Hey guys, welcome to my FM 2012 Scarborough AFC season 14 report. My last post consisted of a new era, one in which the club makes money and relies on youth as opposed to older stars. I had previously mentioned that anyway, but the real shock came in the fact that we enjoyed our most successful season yet. Scarborough lifted the EPL title, Champions League, Carling Cup, Community Shield, Euro Super Cup, Club World Cup and were very unlucky to miss out on the FA Cup. This season I want to offload yet more stars and keep pumping in the youth as well as promote from within. The question is, can we still maintain such an exceptional level of silverware…well its time to find out as I bring you the 2024/25 season in full.
Every campaign starts with expectations and media odds so we’ll not spoil that tradition. The clubs owners demand a title winning seasons again this year, and because of the great finances we’ve been promised a war chest of £119 million, not that I want a penny of it of course. The media still aren’t convinced by our credentials though, pitting Man City as favorites for the crown.
As part of my Y2G system I not only look at the older players to offload but am also obliged to sell players when I feel I can receive their highest market value. Northwood was one of those players, his value and ability had peeked at the age of 24 and I felt like we also had enough cover to offload the youngster for £30.5 million…a number of other stars left including a key central defender, amazing right winger and second best left winger. All in all we raised £81 million.
Now we move onto my summer signings, I decided to invest merely £250K on Mexican wonderkid Herrera who will be my rock at the back in years to come. A promising young striker followed in the Spaniard, Arrieta, who cost £1.9 million. This kid will spend a few years on loan and in the reserves. Mathieu Allain cost £7.5 million and is a replacement for departing Junior on the left wing, while the wonderkid won’t get tonnes of first team football now, he certainly will next season. Then there is my wild card, Autuno, this kid will eventually replace Ross as advanced playmaker but when will depend on his development. A total of £12.5 million was spent equaling a total profit of £68.5 million for the summer. (Click any of the players names above to see their profiles from the seasons end.)
Euro Super Cup and CWC results
We’ll kick-off the results part of this post with my Euro Super Cup final against Tottenham. Simply put this match never really felt in doubt. Spurs may have equalized after my boys opened the scoring but from there on out it was game set and match. Scarborough enjoyed all the important statistics and ended the game 4-1 victors.
Our Club World Cup campaign wasn’t such a nice experience though. Despite beating Santos Laguna with relative ease 2-0, a very strong final opponent in Sao Paulo shocked me to my core. Prior to the match the Brazilians were actually favorites which I found surprising, still I persisted with a weakened XI and found myself on the wrong end of a 2-1 scoreline that left me a little speechless and in shock. This is the first time I have ever lost a CWC final, my face was very much like that of Messi’s when he missed a penalty in the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea in real life, literally bemused and confused.
Premier League results — first half of season
With my team adjusting to life without a few more key stars I expected a slow start to the season considering our opponents. But to my surprise we won our opening 5 games, then drew with West Brom before winning a further 8 matches and drawing once to Man City.
This simply put was title winning form, beating the likes of Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal, United and Liverpool had put Scarborough 5 points clear at the top of the table and looking untouchable.
This seemed like the perfect time to introduce some new youth. The winter transfer window saw me welcome a new first team left winger, Sahin Cavus cost just £6 million and enjoys bags of potential. I also invested in a young advanced playmaker, Nuno Ferreira had attracted the attention of every top club in Europe so I had to pay the £1.8 million transfer fee. Then there’s Ibanez who I believe could be a top central defender and at least worth the fee of £3 million. (Click any of the players names above to see their profiles from the seasons end.)
Premier League results — second half of season
After such a promising start I was expecting to finish off our title challenge quickly and all seemed well, 6 wins on the bounce had left my rivals way behind…but disaster started to sink its little teeth in! Scarborough suffered some major injury setbacks, which resulted in just 4 victories, 5 draws and 3 losses from our next 14 games, if I remember rightly a few matches featured defenders and strikers in central midfield!! Chelsea rose above us in the league and I honestly thought the title had been thrown away. But in typical Seadog fashion we won our remaining 5 games, 4 of which were played away from home….but was this enough?
…of course it was! But only with thanks to Chelsea’s dyer finish as they drew their remaining three matches. My 7 point gap at the top seemed to flatter what was a very nervy finish but its another title victory all the same.
