The Southern Westfield

Introduction:
Hello and welcome to my first managerial career on 'sortitoutsi'. Please be kind.

First of all I loaded a database with all the lowest leagues in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, N.Ireland and finally England (going down to level 11 of the football pyramid). I started out as an unemployed manager with the most basic managerial coaching stats and basic past playing experience, jumping straight into the world of football, not knowing where I might end up. I applied for a ton of jobs but the ones that caught my eye was Westfield FC, a team not far from where I live, so I didn't hesitate to take the job.



Upon arrival at the club there was plenty of work that needed to be done and with a budget of nothing, this was going to be hard work. But without further ado we pressed on.

The League:

We absolutely smashed the league in our first season in management which was extremely pleasing and is great for board confidence! Only losing 2 games all season we won the league by a mighty 12 point lead and secured promotion to the league above. Signing players only on amateur contracts was tough as loads of them came and went as they pleased, but we managed to find around 11 players that were loyal enough to stay the whole season. These 11 lads were brilliant for us and probably too good for the league - lets hope we can manage to keep them around for next season.

Cups:

This season we were involved in some very interesting cup games and competitions.

Firstly, the FA Vase - the FA Cup of non league! We didn't do great in the FA Vase this season but we did beat our expectation by getting to the second qualifying round and losing out to Fakenham Town, receiving a little bit of prize money which will come in handy some day. In the Mid Sussex Senior Cup, we very unfortunately got beaten by cup-setters Copthorne in the 3rd round. The board weren't very pleased with this as we were supposed to get to at least the semi-final! However, we did have some success in the Division 2 Challenge Cup and also the Sussex Intermediate cup were we got to the final in both competitions, were we inevitably lifted both trophies to bring home some silverware and some very tasty prize money!

End of Season Conclusion:

In conclusion, a very productive and successful season. Performing exceptioanlly in the league and also in some of the cups, bringing home some silverware while we were at it. Club finances are looking great and I am enjoying life at the club greatly! In terms of next season, I'm expecting much more of a challenge in the league and I think I am going to struggle to hold on to some of our most 'loyal' players. I think a top half finish is definatley on the cards though, maybe even a playoff spot. I would also like a better cup run in the FA Vase.

Lower league English saves are always interesting. Cracker of a first season, @DoyleeUK! Bossed the league and won two cups, congrats!

Thanks @r96Skinner! It was a great season, but I was gifted with some fairly talented players. I can tell you now that the next season is going to be a lot tougher, as I've lost a lot of my good players from last season, and I am struggling to find sufficient replacements.

Always love using the lower English leagues, the lower the better in my opinion, the added leagues are usually fairly simple to get through with back to back to back (etc) promotions and titles just because you can sign quality players far better than those leagues, i'm on board with this @DoyleeUK

Thanks @Dan! I too love the lower league. I've been managing lower league teams on FM now for about 6 years.

On another note, I just did some research about the club. If you notice on the clubs badge it has some latin writing: 'ex cinis cineris nos orior oriri ortus'. Which means 'from the ashes we rise'. The clubs clubhouse burnt down in a tragic fire a few years back so they created this new badge. Who knows, maybe we will rise from the ashes again.

Do you have a link for the database @DoyleeUK

Here you are @Dan: http://www.fmscout.com/a-fm17-database-england-lower-leagues-to-level-22.html#comments

I tried using it in an online save with my friend and he had some crashes every time he clicked on his reserve team, however, offline seems to be working fine. There is a few things missing like U23 and U18 leagues in the lower levels, so I'm having to organise friendlies instead but once we get to Vanarama N/S I should be entered into the lower U23 and U18 league.

Unfortunately I've run into a couple of bugs with this save game so I'm gonna have to stop it from here on. I will be doing another one in the future though when a more stable lower league database comes out.