BohemianBhoy Activity
The Croydon Athletic players were heartbroken after their FA Cup First Round exit, but Mick Connolly understood the psychology of the dressing room well having been a part of it as a player for the previous three seasons. He knew that what the players nee...
The spooky season lacked any major frights for Connolly and his players as they navigated a pretty packed schedule mostly unscathed. The dropped points at Epsom and Ewell were annoying, but hardly derailed the team's seemingly unstoppable momentum.&...
When the Rams travelled to Alton for their Combined Counties Premier South meeting, Alton were sitting on top of the table having played a couple more games than Croydon. The confidence was high in the home dressing room and Mick Connolly knew his p...
Croydon Athletic followed up their win against Bognor Regis Town with an impressive 1-5 win away at Horley Town. The key to this victory was in the details. While Mick Connolly trusted his players to keep the good form going, he understood that Horl...
Mick Connolly understood that his team was in a period of positive momentum. This meant that his job was to delicately keep the wheels turning and let the players do their thing. At some point, complacency could become a danger, so he had to keep a look o...
Not long after the Rams had progressed in the FA Cup, another key player left the club. Right-back David Boateng, who assisted two goals against Wembley FC, joined Altrincham on a free transfer, leaving Connolly and his recruitment team scrambling for a r...
Before Croydon Athletic could turn their focus to their FA Cup clash at Metropolitan Police, they had the matter of a league opener at home to Abbey Rangers to attend to. While the FA Cup provided a heavy dose of magic to the Rams' season, it would be in...
The smell of freshly cut grass infused with pies and Bovril filled the air in Thornton Heath for the first time in weeks. That could mean only one thing: the football was back. The sun beat down on the old shed, as supporters of both clubs tried to...
As the players went through their paces at Mayfield Stadium, Mick Connolly and his recruitment team worked tirelessly to bolster the ranks of the squad. Over the course of the first week of preseason training, no less than eight trialists joined the club....
With the club more or less fully staffed, and the players back out on the grass for preseason training, Connolly had to begin putting his ideas across to everyone. A week or so prior to the beginning of training, he had organised a meeting in the upstairs...
All that was left to do now for Lancaster City was kick the Northern Premier season off. August would bring them three games to get things underway: The bookmakers had Lancaster down as one of the relegation battling teams, so Charlie Dun...
James Dunne barely had time to get his feet under the desk at Park Hall Stadium before he was thrust into a busy preseason campaign that included UEFA Champions League qualification matches. The media were quite keen on his appointment due to his time wit...
In the summer of ‘93, two Oldham-born twin brothers posed for a photograph alongside Brian Kidd and Eric Harrison at the Manchester United Academy. Kitted out in the iconic Umbro-manufactured jersey of the time, they had just agreed to join the Red Devil’...
Two Oldham-born brothers try to carve out a life for themselves in the world of football management.
Despite the frustrating summer transfer window, the team have continued their positive progress since winning the title last season by putting themselves well in contention for back-to-back titles. Progression in the cup, along with a respectable first ev...
Winning the title was an exceptional achievement, but it opened up a different kind of pressure that the club was not used to experiencing. We could no longer be counted among the clubs who simply make up the numbers in the Czech top flight, and were in f...
Our 2-2 draw at home to Slavia brought home the 24/25 league title, but our Vršovice neighbours would exact revenge on us in the MOL Cup final a couple of weeks later. While losing in the cup didn't detract too much from our remarkable league season...
Much more modest aspirations. I want to ensure that we aren't just another Leicester City, and that we continue to be a club that fights for domestic silverware season upon season. That will require us continuing to maximise the relatively small budget we...
History written!
We emerged from the long winter break with a renewed focus. The opportunity to pull off a Leicester City style title win was in our hands, and we also had the prospect of European progress and the MOL Cup. Our league form across February,...
The festive season brought us plenty of joy, as we found ourselves pulling away from our nearest league rivals thanks to taking ten points from twelve. The Malmo victory also allowed us to qualify for the last sixteen of the UEFA Conference League,...
I wanted the team to build on last season's excellent standards, but I could not have envisaged this kind of consistency so early on in my tenure. The fact that we've combined domestic results with a solid showing in Europe speaks to how far we've c...
With the new faces settling in over preseason, I decided to switch from our 4-4-2 system to a 4-3-3 control possession style. This change reflects the type of player we have brought to the club, as well as an effort to deal with our leaky defence. I still...
The 2024/25 season is a year of renewal for Bohemians Praha. We've said goodbye to no less than thirty players overall, including the twenty-six we released above. Among the departures is Erik Prekop who left for Toronto FC for a record £2.9m &...
