The Bear: A Salisbury Story

OOC: I’ll probably be playing with the titles a bit, not sure if I like «The Bear:» or «Salisbury:», not that it has any real bearing. Additionally, I had/have a wicked head cold while I was doing all the preseason work, so my signings may or may not be terrible, and may or may not doom us. We’ll see! 

It isn’t easy being a sapient polar bear. Sure the cartoons present us as furry, cuddly, and extremely fond of Coca-Cola products, but that image doesn’t seem to stick with people once they’ve met one of us in person. Contrary to what you may believe however, unless you’re a tasty seal, I’m not going to eat you (humans are way too high in cholesterol). I’d much rather relax, watch football, and munch on some popcorn (yeah, I’m a bear that likes popcorn, what of it?). Thankfully though, not everyone fears me.

There is one man in recent times who has taken the time to get to know me, one man who sees me for what I truly am — a tactical genius. That man is William Harrison-Allen, the Chairman of Salisbury City Football Club (a small club in the south of England). Over the course of numerous pub crawls, football matches, and putt-putt golf games, our friendship has blossomed. He trusts me, and appreciates my passion for the sport of football. When he called asking if I would consider taking over his club as manager, I didn’t even hesitate. This would be a new stage in life…

 First things first, I had to lay down a set of goals. I needed a plan, something to work toward. So I sat down, and put pen to paper:

1 Year:

-Earn promotion from the BSS

-Consolidate control over the club

3 Years:

-Establish Salisbury as a dominant Conference club

-Improve the youth setup

-Win the FA Trophy

5 years:

-Be playing in League One or Two

-Own our/a stadium

-Win the JSP Trophy

7 years:

-Earn promotion to the Championship

-Beat a Premier League side in the FA Cup

-Expand the stadium capacity

10 years:

-Establish ourselves as a Premier League club

-Win the FA Cup

-Win the Carling Cup

15+ years:

-Win a European title

-Win the league back-to-back years

-Win the double

-Win a treble (Champion’s League or Europa league)

-Build a stadium with a capacity of 50,000 or higher

-Gain a «Worldwide» reputation

Now I’m sure some of those could be regarded as rather…optimistic…but when you’ve seen the things I’ve seen, you need some optimism to get through life. With those goals in mind, I set out for some players to help us achieve them:

We don’t have any transfer money, so loans will be essential in the early going. Ironically, the media are the ones who recommended this guy to me during my introductory press conference.

They say sign young players…my arse. I’d much rather sign a proven veteran on the downside of his career than some scrub who may or may not ever amount to anything. Edozien will be a boss.

Do I have a thing for aging Africans? I guess I must, but don’t blame me, blame their amazing skills. I needed a versatile defender, and Bahoken’s experience all along the back four was simply far too tempting to pass on.

Ah, see, now here’s a young blood. He needs a bit of work (especially with his composure), but this kid has some serious potential.He’s more than good enough to be a starter in this league though, and frankly that’s what matters.

Another crucial loan, this time from the Leicester Reserve Squad (they are seriously STACKED). I expect him to own the midfield at this level.

And then last, but most certainly not least, I present you:

My hero, my muse, my knight in shining armor. My Messi, my Van Persie, my Robben. El Haimour will OWN this league, and to think we nearly didn’t land him. His agent was demanding outrages prices, and even more ludicrous fee, and I begrudgingly passed on. That is until a week later when my assistant came running and informed me Mounir had sacked his agent. We quickly signed him before he could hire another, and for a much more reasonable price.

Of course now that he has an agent again, there is precious little chance of us being able to RE-sign him come seasons end, but damned if I won’t enjoy it while I have it.

Once the dust had finally settled on the preseason, our transfer activity looked as thus:

As a spoiler, there is one player in that list I opted not to share, but whom you’ll be getting to know quite well over the coming months. All the outbounds were chumps on chumped up wages.

Of course a good squad on paper doesn’t necessarily translate to a good squad on the pitch (check the boulevard of broken dreams for ample evidence of that fact). We had to test ourselves in the friendlies:

That’s it Hibernian, you’re officially on my #!@$ list. We didn’t deserve to lose by 3 goals, and I’ll be damned if I’ll stand for that. Look out next year you Scottish do-gooders, we’ll be back…

MOVING on from that atrocity, it was time to face our first month in the league:

I’m going to be entirely honest: we’re too good for this league. We’re a fully professional outfit with a multitude of League 2 calibre players; what prayer do these part-timers have? Anything other than a dominant promotion will be an absolute disgrace to the club, and I will resign and retire from football if we fail to achieve it.

We’ll actually be facing some of the «better» clubs in the coming weeks, but somehow I don’t expect the results to change much. The sooner we move into the Blue Square Premier, the better it’ll be for everyone. Only this time we won’t let those over-privileged Conference «accountants» throw us out of their league over some minor financial technicality.  We’ll storm their blasted castle, and we’ll steal their princesses for our own. Beware BSP, we’re coming, and we’re hungry.

OOC Question(s):

1) Does anyone know a good (read: trustworthy) online retailer (preferably a European one) that sells unlocked mobile phones?

2) Because I’m a giant nerd, I’ve been writing a bit of a «back story» for The Bear. I wanted to give him life beyond just a fictional manager. If anyone is interested in actually reading any of that, let me know and I’ll start posting it up as a «Page 2» item attached to the normal updates.