The SAF Challenge

Some remarkable youth players have been found in the latest intake, the best being Elliot Bannon.





At the age of 15, he is already my best striker! He will have a remarkable future at the club and looks to have been found at just the right time as we look for promotion.

Another superb month and we look destined for promotion. The win against Falkirk has sent them down to third and it was great to see new youth revelation Elliot Bannon get his first goal of many for the club.



6 points clear! Our next game is against Partick Thistle which could send us all but up. It's no doubt the biggest game of our season and of my managerial career to date!



That's me up to 20 points. Definitely chasing down Fergie now!

Gutted to lose to Queen of the South, which cut our 6 point lead down to 3 thanks to Partick Thistle's 1-0 win over Dundee.

With a game away to Forfar Athletic and one at home to Raith Rovers, we need 4 points to guarantee promotion to the SPL. If Partick Thistle drop points, it makes our job a lot easier. It would be a shame to throw it away now.



So, two games remaining... this could go to the very last game.

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So, 1st place Cowdenbeath are away to Raith Rovers while Partick Thistle are away to Forfar.

It was Partick Thistle who were in trouble first, where they went 1-0 down to a Martyn Fotheringham goal in the 20th minute.

This excitement for Cowdenbeath fans was short lived, however, as Jamie Adams equalised for Partick in the 22nd minute making it 1-1.

Mark McGuigan then put Partick Thistle 2-1 ahead in the 38th minute, closing the gap in the live table to just one point.

HT scores:
Forfar 1 - 2 Partick Thistle
Raith 0 - 0 Cowdenbeath

In the 76th minute, sixteen year old wonder Elliot Bannon finished after a superb pass from Lewis Milne to put Cowdenbeath 1-0 up.

Straight from the kick off, Steven Doris made an interception and was 1 on 1 with the goalkeeper to seal the win with 2 goals in 2 minutes. However, Doris put it into the side netting.

It looked like Cowdenbeath's promotion was secured in the 85th minute where Forfar's Gary Wood made it 2-2.

Were Cowdenbeath promoted? Had they beat Raith Rovers when Partick Thistle had dropped points?

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Partick Thistle came into the final day knowing they needed a Cowdenbeath loss and at least a 4 goal swing in order for them to get promoted. Cowdenbeath knew they just needed a draw to guarantee a return to the SPL for the first time since 1971.

In the 2nd minute, Partick Thistle's promotion hopes took a huge blow as Mensah put Livingston 1-0 up.

In the 15th minute, Cowdenbeath's hopes also took a knock as Swankie hit the back of the net to put relegated Forfar ahead 1-0.

In the 23rd minute, Lewis Milne went down in the box after a challenge by McIntosh and a penalty was awarded, which Linton finished with ease to bring the game level at 1-1.

A quick two goals by Partick Thistle meant that they took the lead against Livingston, however this wasn't enough if Cowdenbeath didn't lose. Wallace scored in the 25th minute and Elliot scored in the 26th minute.

In the 29th minute, Marc McKenzie thought he'd put Cowdenbeath ahead, only to see the offside flag raised.

In the 36th minute, a McNeil own goal put Partick Thistle 3-1 up. If they keep stretching their lead and Forfar score again against Cowdenbeath, they could be promoted.

In the 37th minute, disaster struck as Gibson put Forfar 2-1 ahead. However, Mensah had added his second goal for Livingston to bring their match with Partick Thistle back to 3-2.

In the 39th minute, things went from bad to worse as Wood put Forfar 3-1 ahead.

In stoppage time in the second half, Mensah completed a first half hat-trick and equalised for Livingston against Partick Thistle.

HT scores:
Cowdenbeath 1 - 3 Forfar
Partick Thistle 3 - 3 Livingston

As things stand, COWDENBEATH are promoted.

The second half of both games were quiet, however in the 88th minute Lewis Milne scored for Cowdenbeath which surely meant they were going to be an SPL side next season.

In the 90th minute, John Armstrong headed home a Scott Linton throw in to bring the game back to 3-3.

FT scores:
Cowdenbeath 3 - 3 Forfar
Partick Thistle 3 - 3 Livingston

COWDENBEATH are promoted.

We'd done it! Remarkable!

Big problem I've just been alerted of, the main reason being that ground work had to be done in order for the stadium to be suitable for the SPL - a £6.8m under-soil heating system. Need to raise money desperately, hoping it's not through player sales though because I want to keep this group of players, especially Bannon, Milne, Linton, Armstrong and Djebi-Zadi.

So, a basic rundown on who's won what:

Manager of the year: Jamie Butterfield
Player of the year: Scott Linton - 35 apps, 4 goals, 29 assists
Team of the year: Lionel Djebi Zadi, Scott Linton, Greg Stewart
Top goalscorer: Greg Stewart (16 goals)

With a transfer budget of £0 and a wage budget of £4k per week, I have no money to move in the transfer market unless players depart. It looks to be a very very difficult season ahead with these money worries.

I have a transfer embargo on me and the board are deciding on transfer offers, which means some key players could be sold. I thought promotion would solve our financial problems, clearly I was wrong!

youve done really well here dude, good luck in the SPL!

And with one day left of the transfer window, I got this news:



Let's go and make lots of signings!!

Cheers man, gonna be so difficult keeping them up though!

This is gonna be a biggie.

