Dorchester Town Story — December 2009

Hello dear friends, I am back, finally! I missed you all quite a lot during my long, extremely long, trip. I’m back in one piece, terribly tired but eager to continue playing Football Manager 2010 and to share my stories with you. I missed playing the game a lot too, I couldn’t even remember the players and everything that was going on at the club when I left. Anyway, I tried to do my best in the first month after the long drought, let’s see how it went.

My Dorchester Town dropped to second place in the Blue Square South at the end of November after a not so brilliant run of results mainly due to injury problems. I was hoping that the team could pick up and return to the good form they showed earlier this season. The first game of December was at home against 11th placed Lewes and we got off to a nightmare start as one of my midfielders played a perfectly weighed through ball for… the opposition’s striker! The lad politely said thanks and banged it past my keeper. The team reacted well and we got back level only a few minutes later. We continued to pile on the pressure until half time but we had no luck. The referee felt bad about it and awarded us a penalty kick right after the break, striker Almani coolly slotted it home. We continued to play well and maybe deserved to score more than the one goal that we did eventually. Anyway, it was a good win and I was pleased with the fightback, the team really showed good determination.

We had another home game coming up, this time 10th placed Hampton & Richmond were coming to visit. This time we got off to a good start as centre back Ryan Carolan headed home a corner kick eight minutes into the game. The match became a lot easier for us and we deservedly banged in another two goals to settle the dispute. I was quite impressed with the team’s strength, I guess the players wanted to give me a nice «welcome back home» gift.

There were some players that were disappointing until then though so I decided to attempt to sell them. I offered three of my fringe Romanian players to other clubs and guess what, I got 2.500 pounds for the bunch! With that money I tried to buy one of the players that I wanted to bring in right from the start, Romanian striker Marius Dabu. His club wanted 1.500 pounds for him and I was glad to spend that sum, this lad seems to be much better than any of my other strikers.

Back to the matches then, our next fixture was the FA Trophy game against Havant & Waterlooville. The game was rather boring and even until the first goal, unfortunately we hit the woodwork and our opponents hit the net. My boys were unable to react and we conceded a second goal during injury time to wrap up a disappointing performance. We’re out of the FA Trophy, we’ll try to do better next year.

I tried to sweeten the disappointment with another transfer, young left back Tom Wynter from Gillingham. They agreed to let him go on a free and I was pleased with that, he should solve our left flank problems. This might well be the season’s last transfer since I’m a bit over the wage budget now.

Back to the league then, the next game was away at 8th placed Chelmsford. They were predicted to be title challengers at the beginning of the season but they were rather disappointing. They looked like a good team though, we were forced to defend in the first half. We did it well though and striker Sergiu Jivan netted his 10th goal of the season on a counter attack. We got a bit carried away though and got punished right before the break. The first half wasn’t over yet, Jivan was keen on being the hero of the day as he broke through the offside trap and gave us the lead a few seconds before the half time whistle. We kept things under control well in the second half, our defense looked unbeatable and we even had one more good chance to strike on a counter attack. Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Back at the Avenue Stadium for the next game, 21st placed Weymouth were coming to entertain us. I expected a win against our fierce rivals and it was a great chance for new striker Marius Dabu to introduce himself to the fans. He got off to a slow start but the crowd went wild 29 minutes into the game when he gave us the lead with a fine solo effort, a wonderful debut goal. Centre back Ryan Carolan doubled the lead with a corner kick header before half time so we took the foot off the gas in the last 45 minutes, the win was already ours.

The last game of 2009 was away at 5th placed Newport Co, a tough game to end our year and it was only two days after the previous match. The players didn’t look to tired though and striker Almani gave us the lead with a fine volley from inside the box. We continued to push forward with great enthusiasm but we missed two great chances in the following 10 minutes. Then we defended well and seemed in control of the game but a last minute error saw our lead vanishing just before the break. The team reacted well after half time and we got back in front eventually as a corner kick scuffle saw our right winger being the fastest to react. The game looked to be in our hands again but another last minute error in our defense denied us a deserved win.

The month was pretty good despite that last result, we were back on top of the table, 4 points clear and with a game in hand!

Irish centre back Ryan Carolan was elected Player of the Month and if you look at the stats you’ll agree that he is our player of the season so far. Most players did pretty well until now and I can only hope they will get even better in the second half of the season. I asked the board to find me a parent club again, I hope they will understand what that means this time…

2010 will start with another game against our fierce rivals, Weymouth, and then we’ll get to meet Lye‘s Thurrock :)

That’s how it was my friends, thanks a lot for reading and for sticking with the website during my absence. The World Cup is only a few days away now, so the next post will be about the contest that you’ve been waiting for, I have established the rules and everything that you should know, so stay tuned to find out how it’s going to unfold.

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