Deleted User #151676 - Comments

Goalkeepers

Ross Atkins is a fantastic keeper for this level, he spent the last couple of seasons on loan at our league neighbours Burton Albion from Derby where he was a part of the Brewers's play-off team, it's hard not to see his move to us as a massive step down for the 23 year old.
Tom Turner is another new boy, having begun his career with Bolton, he has since played for Buxton and Stafford in the Northern Prem.
Local lad Alex Townsend provides back up.

Defenders

Whilst we have a couple of good defenders in Aston Villa and Derby trainees Matt Roome and Mitch Hanson, this area of the team needs some serious improvement or we are in danger of being overwhelmed at the back.

Midfielders

We have an abundance of midfielders of varying quality, Danny Holmes has league experience with Port Vale and Burton and should be the rock on which I build around (In real life he splits his time between playing for Gresley and coaching the Derby youth team) Captain Jamie Barrett is a good ball winner, as is hardworking local kid Sam Grice, I will perhaps utilise a 4-5-1 in order to include all three.
On the flanks Luke Edwards, another Burton graduate who has played all other the Midlands at conference level is undoubtedly running the show, the others don't look good enough.

Forwards

Like defence this area needs some new blood, O'Connall is a proven goalscorer at this level and above after time spent with Stafford Rangers and Ilkeston as well as rivals Mickleover, however I don't hold much hope for the other two.

Welcome readers to my attempt at steering my local non-league side, Gresley FC from the doldrums on the Evo-Stik leagues and up the towering structure of the English pyramid, Some of you will have seen I recently attempted to play even further down the ladder with Leicestershire league side Ashby Ivanhoe, however that editor data was so detailed my computer wasn't handeling it well, taking 5-10 minutes just to go from one day to the next which I just don't have the patience to endure. You will be glad to know that I already know that the data I'm using on this save (EEE) is thoroughly tried and trusted so I don't anticipate any trouble this time.



The club was founded in 1882 as Gresley Rovers FC, They initially played at the wonderfully named Mushroom Lane in nearby Albert Village which served as the base for their first campaign in the Burton-upon-Trent district league. The club enjoyed success in it's formative years and acquired a new ground on Church street in Swadlincote, Rovers eventually moved across the road in 1907 to construct the Moat ground which they still call home today, over a century later.

Rovers's proudest moment came in 1991 when they stepped out beneath the twin towers of Wembley stadium for the FA Vase final against Guiseley in what is still regarded as one of the most exciting games to be played at the home of English football; After 31 minutes the score was Guiseley 3–0 Gresley, but Gresley came back and grabbed a dramatic equaliser in injury time at the end of the ninety minutes. Then in extra time gresley went 4–3 in front but this time it was Guiseley's turn to score a late equaliser as they leveled things in injury time at the end of the second half of extra time. Unfortunately the moatmen went down 3-1 in a replay at Bramall lane but this is still a performance the club can be justly proud of.


The lowest moment in the club's history came in 1997 when the club won the Dr.Martin's Premier League but was denied promotion to the National Conference due to financial restrictions preventing them from upgrading the Moat Ground to the required standard, Derby County kindly offered Gresley use of the Baseball ground which they had just vacated to move to Pride Park, however this move was blocked by the FA. This disappointment proved the beginning of the end for Rovers, a drop in attendances owing to the lack of opportunity to progress followed and just a year after winning the league the club was relegated. For a decade the club battled on through financial difficulties but was eventually liquidated in 2007.

The modern incarnation of the club- Gresley FC reformed in the East Midlands counties league where, under the management of club legend Gary Norton they finished runners up in 2009/10 and won promotion to the Midlands Alliance the following year, where they surprised many by securing back to back promotions on final day of the season. Gresley finished their first season in Evo-Stick Division one with a respectable 11th place finish. Norton decided to step down as joint manager of the first team at the end of the campaign in order to take up a directors position, leaving Martin Rowe in sole charge of the team.



Which brings us nicely back to the present; Our first league fixture for 2013/14 see's Derbyshire rivals Mickleover Sports make the short eleven mile journey to Swadlincote before we head of to Newcastle Town. However before the league season kicks off we have the Don Hill Memorial trophy to compete for as we take on another of our South Derbyshire neighbours Rochester in this tradional game.
In fact we have a fatigue inducing seven fronts to compete on;

Evo-Stik Northern Premier League Division One South - 22 teams play each other twice, Champion is promoted to the Northern Premier league, next four play-off for promotion. Bottom two are relegated.

