Dulwich Hamlet, the Pink Boys - Dafuge Challenge

Introduction

Hello everyone, how is everyone doing? The alias I'm gonna be using / have been using around is SoJun, and when I was younger or even until now, I've been interested in writing down what's been going on in my life or interested in just taking down notes. Hence, I have a bit of interest in writing and why I'm doing this. I've played a little bit of FM17 and a maybe a relatively good amount of time in FM18. I'm definitely not the best, neither am I the most knowledgeable person in all of football, so do spare me if I make any dumb comments/statements. I'm also from Asia, so me trying to create a story of an English Manager will be hard to form as I'm not very familiar with the lifestyle in England.

I'm very much open with hearing suggestions of how you guys want the story to be or you guys sharing me stuff about life in England so I can spice up the story-line if you guys are interested in the way I write. Feel free to also criticize or compliment me with my tactics or the way I handle stuff or the way I do things.

Why did I choose Dulwich Hamlet?

If I were to be honest, it's simply because they have the pink kit and I think pink kit looks cool. It looks different and it's eye catching as compared to other kits.


I'll keep this brief and not too much detail-oriented so as to not bore you asses off if you're still reading at this point. I'll also drop in some fun facts for you guys.

• Founded in 1893 by Lorraine 'Pa' Wilson
• They have 26 cups in their trophy cabinet and have been crowned league champions 6 times. (Latest one being Division One South Champions 2012-2013).
• Their current stadium is the Imperial Fields stadium after Meadow Residential, the company who bought their original Stadium (Champion Hill) for £5.7m, has forced them out of their own ground. The same stadium is being used by their rivals, Tooting and Mitcham.
• The Imperial Fields has a capacity of 3,500, 612 of them being seated sets and it was opened in 2002.
• Fun fact #1: The club is relatively known for their fans' way of supporting. The fans that are found behind the goal are apparently known as "The Rabble". Rabble being the word used to described a large, noisy and uncontrollable group of people. So basically nothing different from every other English fans. *ba dum tss*
• Fun fact #2: The club won the Football Foundation Community Club Of The Year at the National Game Awards in London, which is given to a club that ensures it connects with all parts of its local community. This happened in 2016.
• Fun fact #3: Dulwich Hamlet fans apparently has a good relationship with Altona 1893, a German club playing in the Regionalliga Nord (IV). This is apparently because the two clubs were founded in the same year and Dulwich Hamlet fans started this friendship between them.

Now that I've put the "boring" stuff away, it's time for the FM part. Hope you guys are excited as I am.

THE APPOINTMENT, PART I

So who is the person that's going to attempt to lead Dulwich to the top of the football world, where they'll be competing against the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Manchester United and Liverpool? It's gonna be James Donovan.

James Donovan was born in the 13th of May, 1998 and is born and bred in Dulwich. James' father worked as a coach in his school while his mom stayed at home to take care of his siblings and the house. James' was well known in his younger days, highlight videos of him would circulate and would accumulate a lot of views. He was dubbed as England's next football star being known for his eye for goals and his intelligence on the field. His ability to see things in a bigger picture also allowed him to help leader his team on the field and it evidently shows that it creates a large impact on his team mates.

However, once the rumors of bigger teams came knocking, Liverpool, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Barcelona, Donovan became arrogant in his play-style knowing he was definitely a golden egg. When the media was focused on him, his ego was fed and would turn him into a overly-confident player that showed off during his games. This would result in a lot of players not liking him, even his own team mates. As time passed by, he continued show-boating during his games, doing rabonas, heel chop, and many more just to please the crowd and then IT happened. As he was doing a Rabona cross to his team mates, one of the players in the opposing team who got tired of him decided to attempt a slide-tackle to get James out of the game. What continued horrified the crowd. CRACK! SCREAMS! CRIES!.

I've left the details of the injury spoiler for those who are not able to take details of a bad injury.



This moment marked the end of James' footballing career. The doctors have deemed his leg unfit to be used for physical activities that would strain his muscle and would be unable to play football ever again. James was in distraught. As he went home, he cried out in rage and would drown himself in tears after hearing the news that he'll never be able to play football again.

