Here we go dear friends, the Dorchester Town Football Manager 2010 story continues with a fresh episode! We were top of the table at the end of September, against all odds, but I was fully aware of the dangers lying ahead so I didn’t get too excited by the good start. The road is long and winding in the lower leagues and there are plenty of shadowy places where you can fall into an ambush. Enough with the introduction, let’s see what happened in October.
Before the actual games I had a bit of fun during the first days of the month. I have an assistant manager, his name is David Jervis. He is supposed to give me advice from time to time, hopefully good advice. Well, check it out: he informed me that Romanian goalie Crinu Suciu was having problems settling in. OK, I appreciate the heads up. But the advice was hilarious: bring in a fellow Romanian player! Well dear David, if you didn’t notice that so far, we have more than 15 Romanian players at the club, I can’t even remember exactly how many!
Enough laughing, let’s get back to business. Our first game of the month was at home with 11th placed Braintree, I was expecting a win. The team had a terrible afternoon though, we went close only once during the 90 minutes when a long shot hit the crossbar. It was a painfully boring game, I can’t remember the last time I saw a football match as ugly as this one. It was our first draw of the season, I guess that had to happen sooner or later.
We had another home game coming up, the FA Cup 3rd qualifying round against Isthmian Premier side Horsham. The game was as good as over after only five minutes, strikers Jivan and Almani settled the game by finishing a couple of good team moves. The rest of the game was all about having fun and entertaining the crowd, I hope they liked it.
Back to the league then, we had to travel to meet 8th placed Thurrock, Lye’s beloved team. We got off to a good start again and managed to take the lead 16 minutes into the game when striker Almani finished a team move with a nicely placed finish. We continued to push forward until half time but Thurrock went close to scoring from a corner kick, we were saved by the woodwork. We were in control of the game but things changed immediately after the break when right back Kofi Mensah found nothing better to do than a horrible tackle in midfield. The referee sent him off, I would have done the same thing. Then Thurrock equalized from a corner kick, our marking was disastrous yet again. I was hoping to hang on to the draw at that point but after seeing that Thurrock were not pushing forward I chose to do that and maybe clinch the three points. The team reacted very well, I didn’t expect it to be honest. Thurrock were under heavy pressure and they finally cracked 6 minutes from time when substitute Luke Webb scored with a superb volley from inside the box. That move was a bit too much for him though, he got injured and will be out for two months…
We had another FA Cup game next, the last qualifying round before the main competition. We were going to face another Isthmian Premier team, Bognor Regis, and I chose to rest all the first team regulars for the upcoming league games. The backup players did better than expected though, they demolished the opponents but I have to admit that some of the goals were scored due to some comical defending from Bognor Regis. However, I was pleased that my players didn’t start laughing and remained focused on the game. We are going to meet League One side Stockport in the next round, it will be a good opportunity to test the team against much better opposition. Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.
Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.
Sears
12 мая, 2010 at 20:42
Johhny,your assistant’s manager comment was funny but stupid!How many romainians does he want at he club?!?
Anyway,great month again,and no your not dreaming!By the way,what tacic are you using?
Calum
12 мая, 2010 at 20:46
Wow, you are doing really well Johnny :) Your Romanians are doing you proud!
Majk
12 мая, 2010 at 23:10
That striker (Jivan) of yours is great and only 20 yrs old.
I’ll work out my next post with Basingstoke later tonight after I’ve watched the Uefa cup final.
Good job holding the first place down. It’s hard to keep up a good winning-streak with such «unprofessional», or at least a bit undeterminded, players. At least I’m having some ups and some down.. mostly Ups though, thankfully :)
Johnny Karp
12 мая, 2010 at 23:38
@Sears
Thanks for the comment. The tactic is the 4-4-2 I employed with Notts County during the last couple of seasons.
@Calum
Thanks Calum, I really am proud of the lads.
@Majk
Thanks mate. Sudden drops in form are quite frequent at this level, that’s why I’m a bit surprised by our run too.
Laxeyman
13 мая, 2010 at 00:25
Hi Johnny, brilliant month! You’re in with a great shot at promotion now, I hope you do it. You’ve got your team playing really well, hopefully they cab keep it up for the whole season.
dami
13 мая, 2010 at 00:57
you’ve got a nice run of form there…hope you can keep it up and get promoted…
it was really painful to see fulham lose tonight…so I’ve decided to make amends by wining the uefa cup for them…
Lye
13 мая, 2010 at 05:24
Hi mate, though I am sorry that Thurrock lost but you did really well in beating two of your closest rivals. 8 points clear and you should be comfortably closing in on promotion now.
Johnny Karp
13 мая, 2010 at 10:29
@Laxeyman
Thanks mate. I don’t know if they can keep it up throughout the season but I guess we’ll have to enjoy it while it lasts.
@dami
Thanks. Indeed, it was quite painful to see Fulham’s fairytale end like that. Good luck and bring the Champions League too while you’re at it :)
@Lye
Thanks mate, those two last wins were very nice to watch. Thurrock were not easy to beat though, they caused us some problems with the corner kicks because they have some really tall lads.
Ana Garcia
13 мая, 2010 at 15:20
Great work Johnny, your making this look too easy! :)
I hope you can claim promotion, and push this club forward.
Best of luck.
Johnny Karp
13 мая, 2010 at 17:43
Thanks Ana. I hope that the players won’t start thinking it’s too easy, then we might get into some trouble. :)
Kevin
14 мая, 2010 at 11:07
Hi Johnny
Hilarious comment from your assistant manager to start the month off which of course turned out to be another successful one for you so well done. That striker Jivan seems to be key to your winning ways at least so far. Good luck for next month.
Johnny Karp
14 мая, 2010 at 11:16
Thanks Kevin. I just posted the new update so I can’t make predictions about next month, it went rather badly…
Mariano Vagator
11 июня, 2010 at 10:29
Hi,
Maybe you should tell you assistant manager you are planing to bring a Roumanian one:)!
I remember the roumanian manager in world cup 94, what was his name?
you could sign him as assistant he was very good!
They knocked us of(Argentina),it was such a good team with Hagi, Bulgaria had a wonderful team by then too.
Johnny Karp
11 июня, 2010 at 11:13
@Mariano
His name is Anghel Iordanescu but he’s out of football now and into… politics! The victory over Argentina still remains the highlight of our national team’s history, too bad we got knocked out by Sweden after beating Argentina…