie Macey experience. His Determination went from 12 to 14, his Personality remained Fairly Professional, and he picked up the Player-Preferred Move of Knocks Ball Past Opponents. That should come in handy! Niall Crook deems his relationship with Chick Legg as a little bit of a disappointment even though his Determination went from 16 to 18 and his Personality from Resolute to Driven. Kids these days...
(Here's a little peak behind the curtains. Why did all four tutorings come to a halt on 30 June? Only after just a little bit more than 3 months when they are supposed to go 6 months? That's because all four of the Tutors had contracts that are/were expiring. The only one who didn't get an extension is Lemon. So it's good to know that The end date of a Tutoring is pre-programmed in at the moment it starts, even if the Tutor gets a contract extension. Wish it would extend with an extension.)
So that DR at Arsenal I was lusting after? I found someone better and younger at Brighton. Just after midnight on 1 June I offer Sean Gray £1,000 per week with £200 appearance and clean sheet bonuses plus 10% promotion and yearly increases. Oh, and a £5,000 sign-on bonus. Now Brighton do have an option still and I hope they don't screw us over and activate it on 30 June. If they do then it will be a mad scrabble to sign that Arsenal kid.
I need at least two DMCs in my U18s so I go hunting. I'm not looking for superstars, just kids who seem to be no trouble and not complete crap. I find one named John Rose who plays for Enfield Borough F.C., a club two levels below Conference South; a minnow let us say. He looks promising with 18 Determination, 14 Bravery, 13 Natural Fitness, and 12 Tackling. My scouts think he's only got 3-star potential. I offer Enfield £10,000 and they accept. The following morning, 27 June, he agrees and we open up negotiations. I offer £500 per week plus £200, £200, and £100 for two years. He accepts immediately.
The game moved us into League One on 25 June and immediately the board wanted to meet to talk about increasing wages allowed for coaches. Yes, please!
I still have room for three U18 coaches so I go a-shopping on 25 June, hoping the fact that we are now in League One more people will want to join us. I find a nice looking Irish defense coach named Rory O'Callaghan. I offer two years, £600 per week, and I remove his request for waiving of managerial compensation. He's very happy with it and agrees immediately.
Next I find a Shooting Coach, the hardest type to find that is very good. I found a mediocre one in the Northern Ireland Championship, which isn't as impressive as it sounds. His name is Anthony Hamill and he- BAH! He's a U18 Manager and wishes to remain so. Lame.
I cannot find another Shooting Coach worth a damn. How about a Ball Control Coach? Nope. I decide to pause my hunt until 1 July in hopes some recently unemployed gems will show up.
Here's something new to me. On the morning in which the players reported for duty, we got a team doctor.
There is no additional information, no staff card showing her Attributes. I guess this is an automatic thing that happens when your team makes it to League One. I wonder if in real life that is a requirement. Welcome, Miss Bunting!
Looks like my German U23 Coach Shooting coach is gonna fly the coop. Three German clubs want him, which isn't surprising considering his 20 rating in Technical coaching and 15 in Attacking. He's gonna be hard to replace. Yep! He goes to Hertha, in the German First Division, and we get £41,500 in return. Again, I'll wait until 1 July to look for a replacement.
I was not expecting the first June rumor to be about Desmond Brizan but evidently Queens Park Ranger are sniffing around, beginning on 7 June.
I'm not surprised that less than six hours after the transfer window opens on 9 June that the rumors start. I was sure the first would be about John Burns but it's about David Caffrey. Lordy, lordy, lordy...please don't leave us. You're too awesome to replace. He's been wanting to go to Fulham for a while now so if they pony up £1,000,000, I won't be able to stop him. Ugh! He's so good. Ipswich offer £475,000 on 10 June. No! Fulham officially offer £575,000 on 11 June. Will a bidding war emerge?
When rumors started floating about Caffrey going to Fulham, I used the "Find Similar Players" function to find a replacement. The only player to fit the bill was a Dutch kid named Marco van Eijck who plays for Feyenoord, a top-tier club in Rotterdam. He looks really good except his 7 Aggression and 11 Natural Fitness. I can't scout him though as I'm still confined to scouting the UK and Ireland. He plays for the Holland U20s, who are in the French Youth Invitational currently. Dare I sign him sight-unseen?
Well, I try. I offer £2,500,000, his Value, and Feyenoord counter with £51,000,000. Wow. Just how good is he?! (This was shortly after Manchester City offered West Ham £71,000,000 for Kemar Kirkpatrick. These are amazing players and that is a lot of money. We're nowhere near that kind of jazz. Fifty-one million!!!)
The first Burns offer comes on 10 June, from Norwich and they are close but no cigar! By 13 June the offers are getting closer, by Bristol City (Championship) and Fulham (Championship), though both teams are promoting up to the Premier League.
Walsall also make an offer on 10 June, for Ben Evans. It's only £325,000 so it's auto-rejected. The next day a rumor emerges that Millwall will offer £500,000 for Ben. On 12 June though they offer only £325,000 which is another auto-nope.
I wasn't expecting an offer for Tom Simpson but Birmingham are offering up to £98,000 for him. Hmmm. A couple days later my AssMan suggest I raise his asking price from £44,000 to £300,000. I apply that and am shocked when another few days go by and on 16 June Birmingham do offer £300,000. Wow! Uhh...just how good is he supposed to be?! Well, based on his current star rating I'm guessing he's got Championship potential. I never projected him to be a Senior so I accept the offer. Dude was pure profit. (I even tacked on a 10% sell-on fee. :-) ) He agrees on the afternoon 23 June. So long, Tom! I barely knew thee. Final tally? His Teamwork and Work Rate both got up to 5.
