Football Manager 2012 Scarborough AFC season 4 report, dreaming of Wembley

Hey guys and welcome to my Football Manager 2012 Scarborough AFC season 4 report. Last season not only saw Scarborough win the Evo-Stik’s top division in style, but we also won the Evo-Stik Cup and broke a number of records throughout the season. The Seadogs are now in more familiar territory, the Blue Square North is where the club went bust and out of business years ago. Having guided my boyhood club to three straight promotions we are back to where it all ended. The quality will be far higher than I have experienced to date, but that will hopefully open the door for more quality players to enter my management. There’s a fair bit to get through, so lets dive straight into Scarborough’s first season back in the Blue Square North.

The board didn’t seem optimistic during pre-season, all they asked was for me to avoid relegation. I personally wanted to aim far higher but the difference in funds made upping my expectations a waste of time. Therefore I settled for a transfer budget of £23K and extra wages of £1K per week. The great budget was certainly down to some excellent finances following Friendly matches and a decent cup run last season.

The media however held us in higher regard, Scarborough were sixth favorite for the title priced around 16-1. Not bad at all considering we are newly promoted.

With the medias expectations riding on my shoulders, I went about offloading the deadwood. Every single player that left were offloaded because they lacked the quality for such a step up…bar one that is. Bridges who has been my most successful signing yet has fallen victim to some amazing regen strikers (I showed you their profiles during the last post), while he is good, I have two brilliant regens to fill his boots and I felt bad keeping the old boy around just to rot on the bench.

Now we move onto my signings, this could make or break the season and decide whether we perform above ourselves. Shepherd is the key striker that will replace Bridges and will be near impossible to keep past two seasons. While the others are all very young as always and should feature in the first team or as rotational options.

Just before the season began I took a glance at my assistants squad depth report. And I must say its the best I’ve seen since starting this save, obviously Scarborough are heading in the right direction and looking at my attacking options…well lets just say the board will be surprised.

Results — August to October

The season started with a bang as Scarborough managed 11 wins, 3 draws and one loss from the first 15 league matches. We also won our way past two FA Cup qualifying rounds to reach the 4th qualifying round not to mention the Friendly I arranged against Hearts to raise some cash. All of this and to think I suffered some major injuries during the first three months including the absence of key forward Shepherd which lasted 7 matches.

Results — November to December

The great start continued into winter as Scarborough pulled off a shock beating BSP’s Fleetwood 3-0 to qualify for the FA Cup first round. We then enjoyed yet more league victories and got lucky in the FA Cup, drawing easy opposition twice to squeeze our way into the third round draw. After some good fortune in the FA Cup the Seadogs also remained in the FA Trophy and will now await the 2nd round draw. As for the league we may have lost twice, but Scarborough won the other 5 matches which pleased me considering our busy Cup schedule.

The good start has led to a 6 point gap at the top with games in hand over the teams below. My boys have only suffered three draws, three losses and still have two cup competitions to fight for.

Results — January to February

This two month period was massive for the Seadogs, we drew just two league games and managed to avoid defeat bar the match away to Halifax, plus we progressed to the semi-final of the FA Trophy beating three teams along the way including BSP’s Gateshead. But none of these matches could even touch what happened in the FA Cup. My boys beat League Two’s York in the third round to setup a fourth round away tie with Premier League side Stoke. Despite a valiant effort Scarborough lost 1-0, but we raised a ridiculous amount of money from that match alone. Going so far meant matching Scarborough’s previous record in the FA Cup when they lost to Chelsea in the fourth round many years ago (and no I didn’t have to google that stat, I was there watching the match in person.) ;)

Results — March to May

The final three months of the season were our best. Scarborough not only won every single league game, but we beat Barrow 9-2 on aggregate in the FA Trophy semi-final to book our place at Wembley.

With the Blue Square North all wrapped up, I was left to examine the table which showed utter domination. The Seadogs finished top by a massive 31 points scoring 116 goals. We gained promotion to the Blue Square Premier which means just one promotion stands between us and the football league. But all of that was in the back of my mind as everyone in Scarborough traveled down to London for the FA Trophy final.

FA Trophy final vs Forest Green

Venue: Wembley

Attendance: 24,008

Starting formations:

Forest Green are my opponents for the FA Trophy final, they finished this season 5th in the Blue Square Premier and then went on to win the play-off for promotion. Obviously they have a very talented side and Scarborough will be seen as underdogs for this match, but if we can lose just 1-0 away to Stoke, then we can handle ourselves today. I will leave you to watch the match highlights below.

Match highlights: Click here to watch the FA Trophy final match highlights

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Match stats:

Shepherd was our star man yet again scoring two and assisting the other. Scarborough dominated this match with 65% possession and 8 shots on target to Forest Greens zero. You would have thought my boys were the team to have gained promotion to League Two and that is the best way I could describe this match. It truly was a fantastic day for the fans.

Stats and finances

After this incredible season so many players deserve a mention, but I’ll leave you to see the squad stats below before picking out my favorite four. All I will say is check out the age of these players, they are insanely young when you consider all that they have achieved already. My biggest challenge will be holding them down while the vultures circle above us.

My favorite four

4th — Oliver Lee (MC, aged 23)

3rd — Nikos Nikolaou (AMR, aged 17)

2nd — Reece Hendrie (AMR, aged 18)

1st — Bob Shepherd (ST, aged 17)

As you can see everything was perfect on the pitch and as a result things off the pitch weren’t bad either. I finished last season with £237K in the bank, but after our amazing cup runs that figure went through the roof hitting £752K. This was an amazing bank balance for a small side like Scarborough and I had to take advantage…

…so I asked the board to build a new stadium. Ever since the old stadium was abandoned (this is where I learnt what football is) I had felt like a part of my childhood left me. Scarborough had to play their games in Bridlington at the Neil Hugdell Law Stadium and still do to this day, unfortunately Bridlington is just too far for me to travel and a real pain to get to. So you can imagine my excitement when the board agreed with me and started making arrangements to move back to where we belong, in the city of Scarborough.

The new stadium will cost £2 million which is a lot for such a small club but only £1.19 million comes from our pockets over a lot of years. The capacity is almost the same as Bridlington’s ground (which we currently borrow for matches) but I’m not bothered, the Seadogs can finally say they own their stadium again…well in 2017 anyway. Lets just hope there’s lots of room for expansion. :)

The board also granted an upgrade to the clubs training facilities which were dyer and had to be improved, this will cost £95K but still shows the boards willingness to help.

Well that about does it for today, I hope you are enjoying the story so far and will be back for my season five update. My journey has been amazing to date and as before, I am happy to report no bugs as Scarborough begin life in the Blue Square Premier. Until next time please feel free to comment below and I’ll leave you with a screenshot of our climb through the divisions so far.