Zero to Hero

So here we go, a nice long term save to get stuck into.

Warrington Town, newly promoted into the Vanarama National League North. Under my tenure, they will win the Champions League.



The only thing this club has ever won is the league last season to get promoted into the National League North.



We have no experience, no badges. Dire stats, let's hope the players at this level can gel and we can forge something special here in Cheshire.





This will be a long road, so lets get started

So one final post before I get cracking. I've had a look around the club, and there are a few things that strike me. Firstly I've just come out of the board meeting. I'll be earning £425 a week, with a nice little £1,800 bonus for avoiding relegation. Now that's all pretty trivial, although I like to play the game to be realistic, so I like to try and get myself on good wages and so on.

Anyway, the next thing I did once I signed on the dotted line was go and meet the rest of the staff. So I sent out an 'All Staff' email, and went to the clubhouse to wait for everyone to arrive.

I sat for about 15 minutes, with a pint of lager from the bar. Waiting for my staff to arrive before I checked my email again. One reply, from the chairman,

"Hi Gareth,

Sorry, we forgot to mention this in the board meeting we just had.

You're the only member of staff at the club currently, it's up to you to decide who you hire. Just run it by us first, and we'll sort the contracts out with them.

Best,

Tony"



Great, so I'm going to need to sort that out first. That's on my to do list...

Next, it's time to meet the players. They should be arriving for team meeting pretty soon. I don my nice new club suit, and wait...



Well, I was expecting a few more lads to turn up. Noticeably we don't have a goalkeeper. That could be problematic. I'll need to address that, item number 2 on the to do list.

One last check of the emails before I pack up the office to finish my first day in charge, and there's one sitting there from the chairman, again..

"Hi Gareth,

As we discussed in our meeting earlier today please find below our expectations for the season:

Vanarama National League North - Fight Bravely Against Relegation

Emirates FA Cup - Reach Third Qualifying Round

Buildbase FA Trophy - No Expectations

In order to achieve this we will provide you with the following finances:

Transfer Budget - £0
Wage Budget - £4,505pw (Currently Spending £2,844pw)

Best of Luck,

Tony"

I live in Warrington and go to Cantilever Park a few times a year so am looking forward to keeping up with how this goes!

Just one point, Warrington is in Cheshire not Merseyside

Good luck @kinggazzaman!

Love the ambition, hope to see this grow into a massive save!

Just down the road from me that! Got the chance of making this as a fantastic save! Good luck dude!

Isn't the fictional supermarket Valco based in Warrington? Maybe they could be your sponsor

Best of luck with this!

Best of luck Gareth! following from the start

Staffing Overhaul

When I arrived at the club we had no staff members so the very first thing I did was to go and find myself a staff team.

I think it was pretty successful. It was difficult to bring in great coaches but at least we are around, if not above average in each of the coaching aspects. With the best physios and scouts in the league. Great start



I think perhaps the most important staff member I bought in was my Assistant Manager, he has pretty good stats for this level and because he's young perhaps his stats will develop over time as well.



Transfers In

As you can imagine there were a fair few players coming in, we had a really small squad with absolutely no depth at all. So I needed to get on and change that straight away.



As you can see there's a fair few so I'll post them all below in categories.

Goalkeepers



First one is Charlie Phillips, a young goalkeeper courtesy of my Director of Football, he'll be a good backup option for us. We only had one of the young U23 goalkeepers so needed to add depth here and Phillips gives us that depth. I don't really expect him to see much first team football though. A non-contract option is a good deal for us.



Next up was Jordan Porter, a signing I made myself. This is going to be my number one option between the sticks. He's nothing special but is the best option I have. He has some pretty decent physical stats for this level and a spattering of good technical. Luckily I won't be playing out from the back very much so he won't need to use his feed, with that first touch stat of 1

Defenders

We added a lot of defenders to the squad, I think the key to playing at this level is to play like Stoke. Kick the hell out of the opponents and try and steal a goal or two at the other end. I wanted to have a decent amount of defenders and I think all of these guys will add something to my team.