A few years past by and James was just another normal kid in school. He didn't have much friends as during his stint when the media attention was on him, his arrogance pushed his friends away from him. He would spend his free time watching football games on the T.V. or going to watch his local team, Dulwich Hamlet, play. Since James had no friends, he would spend his time online and would be on forums where he could discuss with people things about Football and wouldn't be ignored as no one knew who his true identity was. He loved giving his thoughts on how the game went, how the game could have gone better and what changes should be made especially with his local team. He would be one of the most influential accounts to follow in terms of Dulwich Hamlet supporters.

One day, he received a notification from Liam Hickey, the chairman of Dulwich Hamlet. James definitely knew who he was but doesn't know why he would contact a fan account. The e-mail was titled "Job Offer: Manager of Dulwich Hamlet". It read:

Dear Owner of the @The_Hamlets,

My name is Liam Hickey, if you haven't known, I am the Chairman of the club, Dulwich Hamlet.

I would like to approach you with a job offer as a manager of our club for the following season. Our current manager, Gavin Rose, has been unfortunately struck with family matters that could take a while to be resolved hence we are on a lookout for a new manager. We have been on a search and have seen your perspectives of our games on your account, the different feedback and analysis you had, and would like to consider you as a candidate for the position even without any license or any prior experience.

If accepted, we will be sending you to do some courses for the appropriate knowledge of being a manager.

Kind Regards,
Liam Hickey.

Great start I will be following mate. Love LLM saves but I never stick to 1 club any more, I'm all about journeyman saves like the 1 I've got going on here too.

I'm liking your style, not seen or done a dafuge challenge in a while so best of luck!

LLM is where it is at.

Thanks for the early support @Suffolk Seasider and @bigmattb28 , hope I don't disappoint.

The day was Monday morning. It's been 2 days since the e-mail arrived in my inbox about the Managerial position at Dulwich Hamlet. I still have not processed the reality that I've been offered a job at my local club. I haven't told anyone about it... well I haven't been able to talk to anyone about it.

I decided to leave my room and join my family for breakfast. My dad doing the usual of reading his newspaper and my mom is cooking us breakfast... Bacon, sausages, eggs and beans with a side of tea, the best breakfast in the world. I glance over my dad who is reading the local newspaper, the Dulwich Diverter. The whole town was still buzzing about how the Hamlets has just been promoted to the Vanarama National League South. I took a bite into my breakfast and decided to ease in topic of my job offer to my dad. "So... Dad... What's managing a team like?" I asked. "Well it's a bit of a difficult, you have to take into consideration the availability of the players since they are still students to schedule training sessions, you have to analyze each players strengths and weaknesses, and you have to strategize what kind of formation you want to use base on the players you have and how you want to play them based on their strengths, weaknesses and their opponents. This is the first time you've asked about my job. Did your mother put something in your food today?" he replied. I followed with "Well, the thing is I just received an offer from Dulwich Hamlet regarding a job offer.". Silence ensued in the room. My dad lowered his newspaper to look at me and my mom stops cooking to give the same shocked look. I gulped in nervousness and uncertainty to what's about to happen next.

My parents couldn't believe it, they thought it was all a fluke or it was a prank. I immediately rushed to my phone and opened up the e-mail. When they laid eyes on it, there was again another silence. I guess my parents really couldn't believe it that it was real just like I did. For starters, my parents didn't knew that I was in-charge of a locally known account for the town that has been featured in the sports section of the newspaper before. They also couldn't believe the amount of work I've put into giving analysis and feedback regarding games on a consistent basis and how thorough it was. My dad looked at me and said that it's not surprise they're considering me as a candidate but doubts the fact that they'll accept me once they know my true identity. My mom was a bit more supportive about it and said it was a redemption for me in the world of football, a chance for me to create a name of myself in the footballing world which I couldn't do as a footballer. Thankfully, both my parents were of help in deciding that I should at least try it and go for the interview. I mean... what could go wrong am I right?

