FM 2012 Scarborough AFC season 6 report: The promised land

Hey guys and welcome to my FM 2012 Scarborough AFC season 6 report. Last season saw the Seadogs win and gain promotion from the Blue Square Premier. We walked over most opposition and finally put Scarborough back to the division where it all went wrong. Jumping from ‘non-league’ football to the Football League is a big step and while the ride has been tame so far, I am expecting the bumps to appear soon. It may not be this season, but if I don’t keep the standard of my squad high the quality could soon catch up with us.

When you gain promotion to the Football League the first thing to do is turn professional (if your club hasn’t done so already.) CHECK

This very positive move left me with tonnes to do, but after offering the majority of my staff and players full time contracts I decided to take the next step into my own hands. Facilities and youth recruitment are vital as you move up the leagues, ours are naff and while I lacked the cash to improve the facilities the board did improve my youth recruitment.

Now we see what the board and media expect of me this season. As was the case during our last couple of campaigns the board expect relegation but still offered a nice budget due to our great financial position. I probably won’t spend a dime of that £444K transfer budget and may even transfer it to wages.

The media have us down for an outside promotion chance, but at 16-1 we are behind a pack of very good clubs.

With a tonne of cash in my back pocket, I set about the transfer market, with some names in mind I wanted to clear the floor first so offloaded any unwanted players. All the departures would have struggled in L2 and we even managed to rake in £185K.

Now for the really important part, my signings. After last season it became apparent that I wouldn’t need to do too much, but what I did need to do was strengthen the quality in depth. Hokan was probably the best signing, he is a quality left back for this level while Barmby will terrorize down the left wing. I decided to make up the numbers with loan signings from there on out as the quality of the free market was a little too low for my taste.

The squad depth image below says more than enough, we have great quality in depth now and League Two could have a surprise front runner should my assistants opinion prove accurate. Just watch out for Southern, he’s made massive improvements.

Results — August to October

My first few months back in the Football League were very fruitful indeed. We may have exited the League Cup early but my boys mastered their way to 11 wins and two draws from 13 games. An unbelievable start, plus we managed to beat League One’s Scunthorpe and Hull City to progress in the JPT.

Results — November to December

Our fantastic start continued as the Winter months saw my boys win all our games bar one. We were eliminated from the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy but that didn’t really bother me, I was just happy to progress past Stevenage in the FA Cup 2nd round. A quick glance through the results below will tell you who was to thank for our fine form, Southern had become a goal machine!

With the first half of the season over, Scarborough sat top of the table and holding a 23 point advantage over Torquay in second. This is by far my best start to a season and all the youth I have put together just seem to have gelled into one unstoppable machine.

Results — January to February

So Scarborough had been eliminated from the JPT and League Cup, leaving us with the remaining League Two calender and the FA Cup to focus on. But with more gaps showing between league matches I found the bank balance been flushed away, this led me to arrange no fewer than 5 Friendly matches. The cash didn’t exactly rush in but it put a small plug in the leak at least. A midst all this my side still fought on in the league to win all our matches bar one draw to Torquay. We even progressed in the FA Cup beating Rotherham before we were beaten in the fourth round at home to Liverpool. My boys were by far the better side and we dominated the match but just couldn’t match Liverpool’s EPL finishing.

Results — March to May

The final push of the season led to a lot of annoying injuries to my key stars. Obviously this had an adverse effect on our form, seeing Scarborough lose two and draw three of our last 12 leagues matches. Still good form indeed and Southern had well and truly put himself in the shop window for next season with the likes of Birmingham and Fulham making inquiries.

With the season coming to a close the league table reads utter domination, the Seadogs finished top by a staggering 36 points and we scored a total of 120 goals. Next season will see us in League One where the standard may be much higher, but its getting tough to tell where the brick wall will be built, because there is no sign of my boys hitting it yet.

As a result of our domination the awards were handed out mainly to Scarborough players. I won manager of the year, Nikolaou won player of the year and Southern won the golden boot with an immense 40 goals from 40 games.

Squad stats and finances

After a tremendous season many of my players deserve credit but none more than Southern who has scored 45 goals from 41 starts and even chipped in with 14 assists…this lad could be massive on any level in my opinion. Rather than go through all the players I will list my favorite four below the squad stats.

Favorite four players (click on players names to see their profile)

4. Ricci Hokan (DL, 19 years old)

3. Nikos Nikolaou (AMR, 19 years old)

2. Josh Ross (MC, 18 years old)

1. Jonathan Southern (ST, 18 years old)

This season was fantastic on the pitch, but we did lose a lot of money behind the scenes. After turning professional our wage bill went through the roof and our small stadium isn’t big enough to provide the funds required. We finished last season with £1.49 million in the bank, but we finished this season with £779K. The finances are still stable but next season will be very tough in that area.

Well my sixth season is complete and that concludes my 6th consecutive promotion. We still have a very good squad and with the youth I managed to find in the BSP and below we are destined to either succeed or cash in…I have already begun the seventh season and can confirm that one player has left without my say so, but that is all I’ll say. :) Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment below. I’ll leave you with an image of how my journey has panned out so far.