We were really lacking any sort of quality at the left back position so I really needed to bring some people in there. I've done that, and bought a back up in as well so it solved that problem. I've also bought in a couple of centre backs whose sole job will be to get rid of the ball at the back.

Midfielders





Two decent options that add some decent depth in the centre of midfield. I don't really know what my strongest midfield combination is yet, and these two could certainly push their way into my plans. This window was all about building a squad, and these two are certainly worthy of being in my squad.

Strikers

We had enough strikers to have a pretty good strong eleven. Still, we needed to add here again, so I went out and tried to find myself a goalscorer.



The first guy I bought in was young English striker Akeem Hinds. He is pretty pacey, and can head and finish well enough for this level. Hopefully he'll be able to bag us some goals. As long as he does that I can't have any real complaints.



Now, Dean Ebbe, again nothing special really about him. Decent physical statistics and can finish. They're the most important things hopefully as a target man he won't need to use his feet to get himself out of trouble too many times. Only time will tell but I think these are two pretty decent options for this standard of football to go with the rest of my attacking players.

We've just started the season, so I wanted to share the tactic that I'll be kicking things off with.

I'm not really used to managing in the lower leagues, and I'm certainly not used to creating my own tactic (I usually use downloaded ones) so this is new for me. I wanted to keep it simple, choose the formation and the players. Then play those players in their best roles to begin with and then make any tweaks depending on what happens.



As you can see I'm playing a simple 4-4-2 with each of my Starting XI playing in their strongest roles. The things that strike me as potential areas for change is the left back. Jake Green is my best left back by a considerable margin, it makes sense to play him as his strongest role. An Inverted Wing Back but I'm not sure how that'll affect the rest of the defence. I may just swap him over and play him in a slightly less preferred Full Back/Defensive Full Back. Also the strikers, I don't know if that pairing of defensive forward and target man will work but only time will tell. Again, I'm just playing them in their best role. If any other players come on I'll probably be playing them in their strongest roles as well.

In terms of corner routines, after our first two games of the season I came up with a plan. Swing it into either the far post (in-swinger) or the near post (out swinger) and put the best header of the ball to attack the ball at the post. We'll see how that goes, it can't be any worse than the corner routine by default because none of the players are moving and we achieve nothing (I think that's a beta issue though)

After the last post I wasn't quite finished in the transfer market, and I've bought in a couple more players. One loan, and one permanent signing. Here they are...



Again, a pretty solid looking central midfielder who may or may not start and will probably again play in his preferred role of a DLP. On loan from promoted Southport he'll certainly add something to the side



Next is a young striker on a free from Shrewsbury, looks decent and looks like he will be making it into the first team pretty soon. We have a nice selection of attackers and as long as I can keep them all happy this can only be a good thing. I want competition for places, particularly going forward. The aim for this season is staying up, and we'll need goals to do that. We can build from there.


Anyway, the season kicked off with a really tough game at home against FC Halifax. A side relegation from the National League last season we couldn't really ask for a tougher start to the campaign (unless Salford perhaps). I didn't really expect to get anything from this game, maybe snatch a draw. What happened really shocked me...



We managed to steal the win in what must have been a hugely entertaining to and fro game. We came from 0-1 down to being 2-1 in front, they then equalised by we put our foot on the gas pulled out a 4-2 advantage and managed to hold on to grab a vital win to start the season.

Next up we had a local clash against rivals Curzon Ashton another team tipped to be fighting the drop this season. Away from home I was really looking to not drop any points. Unfortunately that wasn't to be, despite coming from behind to equalise we let them in late on to put the game to bed and we lose ground to a relegation rival. Although, it's still way way too early to be reading anything into these results, but it bought us back down to Earth with a bump.



That will do for now, like I said it's too early to read anything into it at the moment but we're scoring goals but conceding too many too. It'll be a bumpy road, and I'll be looking to check back in around 10 games into the season when the league table has started to take shape a little more. By then we will have also dipped our toes into FA Cup action for the very first time.

Good to see you start the league season on the right foot!