So I grabbed my back, go to school and spent the next 8 hours listening to boring lectures. After school, my dad was in his car waiting for me at the front, ready to drive me to the training ground of Dulwich Hamlet. As we arrived at the parking lot, dad parked the car and looked at me. "We're here. Before you go, I just wanted to tell you that whatever happened in the past is in the past. You were young, it's normal for you to be arrogant. You've learned from your mistakes then hence, you're not the same person anymore. Walk inside there and be the person who are now, a person who's more humble, a person who's smart and a person who's good enough to manage a proper team even if he's young. Now get out there and nail this interview.". After the pep talk from my dad, I exited the car and waved him goodbye as he starts driving back to my school to train my school's football team.

I walked to the doors, stepped in and I already see people glancing at me. I heard whispers.... "Is that James Donovan?".... "What's he doing here? I thought he can't play anymore?"... "Is this like some publicity stunt? Is this why he's here?"... I'm already recognized and people have a bad impression of me. I chose to ignore it and walk past them to the front desk and ask for Liam Hickey. She picks up the phone, holds a number and tells Liam that there's a person looking to be interviewed for the Managerial job. She stands up and shows me around the training grounds, showing me the gym, cafeteria, locker room, shower room and the different offices of the different staff of Dulwich Hamlet. Eventually, we reached the office of Liam, and she knocked on the door. I hear a voice asking us to come in, she opens the door, lets me in and tells Liam, "Here's he is."

I took a seat, and across me was Liam Hickey, the chairman of Dulwich Hamlet. We sat in silence, staring at each other. Me waiting for Liam Hickey to speak while Liam Hickey probably trying to process that the person behind account was me. I decided to break the silence instead and said my greetings and my appreciation for the opportunity to even be a candidate for the Managerial position of Dulwich Hamlet. Liam, looking like in shock still, decides to shakes my hand and return the appreciation of my response and attending the interview. He decided to ask me regarding my identity, to really believe that the person sitting across him is truly the owner of the account of @The_Hamlets and also the fact that I'm truly James Donovan.

We were just bouncing back and forth with question and answers to verify of my knowledge of Dulwich Hamlet and just general football stuff so as to make sure that my content was made by myself and not a different person and me falsely taking credit for it. After a long quick firing of questions, I lean back on the chair and sigh in relief that the questionings came to an end. Liam leans forward and looks at the paper in front of him. These were records of my analysis of games from the previous season, the season Dulwich Hamlet gets promoted. Liam looks at me, probably still not believing that I'm the person behind all the content. He looks at me and said "Honestly James, I'm truly still in disbelief that you're behind this. I know that you're no ordinary player, you were destined for greatness for a reason. A lot of people called you the war general on the field as you would be the one seeing what's going on the battle field and leading your troops in the battle and strategically positioning them. But, I didn't knew your football knowledge is greater than I thought, that you're definitely fit for a managerial position.". He continued, "Honestly there's no managers out there that has the same passion and knowledge that you have for Dulwich Hamlet, and you're definitely gonna make a positive impact to the team if I appoint you as a manager. However, you also have your cons as your reputation could lead to a damage in the harmony in the locker room and they might not even respect you. This is a truly tough decision. Could you tell me why should I appoint you?"

This was my reply to him: "I understand that during my younger days, I was arrogant when the media's attention was on me. I understand that I came off as a person who's very selfish, that when all eyes were on me, I decided to focus on showing off my skills to show that I'm heads above shoulders compared to the players around me so I can continue getting hype so that I can go to a bigger club rather than actually playing as a team. This gives a bad impression to you, and anyone I'll ever interact with. However, before I came for this interview, my mom and dad assured me that I'm truly a change man. I'm much more team-oriented and am more focused on being a humble person. My dad told me that my past is my past, and I've grown since then while my mom told that this is my opportunity to make a name of myself in the world of football in a more positive manner, and I would truly like a fresh start in the world of football. Yes, initially it might be tough to get the trust of the players either because of my reputation or my young age, yes some fans might boo at me and yes, I might not even perform due to my experience, but one thing I could assure you that there are no other managers out there that is as passionate as me to represent my hometown's team, Dulwich Hamlet, and also no one more passionate to become a better person to show people that I've changed and to be a role-model to the current and future players. So I beg you for a chance."