FA Cup - We will enter at the preliminary round, we will have to go through five qualifying rounds to reach the first round proper.
FA Trophy - As with the FA cup it's a long way just to reach the first round, four rounds of qualifiers await against teams up to Conference level.
Doodson Sports Cup - A.K.A the Northern League cup, available to all clubs in the Northern Premiership and the two divisions feeding it.
Derbyshire Senior Cup - Available to all clubs in the County, we enter in the third round.
Coalville Charity Cup - A traditional charity tournament with eight local clubs.
Don Hill Memorial Shield - An annual one off game, hosted by Rocester to honour their former chairman, although they have only won once in eleven years.

The club already has quite an impressive silverware haul, most of which was earned under the Rovers guise;


For those unfamiliar with this level of the game, here is a diagram (click to enlarge)

The arrow denotes our current position.

Gresley's finances are of course of paramount importance to supporters who learned the hard way how mismanagement of the money can ruin a club when Rovers were liquidated five years ago. I will not allow the same mistakes to be made again and have come up with some rules for myself;
*Keep down appearance fee's and bonuses, nothing will wreck the club faster.
*Anyone is for sale, no matter how important they are to the team. at least until we have a healthy nest egg.
*I will hire no scouts for now, the club has none in real life, it recruits it's new players after pre-season trials, by en large they are youngsters released from local clubs, as such, in the interest of realism I am setting myself a restriction of signing players who's most recent club is within 50 miles of Swadlincote, giving me the following catchment area;


Guess I better get going then...

This is a bit of a non-starter I'm afraid, It's taking 5-10 minutes just to advance from one day to the next due to the depth and size of the editor data I'm using. If one of the staff could delete this I'd be grateful.

I bid you welcome to my new new story in which I will attempt to guide my home town club, Ashby Ivanhoe FC from the obscurity of the Leicestershire senior league to to the glitz and glamour of the Premiership. As this division is right the way down in the eleventh tier of the English football pyramid this is certainly a long term project.

Based in the East Midlands spa town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch which lies at the heart of the National forest with major cities such as Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby all within a twenty minute drive, the main problem the club has is attracting support when clubs much higher up the food chain draw so many would be supporters from the area, even rugby union saps potential revenue, with the proximity of Leicester Tigers the oval ball game is just as popular as the round one in this part of the world.
The club itself dates back to 1948, it is named after the Sir Walter Scott novel Ivanhoe, part of which takes part in the town at the now ruined Ashby castle, it will begin the 2013/14 season at it's new home, the NFU Mutual ground previously playing on a pitch at the town's leisure centre.

As you would expect there is not much to shout about facility's wise, but of course they can be upgraded as we go.

I created the two kits on Photoshop, the home kit is true to life, although I couldn't find a picture of the clubs away shirt anywhere so I went with a rather generic looking kit with McVities as the sponsor as the biscuit manufacturer is based in the town.

I spent quite a few hours adding competition historys to the leagues and cups we will be participating in, all of our silverware and cup final apperances have come in the recent past;

As you will notice, the club did win the league in 2011, although they were not elected to the East Midlands Counties league above due to financial and ground issues, hopefully with the new stadium we are ripe for another attempt.

The Leicestershire Senior League -Premier division consists of seventeen teams from around the county, we play each other twice with the champions qualifying for a play-off tournament with the winners of various other midlands leagues at this level to determine who goes up.


I have three real players in my squad, the rest are all newgens;

An Ashby native, Danny (who is actually my barber in real life) is a high quality striker at this level, he's previously played in the Northern Premier League at step seven with Hednesford, Chasetown and Stafford as well as spells with our fellow local sides Heather St. Johns, Gresley FC and Coalville Town. He should score plenty for us if we can keep hold of him. He is only on a verbal contract and may well attract bigger clubs.

Not quite as good as the other Dan, however Stevenson should still bag his fair share for us, previously he has played for Loughborough Dynamo and Ibstock United.

Leicester born winger who was released by Coalville Town this summer.

As I said, the rest of my squad are all newgens of varying quality, I will scour our local rivals in order to improve my squad with real life local born talent, I have quite a good knowledge of the local non-league scene so this shouldn't be too difficult.

Finally, my profile;


Right then, in the immortal words of AC/DC....It's a long way to the top, If you wanna rock and roll!

I start my week long driving crash course (perhaps not the best name for it) next week with my test on Saturday, I'm a bit apprehensive as I haven't had a lesson in almost a year after my knee began giving me trouble again my dislocating all the time. I was doing ok before that, how easy is it to pick straight back up?

Germany have gone to pot a bit since winning the World cup.