Emirates FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round

We were drawn against Nantwich, we'd have to overcome them in order to reach the expected level of us this season. That is to reach the 3rd Qualifying Round. So how did we get on...

Nantwich 0-0 Warrington



Well, that didn't go to plan. I was looking to come away with the win and expected to get a good result against a lower ranked team than us. However, we didn't lose away from home which you'll see soon has been a problem for us so far this year. Anyway, a playoff it is, and that came up in the next game...


Warrington 2-1 Nantwich



So job done in the end, and both goals were pretty similar. Long balls from deep over the top of the defence. Hines runs onto the ball and finishes well. He could have had a hattrick but fluffed an earlier chance. It was perhaps closer than I might have wanted, but the important thing was the end result and we march on to the next round. What was particularly pleasing about this was that Hine had gone on a pretty long run without scoring and he managed to bag himself a brace and the MOTM award for his troubles.



Worth noting perhaps that he's due to retire at the end of the season. I'll bear that in mind and perhaps ask him to reconsider depending on how well he performs for the remainder of the season.

So how about the draw for the next round. Ideally I'd like to make the first round proper, but that is probably asking a bit much from us in the first season. Especially given our tough ask away from home in the next round.



Chester are a good side, relegated from the National League last season, and I expect them to be pretty strong at home. A Cheshire derby none-the-less. Hopefully we can at least force a replay.

Vanarama National League North - 10 Game Round Up

So you got to see the first two games of the season, which featured a great result against relegated Halifax. But how did we get on over the next 8 league games.

The answer...



...not great. We had a decent run at the start picking up some valuable points and then the fanastic win against unbeaten York City who sat in 2nd place in the table. However, since then things haven't really gone to plan. A run of 4 defeats in the league has put us in a litle bit of trouble.



As you can see it puts us in the drop zone. This is pretty disappointing especially as there are games during our run without a point that I think we really could have won. Spennymoore is one of them. We went 1-0 up in that game via the penalty spot, but threw the game away. I made a tactical error in that game and decided to switch to attacking when they equalised in search of the winner, however they managed to catch us on the break twice and put the game beyond doubt. Hopefully I won't come to regret that at the end of the season.

Our next run of games is pretty tough, over the next 10 matches we're playing against pretty much the top half of the table. So we need to be able to pick up some points along the way. I'm aiming to pick up 10 points every 10 games in order to survive in the division. As you can see, we're behind schedule, so we need to start picking up points fast.


The next time I'll update is the FA Cup clash against Chester

Emirates FA Cup 3rd Qualifying Round

The tie against Chester was certainly a difficult one, especially when you look at our away form so far this season. But, we've beaten good sides already this season so you never know.



We managed to force a replay for the second round running, this time though we needed to come from behind and were more than pleased with the result. Akeem Hinds was telling me he wanted more first team football and to come off the bench and put us into the hat for the next round at least means that he deserves to start the replay.



As you can see they were the better side and perhaps we were a little lucky to find outselves still in the tie at this stage, certainly if I was Chester manager I'd be disappointed not to have sealed the tie at home.

So onto the replay, this time, at our house...



This wasn't the result we were looking for, especially after taking the lead with a really nice finish. Fair play to Chester their two goals were both excellent goals, the first was a shot on the turn inside the 18 yard box, and the second was a goal from about 30 yards out. I think we gave both players a little too much time and space to score their goals, but other than having close down much more turned on I don't really know what else I can do to stop that from happening.



Again though, they were the better side and we probably didn't create enough chances to warrant winning the game. We need to be better at the back, yes, that's true but we also need to create more going forward. This has gotten a lot better in the last few games, but I'm hoping we can finally get a win in the league. That's pretty much our sole focus from now on. I'm not really too bothered about the FA Trophy, and I have no expectation on it from the board. Time to put the disappointment behind us and accept what the real priority has been all along. Staying in the National League North. We need to start picking up points pretty soon. We're still behind schedule.

Buildbase FA Trophy 3rd Qualifying Round

So we enter this with no expectation from the board, and no real expectation from me. The league is the most important thing this season. I don't think the prize money is all that and we don't really stand a chance of winning yet anyway.

