The New Story — Blyth Spartans

Hello people and welcome to my new Football Manager 2009 story. After the disappointment of losing my Chester game I decided to begin all over again but this time I chose a team in the lowest league in the game, Blue Square Northern. The team is Blyth Spartans, a semi-professional team located in the town of Blyth in Northumberland. The club was founded in 1899 and the name was given by the first club secretary, an admirer of the proud and tenacious Greek Spartan army.

The club is rather poor and unambitious at this point, no money for transfers and a wage budget that is not covering the current salaries…

The media predict that we will finish 18th, just above the relegation spots.

The bookmakers also predict a long and painful season for us.

Well, I thought that the situation called for radical measures. I decided to sell all the players that I believed were not good enough to win promotion for our club. And since nobody wanted to buy them I released all of them, 24 players from the first team and from the youth team, on free transfers. This way I could have at least a wage budget that would allow me to sign some decent players.

And I signed 12 players for free plus loaned a decent goalie from Darlington. Along with the 10 players that I kept from the original Blyth squad I had 23 players ready to battle for every point.

I guess you are not familiar with the names of the players I signed but you might know two of them. The first one is Darren Barnard from Wales, 36 years old left back and coach. He played 22 games for his national team and he also played for Chelsea in the early nineties. Although he’s rather old I chose to sign him because he can also be a coach for my team and his experience might prove to be essential for us in the «hot» moments of the season.

The other «international» player is Adrian Webster. He played 3 games for his national team (New Zealand) and he’s 27 years old.

I was particularly pleased with the contribution of Jed Dalton in the friendly games. He’s one of the players that was already at Blyth when I got the job and I think that he is quite promising. He’s only 18 years old and he can play as a central midfielder, attacking midfielder, right and left winger and also as a striker.

The last thing that I did in the pre season was that I offered every player a full time contract (many of them were on part time contracts) because I believe that they might develop better as football players if they dedicate all their time to the game.

And now a few pictures related to my new club, Blyth Spartans. Ladies and gentlemen, the wonderful club logo:

And our tiny stadium, Croft Park:

Blyth Town Centre

The Lighthouse

I hope to buid a solid and successful club out of Blyth Spartans but it might take some time, a long time… Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy reading the story as much as I enjoy playing the game.