He stood up, looked away towards the field, and stayed silent. My heart racing waiting for his reply. He turns around facing me, takes a paper from his drawer and places it in front me. What I saw was a contract to become the Manager of Dulwich Hamlet. This was the beginning of my second chance.



Thanks for reading the introduction of the story. I've put a lot of work into the story line, towards the end I decided to decrease the drama behind it and decided to keep it as short and simple as possible but yet enough to give a meaningful story line. Hope you guys enjoyed the backstory of the manager, James Donovan.

My next post will be about my analysis of the team's players and the strengths and weakness. I'll also include anything staff-related appointment/dismissal.

THE BACKROOM

After I took over the club, there were already some reactions from the staffs of the club. The assistant managers and the 3 coaches whose contracts were renewed after last season by Gavin Rose, were very unhappy with my appointment due to the fact that they don't believe someone like me could lead the team to greater heights; that I am the reason that the club will get relegated again. However, Liam backed me and told them that they need to put some faith in me as I have not even stepped into a training session or let alone a game, but they were not having any of it. They said they're here to work with a bunch of adults and to lead them to greater heights, not the babysit someone who doesn't know anything about managing a football team. So they submitted their resignation letter to Liam and that's that. Now the backroom staff was empty.

Other than the board members, there's only myself, the cafeteria people, the front-desk lady, people's secretaries and the cleaners in the training ground. The staff search begins. I asked my secretary to start posting ads on the local newspaper or online job sites like Indeed, Reed and Monster to name some. I also asked her to look for some people who already has their resume online so as to increase the pool of choices.

The first thing I needed to look for was an Assistant Manager. But not just any kind, I needed an assistant manager who is relatively new to the managerial scene like myself, as I believe someone who's very experienced would not be willing to work with someone as young as new as me, if the person I acquire is someone as new as me, they'll be more willing to join me and learn together with me. But I also did not need just any kind of fresh assistant manager, I'll need someone who's of a certain age where everyone will respect him and listen to him, an assistant manager who is able to motivate the players and keep their heads in the game and someone who's passionate about their job and would seize the opportunity.

One of the people I interviewed matched the description. He talked to me with respect and was a delight to talk to. He shared with me his ambition of becoming a manager in the future for his local club, Plymouth, and lead them back to their Premier League days once he's more experienced. He told me he admired the fact that I'm just 20 year old yet the Chairman has so much faith in me to lead a team that just got promoted, and would like to be part of Dulwich's history. He spoke about his experiences during his playing time and how he was considered to be someone of a disciplinarian because if someone isn't doing something right, he will tell them off himself. He ticked all the boxes of what I'm looking for. His name, is Lee Molyneaux and has accumulate 201 caps from 14 different English clubs and 4 goals as a center-back.



I needed a coach that would be able to guide my players to their best fitness/shape throughout the season. I needed someone who's relatively been in the role for a while now so that they have an idea how to effectively train players to their top fitness shape.

Matt Springham was someone of a good experience, 6 years to be exact, with teams like Watford, Brighton and Brentford. I believe he's experienced enough to fit the mold of a Fitness Coach that I'm looking for and decided to offer him a conract.



With the coaching staff, there's only one more spot I'm allowed to put in. Hence, I needed someone who's well rounded in their coaching ability. Someone who's able to do the tactical, attacking, defending and mental training of our players to ensure they'll improve by the end of the season.

Jack Collison's resume didn't shout anything special to be honest with you, but I contacted the person he listed as references. They were staff members of his old teams, namely West Ham, Bournemouth, Wigan, Ipswich and Peterborough. They all had the same opinion of him, that Jack is a person who's a student of the game. Always learning every aspect of the game and would help out in training to make sure his team mates get better when he's not a first-team choice. The coaches he worked with are very fond of his hard work and his helpfulness to train his fellow team mates. He looks like a good fit to what I'm looking for, even better as he also wants to pursue a coaching career and is just able to be supportive coach for the players. Also playing for a respectable club like West Ham, I believe he learned some training routines that could push our players to be better.



Here are the rest of the people who has received contract offers for me to fill up the rest of the backroom staff.