So we were drew against Curzon Ashton, one of our local rivals, in an attempt to make it into the first round proper. How did we get on?





I don't think that the score necessarily reflects the performance, bottom line is that they took their chances, and we didn't. We still played well and I'm not too disappointed with the result. Just means we can focus absolutely everything we have on staying in the division. We're approaching the halfway point in the league, and I'll update you once I've played 21 games.

Curzon are a tough nut to crack, beat us last year despite being a league below, and will likely beat us this Saturday too, Hakan Burton is a bloody good keeper, then they've got quality forwards too nightmare! A trophy run is always nice in N/S for a potential tie at Wembley as the playoffs are at a club ground, but league should take priority for sure, keep it up! (Not surprised you beat York we're abysmal )

Vanarama National League North - Midway Round Up

So here we are, halfway through the season. After a pretty shaky start we needed to pick up some points.

Before we look at the results, I wanted to show you guys a player I've bought in. There's been a fair few ins and outs during the season with some players joining in the summer being released because they just haven't been getting the game time I expected.

So here he is, I tried to sign him and he signed a new deal with Chorley, so I went in for him again and this time got my man on a free with no compensation.



A young stiker who went straight into the starting eleven.

Onto the results...



A much better run of results than the first quarter of the season. The reason for this is I decided I would look for a tactic online. I've never been too good at designing my own tactics so maybe I'll wait until the full release and it's not a matter of trying to survive and keep my job. Anyway, I'm using Oathbreaker's tactic which can be found here

It also helped that there were some huge games against teams in the bottom 3, Blyth and Halifax are both struggling and picking up 6 points from those two games really has put us in a much better position in the league...



As I said before 45 points is my target so a rough aim of around 10 points per game. The standard has been poor so I don't think I'll need as many as 45 points it would require a pretty huge increase in performance from the bottom three for them to get near that mark. My target still stands though and we're a good chunk of the way there. We're certainly hitting that 1.0 points per game average I'm looking for.

Now the reason I showed you Elliot Murray earlier is pretty simple. He's been a complete game changer for me



You can see how important he's been for me, he's played in all 6 games since joining and has scored 5 goals in that time and popped up with an assist. I'm absolutely certain he's won us points on his own and if we stay up he'll have gone a long way to contributing towards that.

Now seeing as we're at the halfway point I'm going to show you some interesting stats so far.



Here's the individual player stats, nothing really to see here apart from Murray getting himself on the board for top goalscorer, now of course around half of these came from his time at playoff contenders Chorley, but it's still nice to have a player in and around the scoreboards.



Again, nothing really of note on the team stats either, other than the fact that we're one of the top sides at hitting the target in the division. It just goes to show that either every goalkeeper plays a blinder against us, or we hit it right at them. I have a feeling it's the latter. Something we need to change, but at least we're hitting the target anyway.

Squad Dynamics is new this year and it's something I was a little worried about starting this save with absoluetely no previous experience or coaching badges, would this cause there to be issues with the team.



Looks like my fears were for nothing, it seems as though everything is okay at the moment. It's not anything special don't get me wrong and there isn't any overwhelming support for me but I'm sure that will grow if we manage to put a decent run of form together over the next quarter and put ourselves in a good position to avoid the drop.

Final thing is the next 10 games that I'll be playing before my final mid season update of this coming season.



Some strong sides in there but there's also a handful of teams that are around the same area as me in the league. All I'm looking to do is get 10 points in the bag, anything else is a bonus.

See you then, and hopefully we're one step closer to playing National League North Football in 2019/20

Forms very patchy but I'm convinced you'll stay up this season and that was the main aim wasn't it?

Yeah, staying up was always the main aim, it's going to be a slow build. Some of the players I signed wanted promises about where we'd finish, and were asking for top half finishes in like the 2021/22 season. So we've got a couple of seasons to build first.

Dean Ebbe, he had a turbulent time around the Irish leagues. Nice to see he's committing career suicide here. Looks like a tough run in, hopefully you turn it around!