Some more information about the season I had to leave out of the previous update:
I've tried to summarise the end of our season multiple times now, but I keep getting a message saying that my post appears to be spam/advertisement. So I'll have to be light on detail and see if it lets me actually update the thread. We e...
I've been trying to upload the latest instalment in my FM Careers thread, but when I click on the ‘post’ button I get a message saying that some of the words used throughout the post indicate that my post might be an advertisement or spam. I've tried to p...
Hello there. I've been trying to submit the latest instalment to my FM Career thread, but it keeps rejecting my submission and telling me some of the words I'm using sound like spam or advertisements. I have tried playing around with the wordin...
We completed the deal for the Slavia Praha winger mentioned in the previous post. He will join in June, after his contract expires. We have also entered talks with another Slavia player whose contract expires at the end of the season. It...
The fixtures throughout November and December brought us into the lengthy winter break, and there was a sharp contrast in our fortunes across both months. We started very strongly in November, getting through to the quarter finals of the MOL Cup, pi...
We tied down another couple of players to three year contracts. All three of our main centre-backs are now committed to the club for the foreseeable future. While I think we could get away with having our current left-backs for another season after this o...
We've had quite the beginning to the season. After four FORTUNA:LIGA matches, we remain unbeaten with two wins and two draws. But it's in Europe where the real story of July/August took place. A comfortable 8-4 aggregate win over Maccabi...
The early part of my tenure with Bohemians Praha would be defined by how well we transitioned from the Old Guard of players to a new generation. With a squad average age of 29, and very few sellable assets on the books, the club needed a complete rethink...
Take a short tram journey from the historic centre of Praha, and you'll arrive at a stop called ‘Bohemians’ in the Vršovice district of the city. Directly behind this stop sits Ďolíček, the home of Bohemians Praha 1905. The modesty of the stadium speaks t...
Welcome to A Scottish Pioneer in Bohemia, a story set in the world of Football Manager 2024. I'm Émi, the new head coach of Bohemians Praha. Before I give a bit of narration and context to the beginning of this save, I'll say a bit about myself...
1905-1930, Praha, Austria-Hungary (later Czechoslovakia) SK Slavia Praha appoint their first ever manager, John William Madden (Johnny Madden). The former Celtic player brings with him novel tactical ideas and strict, disciplinarian views on player b...
Vítejte ve Vršovicích!
Welcome to Vršovice, a cadastral district in the heart of Praha and home to two of the city's distinguished sporting institutions: Slavia Praha and Bohemians Praha. It is here, amongst the eclectic architecture and stylish bistros, that this Football Manager story takes place.
Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992/93, the Czech Football League has been dominated by Sparta Praha, Slavia Praha, and Viktoria Plzeň, who, at the beginning of this save, share 26 of the 30 previous titles between them (Sparta:13; Slavia:7; Plzeň:6). The only other clubs to break the hold of the aforementioned trio are Slovan Liberec (3 titles) and Baník Ostrava (1 title). This is the modern context into which I'll step as the manager of Bohemians Praha.
The aim of this save is relatively simple: to wage a counter-hegemonic offensive against the Czech elite. I want to establish Bohemka as an important club in contemporary Czech and Central European football. To do that, I will have to rebuild the club from the ground up. Plenty of obstacles will present themselves on day one of the save: an ageing squad; crumbling infrastructure; financing a planned stadium rebuild; bridging the financial gap to the Czech elite. But I won't be deterred!
In the early part of the 20th century, Slavia Praha and Sparta Praha benefitted from the leadership and vision of two Scottish pioneers: Johnny Madden and John Dick. The former helped Slavia to become a dominant force in the region of Bohemia, winning an impressive number of cups and titles between 1905 and 1930. Madden would also lead Slavia to the final of the Mitropa Cup in 1929, where they would ultimately miss out on international success to Hungarian side Újpest. Under Madden Slavia won 134 domestic matches out of a total of 169, and 304 internationals out of 429.
In 1919, Renfrewshire born John Dick became Sparta Praha manager. The appointment of the former Airdrieonians and Arsenal centre-half would spark the beginning of the club winning five consecutive league championships, earning them the nickname 'Iron Sparta'. During this period, Dick's would only lose once in domestic football, a 1-2 defeat to Union Žižkov in 1919. In his second spell at the club between '28 and '33, Sparta Praha would finish runners up in the Mitropa Cup in 1930, losing to Rapid Vienna in the final.
The contributions of both Scotsmen helped to establish Slavia and Sparta as dominant clubs in the region. They have contributed to the storied histories of the Czech Republic's two biggest clubs. As a Scotsman myself (Czech on mother's side), I feel there is a perfect story here waiting to be written: can I be the modern Johnny Madden or John Dick, and help another one of Praha's proud sporting institutions to arrive on the contemporary stage of Czech and European football?