Peter Coll - Head of Youth Development


Michael Corderoy - Director of Football


Danny Clarke - Chief Scout


Matthew Flynn - Scout


Michael Nottingham - Scout


Esther Wills - Chief Data Analyst


Marin Woodmansey - Head Physio


Alex Manos - Physio

I was given the a list that contained players that are still currently attached to our club. 14 players that are under the age of 30 and below while 7 players that are in the U23s who are relatively in the older end of the age range. I went to Liam's office and talked to him regarding the situation and he said "A lot of our players were either people who are doing football as a part-time career, either in the later part of their age or they have been poached by higher league teams. Some of them have also been released due to the fact that we believe that may not be up to standard when it comes to the Vanarama National League South. So that is why we only have 14 players." I replied to him asking for a trial day to be organized, telling him there won't be any fees needed for us to pay other than maybe supplying the prospects that are attending some water for them to drink, some towels to wipe their sweat off and also the bibs to differentiate their teams when training/playing. He agreed to the idea of it as there's no cost involved and it would allow us to get players without any cost.

The date of the trial has been set on the 29th of June.

PRESS CONFERENCE

So I got a call from my secretary regarding my appointment with different news providers who are keen on reporting the fact that there's been a managerial change in Dulwich Hamlet and it so happens to the me, someone who was the center of media attention due to my talents who suffered a tragic injury that has been deemed unable to play football ever. Not only that, but it's the fact that I am only 20 years old. They asked me the questions I expected hearing, "How's your injury? Are you making a comeback to football anytime soon?", "How did the board of Dulwich come to the conclusion that you are qualified for a managerial job at such a young age and without any experience?", "What are you plans for Dulwich?", and many more questions about transfers. The press definitely bombarded me with questions but I managed to get through all the questionings without any problems.

I'm sure you'll; be fine mate!

TRANSFER IN, TRANSFER OUT

So I'll be taking a break from the super lengthy story lines that I've made as I realized it takes a lot of time and effort to make it as detailed, to make it seem like you're actually reading a story of a person. So for the next few posts, it'll be summarized posts of transfers and games so as to give you guys a look of what's happening in my season.

When I took over the squad, it was in a horrible condition. There were only about 6-8 players on the squad and practically half of them were center-backs. The rest were very sub-par, either strikers being too slow or players not even familiar with their position, people lacking certain technical skills to be our creative asset in the team and just massively lacking depth. Hence, I practically had a massive overhaul of the squad, letting 4 players go on a free to other teams that basically had the smallest interest in them while making a total of 19 transfers to be added into our club's squad.

Why 19? Well first we didn't even have any midfielders, and we only had left wingers. Not to mention, we had no depth in our wing backs and our striking options only had 1 person there.





We had some expected losses, expected wins and an unexpected draw.

For the first 2 games, I tried a more counter-attacking tactic that I unfortunately did not save for you guys to roast. But it's basically a tactic where I attempted to get players to mark their man and stay on their feet until they have a clear opportunity to take the ball away for the opposition feet and pump it up-field to the target man. But as it shows not much of a counter attacking was done


Based on my personal beliefs though, and stating the obvious, without any possession, there's no way for you to create opportunities for yourself, and as you see the match stats of the games we lost, we were hardly on the ball much which resulted to us losing the ball and letting the opponents take multiple attempts in scoring a goal hence I changed it to a more... balanced formation.


Now obviously the players I have in my team aren't really the top class players you'd have to do a lot of the complicated and fancy roles, hence I decided to keep it simple.

The defensive line will only be doing defensive stuff and nothing else, whereas my wingers will be running down the line and sending in crosses, my midfielders will do the simple stuff of creating opportunities and assisting the front line but at the same time trying to win the ball in the midfield before they reach our last line of defense.

When I made the changes, there's an obvious shift in our form winning 3-1 against Hamworthy, getting a 1-1 draw against Aston Villa Under 23s which I thought was unexpefted and winning against Bedworth 4-1.We are able to even out in terms of possessions against teams this time round.