Vanarama National League North - 31 Game Round Up

So the last time I checked in was just after the Boxing Day match against Halifax. The squad has changed a fair bit since then. I saw our finances are pretty shot, so I decided to have a complete clear out of the squad. Strip it down to the bare bones and try and save some money on wages.





As you can see, we have a match day squad and one player spare. It's pretty big risk, but due to the nature of the league it's pretty easy to replace people if they pick up a long term injury. Either a short term loan up until the deadline, or bring a player in on a free. Anyway, how did we get on...



As you can see our good run of form carried on into the new year. Not surprisingly Curzon Ashton who have become somewhat of a bogey team continued their dominance over us in all competitions. We bounced back right away though and got another couple of valuable wins against Bradford PA and Kettering. The game against York was a particular disappointment, firstly we managed to go ahead in the 85th minute after losing Elliot Murray to injury earlier on was a moment of jubilation, only for York to ruin it in the 90th by bagging an equaliser. (I blame you for this @A11_Smithy for talking up how bad you were).

Then the two defeats in a row, I think a large contributing factor to this was the injury to Murray, he failed a fitness test but was eligible for selection against Spennymore so he made the bench. Came on in the second half when we were losing and we manage to turn the game around. Then wins against Leamington and the draw to Kidderminster were also with him in the squad. He's become completely undroppable since he joined and his stats of 7 goals and 7 assists in 14 appearances shows that.

It's also funny that you should mention Dean Ebbe @DNZY because in that draw against Kidderminster this happened



This run of game also saw me and my players pick up our first personal awards of the career





Well, I say both of us, Murray is the only one who won outright. Although, I'm still taking even placing given the form we've endured so far this season as a victory. If only we'd gotten a result against Fylde I think I'd have got my hands on that award.

This is how our good run translates into the league table...



We've moved ourself nicely clear of the drop zone. 10 points clear with 11 games to go and I'm starting to feel pretty confident about staying up this season.

So our final run of games this season are as follows...



Some pretty tough games in there. Chorley, Salford, Chester and Fylde are flying high, but I'm confident of picking up points against the teams that sit around us in the table.




Youth Intake



Nothing all too special, other than a potential new goalkeeper for the first team in the next couple of seasons depending on how he develops and how quickly. Here's how he looks right now




Anyway, that'll do for now. I'll see you all again at the end of the season. Ready to hopefully prepare for another season in the National League North

Sorry we never usually score late on! Good consolidating season by the looks of it though, David Smith could be promising, very fit for a young player and very agile, shame he's not very ambitious though

Vanarama National League North - End of Season Round Up

So last time I checked in we had dragged ourselves clear of the bottom 3 and built a nice little cushion to security. So how did we get on in the final 11 games of the season?



We seemed to hit our best run of form at the end of the season. One defeat in the final 8 games, and that was against eventual champions Fylde, at that point they were still fighting for the title with Boston and we had nothing to play for.

However, along the way we managed to pick up another award.



Ofori really stepped it up when we needed him to, Murray was having a run of games without scoring but it didn't really impact us in anyway because Ofori more than made up for it. One of the highlights for me in this run was the game about Tamworth, why? Here's why...



Ofori ran the show, he had that entire defence in his back pocket and not only became the first Warrington player to bag a hat-trick during my career but he went and added another putting himself firmly into the record books.

Well, for a little while anyway



Murray must have turned the boosters on when he saw Ofori start banging them in for fun he decided he could go one better, and well. He rewrote the history books.

Anyway how was the table looking when all was said and done?



In the end it was a pretty comfortable midtable finish for us. We were actually still in with a chance of reaching the playoffs once we'd secured our status for next season. Of course, playoffs wasn't ever my aim and it wasn't realistic to close down 12 points in 6 games but it was still nice to be mathematically still in with a shout.



Overall, I'm super super happy with how this season finished. I never thought after the first 10 games when we were down fighting it out with the relegation zone that we'd end up finishing in mid table safety. That 4-1 win against Harrogate that was the best game of the season apparently seems even more impressive when you realise that they went on to finish in a playoff spot. They were knocked out in the first round, but still they were there.