Carling Cup results
I don’t have much to say about this competition apart from the word, disappointing. The draw was harsh but I actually saw the 3rd round home match against City as an opportunity to get rid of one of the better teams early on…obviously I was wrong.
FA Cup results
Ahh the cursed cup, this competition is the only one to have eluded me within my 14 year career. As you can imagine it was all hands to the pump and a full strength XI for every EPL side we faced. The first few rounds saw us thrash lower league opposition (yes Bolton were in the Championship,) then we drew Man City for the 5th round at home. Thankfully we didn’t endure the same fate as we did in the Carling Cup. We then progressed to score a last minute equalizer at home to West Ham before winning the replay and beating Sheffield Wednesday to reach the final. And guess who our opponents will be!! That’s right, the team that have beaten us twice already in this very same fixture, Arsenal. Lets just hope its third time lucky.
Of course it was, for once my boys made the chances pay scoring three of our 7 shots on target and despite having fairly even possession we seemed to be in control for the majority of the final…needless to say I was delighted to complete my trophy cabinet.
Champions League results
This year I was drawn against M. Haifa, Dynamo Kiev and Sevilla. All sides I’d expect to beat and we would have managed it if Sevilla hadn’t held us to a goalless away draw.
The group table read utter domination as Scarborough finished top 3 points above Sevilla who finished second a staggering 10 points above third.
The First Knockout round pitted my boys against Lyon, the French champions put up a fight but lost 3-2 on aggregate. I was then very lucky to avoid the big boys during the quarter-final draw as Turkish side, Besiktas came out of the hat. After winning the home leg 4-0, we drew in Turkey 2-2 which was more than enough but also left me nervous looking at our leaky defense. Thankfully there were no signs of that in the semi-final as Scarborough held firm to lose just 2-1 away from home against Manchester City. That was despite an onslaught from our opponents and we even managed to reverse the score at home to take the tie onto penalties. My 100% shoot out success continued as the Seadogs struck home with all five kicks to reach the final. In the other semi-final it was a toss up between Barcelona and Liverpool, the English side won 5-0 at home before the Spanish champions won 4-0 in the second leg…what an amazing spectacle and even better as I get to play the weaker side in my third Champions League final. ;)
Champions League final vs Liverpool
Venue: Olimpico, Rome
Attendance: 73,261
Starting formations:
With a fully fit starting line up I went about checking the Liverpool players and tactics…it was obvious that they would have an attacking shape but certainly didn’t posses as much quality as my boys. I decided to stick by my fluid and attacking style and will leave you to see the results below.
Match highlights: Click here to see the Champions League final highlights
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Match stats:
A wonderful performance that led to my third consecutive Champions League trophy. My boys enjoyed 57% possession, 19 shots and looked by far the best side…not to mention the second goal was a real screamer!
After the match I decided to take care of my usual upgrades, so the training/youth facilities, junior coaching and youth recruitment were all upgraded. But still no option to expand the stadium despite sellout crowds and a massive bank balance. That will start to bug me soon.
After another incredible season I have a lot of thank you’s to get through. Arancibia was my rock in defense scoring 10 goals and achieving an average rating of 7.48. Meanwhile Southern had a great campaign with 34 goals and Fabricio chipped in with an impressive 27 goals. A whole host of other players were fantastic but I specially like ball winning midfielder Brungger who stepped forward this season with 12 assists and some outstanding performances.
I finished last season with £72 million in the bank which was a gigantic improvement from the season before that…needless to say I wanted another improvement this season and boy did I get it. Scarborough now have just short of £110 million in the bank.
I like to think that the new stability around my club was what led to my chairmen’s decision below, but I can’t say for sure. All I know is that the last two seasons have seen the club make big profits without any money from Mr Bradshaw, so he can keep his wallet for all I care…its about time I paid him back the big debt I owe and we’re certainly heading in the right direction.
Before I leave you, below are screenshots of the clubs information and also our trophy history…the trophy history was empty when I joined the club and I thought it would be fun to look at the clubs information from the before I took over too.
Club info before I took charge in 2011:
Clubs info 14 years on in the year 2025:
Trophy history:
OK well that is all for today, I hope you enjoyed the read and will be back next time for more youth and big star departures. Until then please feel free to comment below and thanks for reading.
Tegar Triemanudigdo
29 апреля, 2012 at 09:42
OH YEAH! That was absolute dominant there and you already become legend in seadogs there! Congrats mate! I cannot imagine what would happen if you’re not stay long until now.