I think some of the players body sizes might be a little dramatic, Brad Guzan looks as if he was made on the Smackdown franchise.

Whilst I like the idea of England touring again, I'm not sure I like the reasoning for it.

My work has places reserved for staff for the London marathon next year, I decided to put my name forward for one, it could be the motivation I need to really get myself back in shape at long last.

That screenshot looks awful, looks like an FM match.

Sounds like a good opportunity mate. good luck.

For the Everton thing do you have Goodison Park as your stadium? and the commentators mix up Robinho with Riviere as well I've noticed.

My wife brought me the game last night, I used to be a great defender on FM13 (Didn't buy 14) by frustrating the opposition by backing off and jockying instead of charging towards them, also making use of the call second defender command, however that doesn't seem effective anymore and I'm getting torn to shreds. Any tips?

Just downloading the conference and Evo-Stik leagues on Creation centre now for a career game.

Lars is a cunt.

We eat fairly well at home, do a nice meal like cottage pie or something every night. It's expensive days out where we go to one of the multiple major city's that are all within 20 miles or so and rack up a coue hundred pounds worth of impulse shopping on clothes, DVDs etc followed by a restaurant meal afterwards.
Also taking a packed lunches to work instead of buying a meal deal at boots everyday has saved almost £140 and doing a weekly shop with a proper list rather than walking around the super market and buying everything that looks tasty has cut back a fair bit.

Quite pleased with ourselves this month, since finding out we are expecting we've cut back on all unnecessary expenses and have saved over £1.2k in just a month.

Passed my theory test.

Make sure you ask for a fellow colleague to be present to witness. also record the conversation on your phone for any appeal you may have to make.

I wouldn't be so sure about them not seeking dismissal due to an unrelated incident by the way. companies take their image seriously, a fight at a christmas party has fuck all exposure to the people that matter, the customer. whereas what you did could potentially be seen by thousands of would be customers.

You realise there is already a kit thread?

...

I'm sure they will be happy with being sixth.

lol at United's new era.

Too all of you who said Emile Heskey couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo....

Not as bad as the John Terry stadium which Chelsea now use. Probably has some extra special hospitality for WAG's.

I had to replay the game against Wolfsberg in the Champions League after my laptop crashed without me having saved prior. Only managed a draw this time after coming from behind twice. bit annoying but still.

We're still top of the group, but only by the one point instead of three.

Edit: Have to love visiting the Edin Dzeko arena!

August/September 2026

We're off to a reasonable start to the season, we lifted out fourth consecutive super cup, won both of our Champions League games thus far and got decent results in all bar-one of our Serie A games;

We were top until the defeat to Sampdoria, that is the sort of result we cannot afford if we are seriously going after the records I mentioned in the previous post.

We've done well in Europe so far, two wins from two, and both against the more challeneging teams our group.

The Champions League is the my one great ambition remaining now, I'm a five time Serie A winner and a World champion with Italy, I need the European cup to complete my collection!
Speaking of trophies;

It's always nice to get another medal, especially against your arch rivals. With many of my players having taken part at the World cup, I allowed them an extended leave of absence and picked what was mainly my 'B' team who did their job perfectly. Paolo Vannini got his first senior goal for the club and two academy products made their debuts from the bench, which is always good to see.

It was a quiet summer transfer-wise with the only departures being goalkeeper Marco Sampaio joining Freiburg on free transfer and club legend Nicusor Staniciu deciding to retire rather than leave for another club. The only arrival has been Sampaio's replacement;

Lefteris began his career at Olympiakos before being snapped up my Manchester City where he stayed for six years but only managed three first team appearances for City, spending most of his time out on loan. With Tim Krul turning 39 next April Lefteris will be looking to establish himself as a viable replacement for the Dutchman when he decides to hang up his gloves.

Christian

Has had a rough time so far this season, having fell behind Vannini in the pecking order here and seemingly not forming part of Massimilano Allegri's plans at International level after not making the side in the most recent selection.
Christian's only start came in the win over Atletico Madrid, aside from that young Vannini has kept him out of the team with a string of impressive performances. Vannini is much better at getting forward as well as a decent defender, whereas Christian only really offers the defensive aspect, is his time with th Rossonari up? It would break my heart to see him go but a World cup winner isn't likely to be content with the bench for too long.

We've cancelled training for three days to try and stop the spread of the virus that ruled out Darren Bent, Ashley Westwood and Nathan Baker before the game yesterday and forced off Andi Weimann, several other players feeling unwell. Clearly Arsene Wenger used germ warfare.