Dorchester Town Story: Preparing For Blue Square Premier

Hello dear friends, it’s time to prepare my Dorchester Town for the fresh challenges in Blue Square Premier. I had a very rewarding debut season in Blue Square South, won the league and amassed a hefty 100 points at the end of the season. The club’s financial situation was not very good though so I was expecting a pretty troublesome summer regarding the transfer activities. Let’s see what happened.

The board told me that they would expect me to drive the team just above the relegation zone, I proposed them a top half finish so the weekly wage budget was increased with a few hundreds of pounds. The transfer budget was somewhat symbolic, only 240 pounds, not enough to buy a good television set…

So I had to do what I did last season, I went to search for some free transfers. I guess my strategy was a bit risky because the first thing that I did was to make offers for the best free and interested players I could find. I managed to put pen to paper with three of them, let’s see who they are.

The first signing was Dutch midfielder Mimoun el Kadi, probably the best player that Dorchester ever had. He is still quite young, only 23 years old, and he was released by Dutch club Den Haag after spending a few seasons there. He could be the key man in my midfield and I surely hope that he will make some progress with us.

The next signing was another midfielder, a Spanish 23 year old named Juanje. He was raised at Atletico Madrid but never managed to break into the first team, now it’s his chance to prove his abilities and progress along with Dorchester Town. He has pretty good technical skills so most probably he will be my new midfield playmaker.

I really didn’t need another striker but when I saw a face I could recognize I went along and make the transfer. Some of you might remember him, his name is Leonardo Biagini, Argentinian with Spanish passport, a striker that played for Primera Division sides Atletico Madrid and Mallorca in the late 1990’s. He is 33 years old now but some of his known skills are still there, he might be able to help us this season.

Then I had to move on and try to find players for the positions that I really needed to cover. My top priority was a new goalkeeper. I was hoping to get a good one on loan but my board failed to find a parent club yet again. Then I found a talented 17 year old from Honduras but he didn’t get a work permit. After several failed transfers I had to settle for Billy Turley, a 37 year old keeper with some League One and League Two experience. He’s not exactly the keeper that I would have wanted but he surely is better than the two guys that I had.

I decided to replace both my goalkeepers when I found an 18 year old Argentinian with Italian passport. He has some talent so I decided to grab him hoping that he would improve quickly and maybe replace Billy Turley between the sticks. Maximiliano Catalano, that’s his name, and I was extremely pleased that he was called up to Italy’s Under 20 squad right after signing the contract with us! Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

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

I still needed a centre back and a left back but since I was already over the wage budget I had to try to secure those players on loan. I made several offers, more than 30 if I remember correctly, but in the end only one of these players accepted to come to Dorchester for the season. I guess he might not have read the papers properly when he signed them but I was extremely happy that he did: left back Lee Molyneux from Southampton accepted to join us until June 2011!

And that was all, five players in plus one on loan. I sold six of my players but didn’t get a penny out of the transfer income due to the club’s poor financial status. I also offloaded all the players from this year’s youth intake, there were nine of them. I felt that it was better for these young lads to forget about football, there was no trace of talent in them. So I sent them home with letters for their parents saying something like this: «Dear Sir/Madam, Please take care of your son and, if possible, give his football boots to somebody else.»

Here’s how my 23 man squad looks like, they are all the players that I have at the club… Some of the Romanians were sold but I still have 9 of them, 6 English players, two Dutch players, two Argentinians, one from Ireland, one from Wales, one from the Czech Republic and a Spanish midfielder. Most of them are under 23 years of age but there are a few older players like 39 year old Czech midfielder Lasota.

My assistant manager is quite optimistic, I hope he’s right.

The team did pretty well in the friendly games, we only lost two of them but concluded the pre-season campaign with a great performance and a 1-0 win over Pompey Reserves. Unfortunately striker Biagini got injured during that game and he will be out for no less than 7 weeks! :(

The media prediction was… predictable, they say that we would finish last. The bookmakers thing that there is something better in store for us, they say that we have an outside chance for promotion!

I really don’t know what to expect but from what I’ve seen during the friendly games I guess we could finish somewhere in mid-table, maybe even higher. My main concern is that our squad is very slim, an injury crisis would surely give me a mountain of unsolvable problems. I guess we’ll need some luck too…

Thanks a lot for reading my friends, what do you think about my new signings?

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