MEDIA PREDICTION

After league pundits have seen and studied the teams after the pre-season, with their friendlies and transfers, they've concluded that with our newly built team, we will be landing on the 8th position. In all honesty, that's not a bad prediction considering we just formed a team with free-agents in a short-time span as I still had to scout them and see if they're fit for the kind of team I wanted to make.

It's the 29th of August. I've gone through 5 matches in the league as of now. My opponents were as follow:
Braintree (predicted 15th)
Concord Rangers (predicted 17th)
St Albans City (predicted 6th)
East Thurrock United (predicted 18th)
Wealdstone (predicted 10th)



So far after 5 games, our stats come up as so.

In the goals department, we are doing decent even with a 20% goal conversion in terms of our shots taken but we did convert 50% of our shots on target into goals.
In the passing department, we are doing fine completing 67% of our passes. The best player being our Target man, Faal and our worst being our Center Back, Fagan.
In the mistakes department, we haven't done any major mistakes that leads to us conceding with only 2%.
In the aerial department, we dominate it with 61% of the battles won.
In the crossing department, we are doing very horribly only succeeding 18% of out attempts.
In the tackling department, we are doing very well too with 79% of our tackles attempted being won also picking up 1 yellow per game.



After all that, we are currently sitting on the 8th place of the table with 9 points, with 13 goals scored and 10 goals conceded, bring up the tally of 3 goal difference.

HALFWAY LINE

It's January the 3rd, and it's time to look back how our season has progressed since the first 5 games. For the first few games, we had a relatively amazing run almost winning most of our games until we reached the later part of October which evidently showed the start of a bad form.

We eventually lost 5 games, drew 3 and won 4, which I think is horrible because of the losses and our draws are in the league which is our main focus.



In terms of our numerical stats,
Our shooting has gone worse. With only 16% of our shots attempted being scored and 43% of our attempted shots resulted in a goal. A drop from 20% and 50% when we last checked.
With our passing, we've kept it up and improved it by 2%, rising from 67% to 69% in completed passes and our mistakes leading to goals has remained at 2%.
We've improved in the fact that we're winning most of our aerial battles from 61% to 64% and our crosses has improved by 2% but is still horrendous in my opinion.
We're still a relatively sound defensive team when it comes to tackling, however we're conceding a lot of fouls for some reason.
Our goalkeeping has been poor only having 6 clean sheets and conceding 1.36 goals per match which is to be expected considering we're in the lower league of England meaning there won't be good players.

So what went wrong out of the sudden when we didn't change anything from the start, that we're suddenly having a slump of a form?

I can tell you that it isn't because of injuries as we rarely have any injuries and even if we do, it's only one player or two player at a time and they'll tend to recover before someone gets injured again. At the same time, we aren't making any major mistakes, neither is our passing anywhere horrible. We're also winning majority of our aerial battles, so where did we go wrong?

Well my suspicion is that even though we don't make a lot of mistakes, our defenders are probably just below the standard of quality that is considered defensively sound for a low league team. It could be also the fact that we're attempting too many crosses into the box and we rarely get it to the feet or the head of the players which will be a turnover in possession to the opposition. Or maybe the fact that my goalkeeper is having a slope of a form.



Our current standing is being 7th in the league with 37 points, scoring 43 goals (8th highest) and conceding 32 goals (8th best).

THE CURTAINS COME DOWN

Here we are at the finishing line. We gone through 42 games of the season and it's time for us to see where we stand, whether we're in or out of the playoff picture.

Well first of all, let's see how we performed after our last update of our slump. I'm glad to say that we have improved drastically in our form from that day after changing out tactics.

First of all, here's our form after the 1st of January. We've only lost twice during the period and drew 8 games while winning the remaining 11 games. That's a massive improvement from our last form.




Now, as standard protocol, I do like to share the stats of the team, although I decided to make it easier to understand what I'm talking about rather than just bombing you with sentences of the numbers inside.