I have to agree though that CWC is rather unique tournament since I have that kind of experience (in which case, I’m managing Internacional). I’ll be looking forward on your next stories!
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 09:52
Yeah it was a very good season and it seems that the lower my wage bill gets the better our performances get.
Tegar Triemanudigdo
29 апреля, 2012 at 11:38
Well, it certainly wait to see in the future, but well done there Darren!
Kevin
29 апреля, 2012 at 10:00
Hi Darren
Congratulations on another successful season. Very interesting to see the historical porgress of the club with and original value of £22K and now Scarborough are worth £433million. That’s awesome mate!
I to don’t see any neagtivity in losing Mr Bradshaw as you’ve established a rock solid club and your Y2G system will ensure financial stability. As for your players I really like the look of Sahin Cavus and hope to see more of him as this save progresses.
Great job!!
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 10:12
Thanks Kevin, I think those screenshots really summarize how far this save has gone, its quite amazing really and way beyond my expectations. As for Cavus, he is a great talent and destined to bang in the goals with his finishing and long shot ability, I’ll be using him from the left wing to add more firepower for those rare occasions when my forwards are misfiring.
saltwater
29 апреля, 2012 at 10:05
Really incredible; to offload big stars for big money and then bring in youth, make an 100mill + profit and still dominate domesticly and in Europe is nothing short of God-like. Nice to see the F.A cup where it rightfully belongs. Even though the club world championship and the Carling cup escaped, I wouldn’t worry to much, City and San Paoulo got lucky :).
For the me the most exciting signing was youngster Sahin Cavus, who does look extrodinary. And as a Chelsea fan, the Messi similie did bring a big smile to my face :D
Good luck for next season, I hope Josh Moss isn’t in the firing line to leave…
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 10:36
Thanks mate, its all about timing really…my theory (the Y2G system) is that if you can predict when a youngster will be good enough to replace a key star you can buy him on the cheap with enough time to develop him too that level before cashing in on the star. Its worked well so far but I have failed with a fair few player TBH. Josh Ross won’t be leaving yet but I’m afraid his departure is planned for the next few seasons.
Johnny Karp
29 апреля, 2012 at 10:24
Brilliant job Darren, you turned this club into a money-making machine and that is an even bigger achievement than winning the Champions League. It seems like only yesterday that chairman of yours was pumping money into your ambitions, now he can retire as Sir Darren Smith makes the money for him :)
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 10:37
lol, thanks Johnny…off topic but SI should bring knighting managers into the game…
Malhar Bhadbhade
29 апреля, 2012 at 11:54
hey darren,
another fantastic season! i must say your squad is just absolutely amazing. i just love the fact that you sell your top players and yet win trophies so effortlessly. the Club World Cup is a tournament that i personally hate. i need extra-time to beat Santos in the final with my Celtic side, and i expected it to be a breeze. it never is for me. i have even been smashed 3-0 in the semi-final stage once, despite playing a full-strength squad :D i am absolutely in love with the three players you posted at the end as your season’s best performers. it really does not get much better than that on football manager. absolutely brilliant. the youngsters you signed were also all very promising. great to win the FA cup, i’m sure you must have been delighted with that one, beating your nemesis Arsenal in the final. fantastic stuff. good luck for next season. :D
p.s. — and as a Chelsea fan, I watched Wigan destroy Newcastle with great pleasure :D
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 11:59
Thanks mate, it has been a weird season but very, very good. I am still adjusting to the new system as I spent my first three seasons in the EPL spending regardless of the costs and now we’re still doing well with the complete opposite application so still adjusting really.
As for the Newcastle game, I was gutted and we just looked like we thought the points would be in the bag.
Malhar Bhadbhade
29 апреля, 2012 at 15:36
its a sign of your amazing success with transfer deals that the chairman has stopped putting money into the club. ultimate proof (if any was required) that you have become a self-sufficient club. btw, out of curiosity, is there a striker in the game (maybe apart from Southern) who is better than Fabricio? and if so, would you mind posting a screenshot of him?