I'd say on the whole I agree with these awards. I think if Murray had been here all season then he would have scooped the fans player of the year award. But Lowe was really important in the centre of midfield.

So, what did the squad make of our first season. Let's take a look at the Dynamics



I have a lot of support from the players. Of those 5 who don't support me, 4 won't be here next season, with one retiring and 3 going back to their parent clubs. So I certainly must be doing something right, and that translate over onto the overview screen as well...



Everything came up millhouse for us in the end. We just need to keep this going into next season as well and bed the additions in well.

Finally, thank heavens for small mercies.



Our finances are pretty shot anyway making a loss of almost £200k this past season, so I'm so pleased that we don't have to spend a tonne of money expanding the stadium with seats that will remain empty. Hopefully we can increase attendances over the next year and that might make it a little more worth it.

Anyway, until next season. Thanks for sharing this ride with me. Certainly was a rollercoaster at times

Scored some goals in those last few, 5-4 against Stockport can't have been good for the nerves! Solid season, look forward to the next, lots to build on but there always is

A really good season in the end buddy, now to move forward

Nice career so far!

Great first season to avoid relegation, hopefully, next season you can fight for promotion!

Great first season to avoid relegation, hopefully, next season you can fight for promotion!

Good first season. Survival key!

2019 Preseason and Transfers

So preseason is all said and done. Let's see how we got on



Really pleased with how we got on, I mean, we never expected to win against Bristol City but it was good to get a run out against some good level opposition.

I think the most important part of this pre-season was to bring in some players and keep the spine of the team that performed so well at the end of last season together. In terms of important players leaving only left back Jake Green left. I tried to offer him a new contract but he accepted the offer from Harrogate instead. So I needed to try and replace him.

We also needed to replace the loan players from last season. So my targets were a goalkeeper, right back, left back, centre back, centre midfielder

Here's who we got

Goalkeepers

We signed two goalkeepers, both pretty decent, I was only in the market for one but because Porter left for Maidenhead I needed to bring in a backup. Easily done. Offered 3 keepers a trial and these were the two that made the cut.





One young player, and another more experienced goalkeeper. Both are around the same standard with scouts rating them both at around 2.5* CA. Both on non-contracts so we're only paying the one that starts. Pleased with these two. Important position that needed filling seeing as it was occupied by a loanee last season.

Defenders









These are the three permanent signings that will slot right into the back line. Again, Jones came in and replaced a loan player who had gone away and left the position vacant. I think he'll do a good job there. Hood comes in as a starter and an improvement to our defensive pairing from last season with Killock dropping to the bench. His wages are slightly more than I'd like but we're still well within our wage budget. Warnock replaces Green who left for Harrogate.

We also made one loan signing at the back, this may be my heart talking a little but we bought in Oldham youth player Jay Sheridan to add some depth at the left back position.



You'll see he's nothing special, but certainly capable at this level and he's costing us literally nothing. No fee, no wages. So I can't complain

Midfielders



My final signing of the season, again to replace Howe who was a loanee last season and the player of the year. I tried to bring him in on a permanent basis but he asked for £1.5k a week which is way way above what I can afford. Pattison looks real good though and although his wages are pretty high he's one of the best players in our team.

I did initially think of bringing in a striker, but Hine decided to not retire in the end so I didn't really want to change the strike force that looked so good at the end of last season.

All together I'm really happy with how the squad is looking for this year, I'm looking to finish in the top half, but let's look at what the bookies make of our chances.



They have us down to finish 15th, I'm aiming for at least 11th/12th and a playoff push would be amazing. We'll see how things pan out though.

Our first run of games looks pretty tough



FC United, Salford and Harrogate all made the playoffs last season. So some good opposition to test our metal against.

We'll also have started our FA Cup campaign by then, and I'm hoping to go one better than last season.

Our expectations from the board are as follows:

Vanarama National League North - Midtable
Emirates FA Cup - Fourth Qualifying Round
Buildbase FA Trophy - First Round