Statistic category - Previous statistic to Current statistic:

• Goal to Shot attempts ratio - 16% to 15%
• Shots on target to Attempted ratio - 43% to 42%
• Passes succeeded to Attempted ratio - 69% to 70%
• Mistakes leading to goals to Total mistakes ratio - 2% to 1%
• Aerial challenges won to Completed ratio - 64% to 63%
• Tackles won to Attempted ratio - 80% to 78%
• Clean sheets to Games played ratio - 21% to 32%
• Goals conceded to Games played ratio - 1.36 to 1.14

There hasn't been a drastic change to what has happened but if there's one thing that has changed it's definitely the fact that our defensive form has improved since our last check-up.




Because of the changes made, we were able to compete better for the last few matches of the season that had us... drum rolls.... at the SECOND PLACE of the Vanarama National League South.

This only meant one thing, and that was the fact that we were able to qualify for the Playoff stages of the league with a goal difference of 27 and ending up with 78 points, a massive gap between 1st placed Billericay Town who ended up with 96 points.

We ended up being the 6th best team in goals scored and the 3rd best team in conceding the least goals. This also means that we qualify for the playoffs, which we sadly got knocked out of during the Semi Final.

SEASON 1 SUMMARY

Overall, it was a successful season. The board has tasked us to finished on the top half while the media predicted us to be 8th. It's safe to say that we met and over-exceeded the respective expectations of us this season. We could only hope that the next season would mean promotion for us.

Just wanted to share something cool (in my opinion) that happened. So I just wanted to casually post my progress on twitter hoping to interact with other FM managers on Twitter / Dulwich Hamlet fans, and instead, got attention from the actual club itself. They gave me a like after I posted screenshots of my progress and season stats.

The season begins with the media projecting us as the 10th team in the League. Last season we were projected 8th and now we're projected 10th. Apparently even if we finished the season in Second place last season.

Will we live up to the expectation they've given us, or will we again exceed the expectations of the media? One way to find out.




So far into the season, we had 4 different offers from 4 different team. Turned down for the obvious reason that I am gonna be staying with Dulwich Hamlet throughout this save until I'm sacked which would mean I have failed. But I just wanted to share what kind of clubs are looking for my services to give you an idea of how I'm performing.

• Lincoln City - 9th place in Sky Bet League 2
• Doncaster Rovers - 18th place in Sky Bet League 2
• York City - 20th place in Vanarama National League
• Fleetwood Town - 17th place in Sky Bet League 1

Teams from leagues 1-3 tiers above us are recruiting me and maybe it's a good thing because it goes to show that I'm doing well in my job. Well, let's take a look.









Well let's start off with the pre-season friendly. It was considerably a horrible experience. We lost 2, drew 1 and won 1.

I guess our tactic wasn't working anymore that well, so I decided to test out different tactics along the way during the normal season. Not the best idea, but if we don't change it, we will continue having a bad form.



I'll be honest and admit I had a very bad start as compared to our form last season. The odd thing is we didn't lose any players... or at least key players that I'm aware about.

Not to mention I also tried to fill up holes of players who didn't want to resign with us or at least improve the quality by a bit. However, we're performing worse than our last year's performance.



Checking up on our stats... this is our comparison to last season's half-way line:

• Goals to shot attempts ratio - 16% to 17%
• Shots on target to Attempted ratio - 43% to 42%
• Passes succeeded to Attempted ratio - 69% to 64%
• Mistakes leading to goals to Total mistakes ratio - 2% to 1%
• Aerial challenges won to Attempted ratio - 64% to 61%
• Tackles won to Attempted ratio - 80% to 78%
• Clean sheets to Games played ratio - 21% to 31%
• Goals conceded to Games played ratio - 1.36 to 1.52

We've gone worse than where we left off last season, and I'm not sure why. We have almost the same players as last season, yet out tactic didn't work out and now with our new tactic, we're doing worse in almost all aspects of our statistic.

I'm a bit worried that the board, fans or the players are losing faith in me. I'll be tweaking the tactic here and there and hopefully we'll be able to at least reach the playoffs. Fingers crossed from now until the end of the season.

Haha that's ace mate!

It's been 5 months since our last log of the season and this is our form. We've received 3 further offers from 3 different teams.

• Eastleigh - 20th in Vanarama National League
• Accrington Stanley - 12th in Sky Bet League 2
• Morecambe - 7th in Vanarama National League

11 wins, 3 draws and 9 losses out of the 23 games. It's not bad... it's... decent in my opinion.



