Football Manager 2012 Scarborough AFC season 1 report, Seadogs can fly

Hey guys and welcome to my Football Manager 2012 Scarborough AFC season 1 report. My long journey to the Football league has begun, for those of you who missed the first post you can read all about Scarborough and my targets here. I start my journey in the Northern Counties East Football League Premier Division, a whopping 5 promotions away from League Two. We are predicted to finish top of the table and I want this season to be a battle cry that matches our slogan ‘no battle, no victory’. We’ll begin the post with transfers and the squads depth. By the way, that image above is not of me ;)

I obviously have no transfer budget and doubt we’ll be receiving one for the next four years at least, but I do have a massive £100 per week extra to play with in wages. I decided to get rid of the dead weight, but most weren’t been payed to play anyway.

I then went about strengthening my squad, we needed to completely reform this club. My image is to buy players that could hold their own in the division above, that way I don’t need to do another squad overhaul and I’m happy to say that we got some pretty talented players. (For this division anyway.) Two players from the list below are superstars even for the division above me, they are my striker Bridges and central midfielder Abalimba. My highest paid player is on something like £70 p/w but the majority of my squad are been paid £20-30 p/w.

One massive issue with semi-professional Football is that the facilities are awful and I am aloud one assistant manager, two scouts (which I can’t afford,) two coaches and one physio. That is the extent of my backroom staff and none of them are good enough to assign opposition instructions pre-match. Literally, a message pops up saying none of my staff have enough tactical knowledge lol :)

Anyway, I managed to build a very strong squad and yet the assistant seems to rate them fairly badly in the squad depth analysis. I don’t really listen to my assistant much as his abilities are simply awful. For instance, Toms my left winger is rated as two star, but he’s easily the best left winger in the division. Just another example of what I’m up against.

Results — first half of the season

Due to this been my first season I will just split the results into two sections and not include the goalscorers. That will change next season but for now results are what count. As for my tactic, well I decided to use a slightly modified version of my Arsenal tactic, but we will be playing fluid and attacking Football. As you can see Scarborough won 18 and drew just one of their opening 19 games in the league. We were eliminated early on in the FA Cup, but I was delighted by our domination in the league and this was my dream start.

Results — second half of the season

We continued the good form into the second half of the season winning a further 16 matches and drawing just three. We went the season unbeaten, but I had to arrange some Friendlies in between fixtures to keep the lads fit and also raise a little cash. I tried to find the highest profile clubs prepared to come to Scarborough. This kept the club afloat, so I wasn’t too bothered by the defeats.

Needless to say Scarborough finished top of the league and gained promotion, only the top team goes up and there are no play-offs (its brutal down in the dungeons of English football.) This league was a walk in the park and the Seadogs finished 33 points above their nearest competition. Next season will be interesting, but we have gained promotion to the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League Division One North and I think we should look to challenge too.

Squad stats and finances

My players performed like heroes this season and if I could I’d mention every single one. Instead I’ll leave you to examine the stats and name my three favorite players.

Player of the season:

3rd — Ashley Hodgkinson (DC)

2nd — Fraser Toms (AML)

1st — Scott Bridges (ST)

Scott Bridges was definitely my best player this season, his attributes are one step ahead of any striker in this league and probably even the league above. I’d actually like to keep Bridges as my main front man for the next two to three seasons at least. In other news, two new records were set by my young guns. I trailed through the youth recruitment deciding who to offer a contract and who to send packing near the seasons end. This was done with around 8 games still remaining. Two of those youngsters impressed me so much I promoted them to the first team and look what happened.

Jim Bye can play on the right wing or upfront and featured a total of 8 times impressing with three goals. I’d like to try and offer this kid some football next season but that depends on his performances really. But it wasn’t just this 15 year old that made a difference. I also brought in another 15 year old called Patrick Walton who is our youngest ever goal scorer and managed to rack up 2 goals near the seasons end from central midfield. The most pleasing part of these two records is that both players were born in the same hospital as myself. :) (They were both born in Scarborough where there is just one hospital.)

As for our finances, well they look reasonable and considering the season started with £2K in the bank we made a nice profit increasing the balance to £18K which was helped no end by the money raised from Friendlies. In fact if it weren’t for me arranging to invite those high profile Scottish teams to play us then Scarborough would be in the red for sure.

OK, I think that about does it for now, I couldn’t have wished for a better season and to get my first promotion feels great. I hope you’re enjoying the ride and will join me next time as Scarborough are tested at the next level. Until then please feel free to ask any questions below and I look forward to reading your comments.

So that’s one down, leaving four more promotions to reach the Football league…