Rick's Young Bucks

After the untimely demise of my African game I needed a new challenge, after careful deliberation I have decided to put my efforts into completing the Dafuge challenge which is to take a previously unplayable club from the bottom division of English football, to eventual Champions League glory. more information on the challenge can be found here.

I holidayed through 2013/14 in order to facilitate the promotion of the batch of clubs, from whom I would have to select the club who I would one day be collecting my European cup winners medal with, here are the clubs who came up from the regional premier divisions;

As I live on the Derbyshire border, I naturally went with my fellow county-men. I've visited Buxton in the Peak district a few times and have always liked that rather beautiful part of England.

Here's my managerial profile;

And here is the club's overview screen;


So here we go, the journey from Conference North to the Bernabau is sure to be an arduous one, can it be done? this sleepy Derbyshire market town is about to find out!

I'll follow this closely! Wolves fan in peace

I have a save with Colwyn Bay and Andy Warrington is a very reliable keeper.
Good luck!

Well, here is my initial squad, don't take the time to familarise yourselves with it though as almost every contract expires next week and nobody seems intrested in renewing with us, which seems rather bizzare given the club have just won promotion.

Looks as if I'm going to have to build a brand new squad, which I don't mind doing, just seems a little unrealistic to me.

Certainly won't be easy Rick, I've uploaded a career for my Dafuge challenge too! Had to bring in a fair few new faces myself! good luck!

This surely must be a bug or a data issue because it's the same for all the teams that get promoted. I play tested the challenge with the Met Police and I lost close to the entire squad. Ridiculous.

I'm off to a great start as Buxton manager as I guided the league new boys to three wins out of four to give the Bucks a better start to life in the Skrill North than anyone could have predicted.

The 3-2 over Stockport was particuarly shocking to neaural eyes as we were 2-0 down before mounting a terrific comeback to snatch a win with a late penalty at Edgeley Park;

Those nine points have us sitting eighth in the table, what I wouldn't give to ensure we are still perched there in May!


As I said in the previous post, I lost most of my squad at the start of July as they chose to allow their contracts to expire, forcing me to recruit heavily over the summer;

Thirteen of those players are new Bucks which made pre-season invaluable as I looked to help my squad gel;

Not too bad resultswise, but of course I was more intrested in getting the team playing the way I want them to, so far I've utilised a pretty standard 4-4-2 with the following instructions;

Not pretty, but at this level it's pointless trying to play possesion based football as the terrible pitch conditions hinder that sort of play, not to mention my players lack the technique to pull it off effectivly. still, ther will be a time to improve our style but for this season at least my focus is on keeping the defence solid.

Its a great start Rick, looks like your set to start this challenge with a better season than I managed! KIU!

Dan also had the same problem at Berwick Rangers afaik.

You have made a promising start to the season Rick and that's a stunning comeback away to Stockport County. KIU chum.

Our very reasonable start to the season continued through September, although we only managed the one win in league action we still got something out of games with Stalybridge, Gloucester and Barrow and only fell prey to the one reverse as we allowed a lead against Histon slide, a bit disappointing as had we won we would be second in the table!

throwing away leads seems to be an unfortunate theme of this month as it also happened at Gloucester and against Barrow, this is something I am obviously keen to address.

In the FA cup we squeezed into the third qualifying round by navigating through an enthralling encounter with FC United, on this occasion it was our turn to mount a comeback as we battled back from a 3-0 deficit at half time to bring the tie back to The Silverlands, it looked as if this was also going to finish level after ninety minutes, however a 86th minute header from center back Karl Broadhurst banished the lingering prospect of extra-time to set up a third round tie away to Northern League side Spennymoore Town.

I'm quite enjoying life with the Bucks at the moment, I particularly enjoy that the squad is not perfect, no result is guaranteed one way or another, there is still a lot that needs tweaking tactically, players who need re-training or simply selling. the long term project is what's exciting me, of course I would like some success in this first season but simply staying up will suffice as far as I'm concerned this year as I recruit the youngsters who will become the flagstones of our future successes.

Unfortunate September. I too had that problem during September. Never could retain a lead unfortunately.
However you're only four points from the top. Let's hope October brings you to the summit.