I thought I had set Chris Keegan's asking price to £1,000,000 in anticipation of teams approaching us about him. I didn't, so Aston Villa offered £45,000. I changed his Value and that should scare off some would-be suitors. But then on 18 June Leeds offer £300,000, which is auto-rejected, so Chris wants to talk.
Fudge, Ipswich (Championship) make an offer for Pat Lawford. They offer £325,000 up front with escalators that can push things up to £450,000. No. He's our future Captain so he will be staying.
QPR have the audacity to think that our starting left central defender (and Captain?) can be had for £160,000, with only £90,000 up front. Move along!
Dammit. I knew it was inevitable. Crystal Palace meet the release clause for John Burns. Sigh. I might have to go with a single-striker formation. Then Brentford and Norwich join the fray. Bummer. Then Reading, Sunderland, and West Ham (I guess they need a Kemar replacement.) The 28th sees Leicester, West Brom, and Derby making offers. Then 29 June Sheffield United and Bristol City throw their hats into the ring.
I did not expect Henson Debellotte to get any offers but Swansea want him. I have no intention to keep him so off he goes. Sure enough he signs on 30 June for £1,100 per week. Did my scouts misjudge his potential?!
Mark Marshall gets some attention starting on 30 June when Exeter offer £115,000, auto-rejected because it's not £150,000. They are in League One so I don't relish facing him twice a year.
Ten players left us on 30 June, most of which came through our youth system. This time we have five different categories in which they fall.
Youth who never made it: Kevin Jenkins came to us in the 2019 Youth Intake. I thought he might pan out as I figured the scouts were wrong but it was me, actually. He got one start and four sub apperances but really did nothing but did average 6.76. Strictly mediocre. Kevin Carolan is a 2020 Youth Intake that was absolutely unnoteworthy though he did appear twice this year as a sub for a whopping 6.65 rating, but he did score a goal, a penalty shot after he got fouled in injury time. Terry Buckle. An experiment. Joining us as a Youth Academy grad in 2020 I wasn't going to sign him as he was too short to be a DC, too slow to be a DR, and had no potential, but I signed him to see if I could get him Natural at DMC. I couldn't.
Youth that made it to the U23 but not higher: Gary Walker is yet again another youth, in 2020, and he never did make any Senior apperances. He did fine for the U18s and U23s but we had so many good right wingers that he was always an afterthought, even though he did have some good attributes. Dean Hoddle, another 2020 youth, another victim of playing in a position where we had a lot of talent. He did get to take the pitch twice this year as a sub and only rated 6.65.
Former stars who had a good career here: While he's not really a star, Lemon did give us lots of tutoring and a mostly dependable back-up at several positions. He had 65 apperances, 7 goals, 15 assists, for a 7.2 average. Not bad for a free transfer! Ben O'Reilly was a freebie who grew up in Tottenham's system. At times I thought he might be an answer as an attacking midfielder but he was never reliable in games or training. Still, 31 appearances, 5 goals, 5 assists, and aren't too bad along side his 7.17 rating.
Former Senior but got dropped: Rory Collopy also came to us as a free, in the 2017/2018 season but didn't get any starts until 2019/2020. He had more appearances in 2021/2022 after only one in 2020/2021. He did have a loan spell with Wrexham last year but really didn't impress there. All told, he had 33 appearances, 0 goals, 1 assist, for an average rating of 7.0. Good not great, he just wasn't reliable enough to stick. I thought Sean Peers would be here a lot longer but he too could not reliably turn in good performances. He was good in the Conference South but declined over the years. Ultimately, he had 41 appearances, 1 goal, and 3 assists, rating out at 6.94.
A body for U18/U23 that never amounted to anything: Ethan Foster rounded out the U18s in July 2021 and I knew he was just a body. That was true as he never got into any competitive matches.
The international play starts on 6 June in Iceland where the English U19s beat the home team 3-0. Pat Lawford did well with a 7.2 rating but Colin Cockbill did even better, rating 8.5 from a goal and defensive play, earning him Player of the Match. They did not do so well against Czechia.
The same cannot be said about our Caribbean compatriots. Brizan, Henson Debollette, and Richard Phillips rated only 6.7 in their nations' matches on 7 June. They get a second chance on 9 June and while the Grenadians do well, 7.0 and 7.2, Phillips totally tanks it, rating 6.0 against the Caymans.
Also, Caolan Millar didn't do so well against Iceland, rating 6.7 in 33 minutes of work. Two days later Northern Ireland faced Luxembourg and John Burns got a goal on his way to a 7.7. Devlin only got into that match for 12 minutes so he was a non-factor.
On the Irish side of things, our lads, Caffrey (7.5), Curran (8.6), and Keegan (7.7) had great games against Moldova, 6-0. One of those goals was courtesy of Chris.
It's annoying that so many players are getting called up for internationals during our summer camp but this is the reality. When we are in the Premier League it's going to happen a lot more so I really should just bite my tongue and live with it. Oh, right. This was brought to mind as Pat Lawford, Colin Cockbill, and Caolan Millar have the Euro U19 Championship to attend starting on 17 July. They'll be gone a week.
In England, the Top Ten Most Reputable Teams are:
1. Man United
2. Man City
3. Chelsea
4. Tottenham
5. Liverpool
6. Arsenal
7. West Ham
8. Southampton
9. Stoke
10. Leicester
Meanwhile, in South London, we are now the 96th most reputable club in England. A nice jump from 119th.
The board expect us to be promoted by winning the league. Gulp. It's gonna be a tougher year. Not sure how realistic that is.
They also want us to reach the Second Round of the Carabao Cup and Third Round of the FA Cup. That's doable.
So Kemar did sign with Manchester City. It's a deal worth £71,000,000 with an additional £10,000,000 in escalators. I thought we'd get a percentage of that or at least some bit of solidarity payment. Oh well.