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 15:46
I think the only player that is better is at Man City, his name is Togwell and he seems to score a goal every game https://www.footballmanagerstory.com/wp-content/uploads/imgs/2012/04/togwell.png
Malhar Bhadbhade
30 апреля, 2012 at 12:29
wow!! he truly is insane…wonder why i don’t have any good English regens on my save..hmmm hopefully some pop up..thanks anyway :)
Martin F.M.J.S
29 апреля, 2012 at 12:09
Well done Darren you have done a brilliant job offloading some of your key players and bringing in some really good youth players how do you find them? :D. Some very good performances towards to the end of the season to clinch the Premier League title. Also winning the Champions League final after your epic loss in the League against Liverpool must have been great. Good Luck next season mate :D
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 12:21
Thanks Martin, I just constantly search for youth manually around the world and have my scouts doing the same. Hopefully the form can continue even as we keep cutting the wage bill.
TheZiggy
29 апреля, 2012 at 12:49
Good to see you finally win the FA Cup, and all the better for beating Arsenal to achieve, gaining sweet revenge in the process. I’m sure you was delighted to see Liverpool beat Barcelona in the other semi final, and for sure made the final easier.
Shame about underestimating Sao Paulo in the CWC, although I’m not sure quite how much that title really means anyhow.
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 13:53
Thanks Ziggy, it was great to finally lift the FA Cup…when I noticed Arsenal were our final opponents I though, ‘here we go again’. But we made light work of it and also had an easy ride in the CL final.
Sears
29 апреля, 2012 at 12:50
Congrats on making the club self-sufficient Darren, the owner knew that his money wasn’t required anymore and he’ll probably sell the club in a few years time. That was a remarkable season despite offloading some excellent players! The bank balance will increase loads in the next few season. Well done mate!
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 13:54
Thanks Sears, if the owner withdrew his funding because of the finances and the fact we’ve become self sufficient then that is one of my biggest achievements and a compliment for sure.
Matt
29 апреля, 2012 at 14:49
Great story Darren, Southern is just immense but can you help me a bit with installing the logo pack as I can’t seem to do it. I downloaded all the updates from 2 to 8 from sortitoutsi and installed them in order into my folder. I loaded up football manager and unticked skin cache and ticked the other box, I then went into my game but I only have some logos from the pack for example I have Liverpool, Birmingham, Millwall and Palmeiras and a few other well known teams but no Manchester city or United or Arsenal or Barcelona, am I going wrong ?
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 15:12
I don’t know which logo pack you are talking about but its not one I have ever tried to download so can’t help you there…I’d recommend downloading this one http://www.unbelievable-jeff.com/forums/index.php/topic/863-logos-blogos/ you can download it all in one go or individually.
Matt
29 апреля, 2012 at 15:22
I downloaded the one that is on this site, thanks for that downloading right now :D
Lorenzo
29 апреля, 2012 at 17:27
hi darren,
another fantastic season, this is by far the best football manager story I have seen. I am doing a save with my local team who are on level 10 of the english pyramid system and i was wondering, what search criteria did you use to find god players when you were at that level? I tried doing it on attributes, but when i got a scout report they were always like 1 star. Another question, do you know if the facepacks, logopacks, etc. are available on a mac?
I’d be really grateful of some help, thanks.
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 17:40
Thanks Lorenzo, I did the usual searches, just filtering under the specific attributes I want…but you have to look through a lot of players before finding what you’re after. I also had my scouts scouring the country too and they found more than half of my talent. As for the Mac question I’m afraid I don’t have one so wouldn’t know, you’d need to ask whoever made the downloads unfortunately.
Lorenzo
29 апреля, 2012 at 17:53
Okay, that’s great i’ll try that, thanks for the help :)
vaibhavc
29 апреля, 2012 at 18:08
Man City were tough this year for you Darren, but thank god you won against them in penalties! Cavus looks like a fantastic player. You got that legend spot that you deserved!
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 18:18
Thanks Vaibhav, Cavus is an exceptional talent and you’re right, City drove us all the way to the line but hopefully we’ll continue to have the edge over them.
Elias
29 апреля, 2012 at 19:25
How many scouts do you have? Do you scout anything in asia, australia and africa or just europe, south america and such? I love this site btw and it has helped me a lot!
Darren Smith
29 апреля, 2012 at 19:41
I have 14 scouts mainly covering Europe, North America and South America but I also have one doing Africa…unless the Asian leagues are loaded they are a waste of time to scout.
Conor Donovan
30 апреля, 2012 at 00:29
Another awesome season. I was thinking to myself that it wasn’t as good as last season, but then I realized you still managed the League, Cup, Champions League Treble, finally banished your cup hoodoo and your Y2G looks really successful already. So it wasn’t a bad season by any means! lol
Congratulations!