As for our stats, here's the comparison since the mid-season.

• Goal to Shot attempts ratio - 17% to 18%
• Shots on target to Attempted ratio - 42% to 45%
• Passes succeeded to Attempted ratio - 64% to 64%
• Mistakes leading to goals to Total mistakes ratio - 1% to 1%
• Aerial challenges won to Attempted ratio - 61% to 62%
• Crosses succeeded to Attempted ratio - 19% to 19%
• Tackles won to Attempted ratio - 78% to 79%
• Clean sheets to Games played ratio - 31% to 21%
• Goals conceded to Games played ratio - 1.52 to 1.60

There's been an improvement from almost everything but our conceding factor, I guess we can't have it both ways of us being good in both offense and defense.



As for our position on the table, we're stuck in the 9th place of the table. Not that it's a bad thing, it's within the board's expectation and around the media's expectation of the beginning of the season.



I've been playing it safe and buying players who are not in contract or never made any monetary offer, but this time round I might need to make some tough decisions in improving the quality of the team if I could.

We'll see what happens next season.

2020/2021 SEASON - HALFWAY LINE

We started the season with a relatively good run of friendly games, winning 2, drawing 1 and losing one of the 4 games that we managed to arrange.



After scouts and media personnel have crunched the numbers and seen the different teams for this upcoming season, we were predicted to be 20th in the league. Bottom of the table. Shocking. Will we prove them right or wrong?



I'm glad to say that we are so far, having a better run than last season's first-half of the season. Winning 14 games, drawing 5 and losing 9 out of the 29 games we have played so far this season. One notable game is when we started of the season when our youth prospect of last season, Alan Shuttleworth, scored 6 goals in one game.





As to our stats comparison to last season mid-way line:

• Goals to shot attempts ratio - 17% to 18%
• Shots on target to Attempted ratio - 42% to 51%
• Passes succeeded to Attempted ratio - 64% to 66%
• Mistakes leading to goals to Total mistakes ratio - 1% to 2%
• Aerial challenges won to Attempted ratio - 61% to 65%
• Tackles won to Attempted ratio - 78% to 79%
• Clean sheets to Games played ratio - 31% to 29%
• Goals conceded to Games played ratio - 1.52 to 1.46

Last season this time, we were 14th place, improving an outstanding 9 spots.

2020/2021 SEASON - END

So we've reached that time of the year where a season ends yet again. After 2 seasons of us managing Dulwich Hamlet, we have achieved a 2nd place and a 9th place finish.

After the half-way line, I do think that we've had a huge turnaround and doing a better form than the last. 10 wins, 5 draw and 4 losses.




As for our stats since the mid-way line, this is how our stats have gone:

• Goals to shot attempts ratio - 18% to 18%
• Shots on target to Attempted ratio - 51% to 49%
• Passes succeeded to Attempted ratio - 66% to 66%
• Mistakes leading to goals to Total mistakes ratio - 2% to 2%
• Aerial challenges won to Attempted ratio - 65% to 65%
• Tackles won to Attempted ratio - 79% to 79%
• Clean sheets to Games played ratio - 29% to 25%
• Goals conceded to Games played ratio - 1.46 to 1.40

Our team has been notable this season, having both our top strikers banging in 48 goals in total of 86 that the team scored, which also is the highest tally in the league.

Our academy product Alan Shuttleworth is deemed as the best player in terms of average rating, even at the age of 18 years old. Alan has appeared 57 times for the Hamlet and has scored 36 goals.

Alan joined the Hamlets through the Youth academy in 2015, and made his senior debut under my reign in 2019.





In summary, I believe it was a good season. We were predicted 20th and also the board wanted us to just not be relegated and we smashed expectations by ending up 4th and with the most tally of goals.

We may have again, have had a repeat of us losing in the playoffs yet again, but this is a good sign.

Keep it up mate amazing work promotion next year will set you on your way

Due to lack of motivation, I've decided to end my story abruptly and might start with a new one whereby it won't burn me out as fast as I did here. Thanks to people who have read my story.