First off, let's see who's left the club:



A huge list but it was definitely needed. Some of the decisions made by the board were very hard to take - Marc McKenzie and Kenny Adamson both could have done a good job for me and I was very disappointed when they loaned out youngster Peter Dyer because he would have got plenty of first team football if he had stayed.

We did well to get £7k for Joe Mbu, but these transfers hardly got us anywhere near out of our debt!

I still don't have back the control of accepting/rejecting offers, so I'm hoping nobody offers for Elliot Bannon despite the long list of clubs after him:



Shows how good this kid is and how good he will be - don't forget he's only sixteen!

I set the asking price at £1m because I wanted to try and stop clubs offering and, if they did offer, to try and make them offer big. It seemed to have worked because the deadline went with no offers for him and I have him until at least January.

A much shorter list for players who came to the club:



That's really it. We managed to set up a link with Coventry and they sent us Ivor Lawton for the season, and I managed to re-sign Duguid on loan from Aberdeen for a second season.

So my full squad looks like this:



A really weak squad I think. Hoping I can find a few free agents and a good loan signing to strengthen it. Also hoping players I already had to step us such as Lewis Milne, Lionel Djebi-Zadi, JohnArmstrong, Scott Linton and hopefully Elliot Bannon.

Pre-season friendlies were mainly to raise money:



Some good performances against Aberdeen, Dundee United and Tottenham reserves made it quite a successful one.

Was very happy to get that win against Hibs, Lewis Milne was superb in that game.

Disappointed to be out of the League Cup already to Airdrie, hoping for better success in the Scottish Cup.



Would be happy if the season ended now and we escaped relegation!

Absolutely gutted with this month. The Kilmarnock game was out of our reach, but the St Johnstone game we were 2-1 up and conceded in the 75th minute in a game where we should of won, but the worst result was the Motherwell one. 2-0 in the 86th minute but then Bob McHugh scored one back. I switched to defensive from counter here to try and keep the lead, but it didn't work. Stefan Scougall scored in the 92nd and 93rd minutes and somehow we lost a game that we should have won, and I expressed my anger to the players and the press that we'd lost it.

Picking up points from these games could be crucial towards the end of the season so we have to start holding our leads.

The table:



We're already falling away and need to start getting more points from matches.

Managers from the Barclay's Premier League are still coming over to watch Elliot Bannon, including the enemy himself, Alex Ferguson.

did you manage to get any more free transfers in? Might be time for a change of tactics see if that may help 4-1-4-1 or something to shore up defence

Charlton offered me the manager's job but I've said no. Always nice to get recognition for the job I'm doing though!

I tried but they wouldn't let me offer anybody more than £90 p/w (and still won't), so nobody accepted any offers which was very annoying.

I'm trying out different tactics at the minute, will give that one a go next! Thanks for the suggestion.

Another bad month but I think it's got to be expected this season unfortunately, for some reason I'm only allowed to offer £90 p/w for players which means I can't sign anybody which is really frustrating me.



Very disappointing. Hoping to pick up a few more points from the next few matches to at least try and escape relegation.

awesome, not my fault if you lose next ten though!

I tried 4-1-4-1 as suggested and look what happened:



Brilliant result!

Picking up 4 points in the SPL makes this quite a good month.

I was disappointed to draw with Raith in the cup - we were 2-1 up with 5 minutes left before they equalised from a penalty given away by youngster John Paul McMullan (not good enough for this level but I have no cover!)

Here's how the table looks:



The Motherwell job was free and I was very tempted to apply, but I decided against it and stuck with Cowdenbeath for the time being.

They've also now let me offer more than £90 p/w for players, so I've signed Allan Coezy, a left back from Guadeloupe on a free transer who joings us immediately and I've also signed Jamie Langfield, a veteran goalkeeper from Aberdeen who will join us in January who is desperately needed.

And again, thanks but no thanks!

I'm getting a few more results than I did with other formations and I've decided to stick with it, maybe need to push forward slightly though to get more goals.

A good win against St Johnstone and a good win to go through in the cup. Will be hoping in future to be scoring more goals and picking up more points. Elliot Bannon, despite the promise he's shown, hasn't done much to show why he's been attracting interest from teams like Liverpool, Man United, Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea.



Not looking good for us in the table, but Jamie Langfield has joined us from Aberdeen on a free transfer so I'm hoping I've finally solved the goalkeeper problem!

A vital win against Kilmarnock that was needed to keep any hope of survival alive. Elliot Bannon was taken off after 12 minutes of that game and replaced by Greg Stewart who went on to score the 2 that won us the game so that may have been a blessing in disguise. Also good to be in the quarter final of the Scottish Cup against St Mirren/Hearts.



Still a hell of a lot of work to do to have any chance of surviving.

A pretty good month I think, wins against St Johnstone and Hamilton have left us just 2 points from safety. I firmly believe that we have a good chance of survival, despite how bad things looked earlier in the season. We've not lost to St Johnstone yet, and we're set to play them again when the league splits and I think we can overtake them and survive!

Here's how the table looks:



Looks like a three horse race for relegation. Also an interesting fight for 1st place with St Mirren looking to be the first team outside of the old firm to win the league since 1985!

u can stay up, just need points against st j and Kilmarnock! Also quick fact, my mum won a competition to name their mascot "samba bear" lol

I'm unbeaten against St Johnstone this season, beating them twice and losing once so hoping I can beat them again!