Darren Smith
30 апреля, 2012 at 11:59
Thanks Conor, it was another good season and in terms of trophies we seem to be doing the same most seasons, but falling short in the final of the League Cup or FA Cup. Still going strong though and hopefully that will continue.
CsAtlantis
30 апреля, 2012 at 07:38
That was a great victory in the Champions League final, even after having a player sent off after 50 minutes!
Congratulations on finally beating Arsenal in the FA Cup Final too, the Club World Championship result is a bit shocking but Sao Paulo probably had some great players too…
It is nice to see that your chairman believes that the club can continue it’s progress without great injections of cash
Herrera looks great, some improvements in strength and jumping would make him world class
Looking forward to see who gets sold next season Darren! Do you think you will sell of Southern?
Darren Smith
30 апреля, 2012 at 12:01
Thanks mate, when I saw red in the CL final I was wondering if we’d experience a classic SI screw over but thankfully that wasn’t the case. Sao Paulo actually have an excellent team, but just the thought of losing to a South American side didn’t feel right. :) As for Southern, he will be sold eventually but certainly not next season.
Dan
30 апреля, 2012 at 17:03
Hey Darren,
Another great season for Scarborough AFC. I don’t even need to say anything other than that since everyone above has already said everything. Well done! :)
Darren Smith
30 апреля, 2012 at 18:58
Thanks Dan.
Ana Garcia
30 апреля, 2012 at 18:54
I must also mirror what Dan had said! :)
Everything has been said just another amazing season as usual!
I wonder if your 110 season ticket holders when you began are now part of your 5,200 season ticket holder now? If so they must have had a very enjoyable last few seasons! :)
As always good luck!
Darren Smith
30 апреля, 2012 at 19:02
Thanks Ana, funny thought on the season ticket holders…I’d certainly hope the majority of those 110 have stayed with us despite the huge inflation in ticket prices.
danny walker
1 мая, 2012 at 19:36
you scored 151 goals in all competitions! amazing!
Darren Smith
1 мая, 2012 at 19:42
Hadn’t added that up ;) Certainly a lot and I must admit when we score three it always feels like we could carry on to make it a rout, the team just seem to have an excellent understanding of the tactic and each other within the match engine.
Klaus
2 мая, 2012 at 20:20
Hello Darren
Congratz on your succes
Is it possible you can sent me your tactic you are using with Scarborough AFC :O)?
I would be glad to try it out
Keep it up
Klaus
Darren Smith
2 мая, 2012 at 20:34
Thanks, you can download my tactic here http://www.mediafire.com/?pqu0aera2ipb9zi
Klaus
2 мая, 2012 at 20:39
Perfect.
Thanks for you quick response
I will try it out now =)
Jordan Wildman
2 мая, 2012 at 21:02
ive read every season but havent possted before. what database do you use and where can i download it please? :)
Darren Smith
2 мая, 2012 at 21:16
I use this database http://sortitoutsi.net/forum/topic/55366-official-gason-leghinf-english-national-league-system-update-taking-fm12-to-level-12-by-fma-football-manager-advanced/
Jordan Wildman
2 мая, 2012 at 21:39
It comes up with an error. do you know how to fix it? sorry im new to all this
Darren Smith
2 мая, 2012 at 21:45
You need to have the editor first…do a google search for FM 2012 editor download. When that is properly in place it should work I think, but its not my database so only the guys on the site I provided could give an official answer.
Jordan Wildman
2 мая, 2012 at 21:51
oh ok thank you. so i dont need to do anything except for install editor and the database? :D
Jordan Wildman
2 мая, 2012 at 21:59
still not working. ill just leave it. thanks any way :)
Matt
3 мая, 2012 at 17:13
Hey Darren, I didn’t know any other way to reach you but I have a huge problem on my save. I am Lazio and we I am trying to register for the Euro cup but we only have 3 players trained by the club between their 15th and 21st birthday. I have looked all through the club and can’t find a solution, I can’t continue either :(
Darren Smith
3 мая, 2012 at 19:22
All you need to do is leave the appropriate amount of space for the players you can’t register…so if you are say three players short of the rule then register three players less than your maximum and that will be OK. If all else fails just go on holiday for the day and your assistant will sort it for you.
Matt
3 мая, 2012 at 19:34
I holidayed for a day and managed to sign an old player of mine for free and everything is sorted, thanks anyway :)