Lower League Management - Your experiences

galwaydude

I started off as Luton town. It was a tough season and got relegated due to the -30 points I had to start off with. Now fast forward 2 seasons later in which I got promoted from the conference via a playoff and then finished 2nd in the league 2. Are there any players that come cheaply as I only have 300k to spend? I have already bought 4 players for league 2. Two from Sheffield Utd as they are in financial meltdown and two via free transfer. The board expects the club to fight relegation. I used the look for feeder club feature and managed to get Arsenal due to their close proximity to Luton. Have loaned two of the under 21 players, mark randall and jay emmanual. I have 3 Irish players in my team, Donal McDermott - surprised he was available and nobody took him before me, Shane treacy young fullback from Galway Utd and Connor sinnot, bought from Wexford. Lower league is allot tougher but seems to be more enjoyable. League 1 seems to be very tough as i have the likes of Southampton, Nottm forest, MK Dons, Sheff Utd and Leicester to look forward too.

I am finding luring players to kenilworth road a bit challanging. Even the poxy scottish league 1 clubs are getting their targets before me.

anladmór

league of ireland first division is near impossible for me to get promoted.

galwaydude

They made the LOI in general very hard. I started off as Galway Utd but couldnt get anywhere, bohemians are way overated in the game. Even now in my luton game they are buying players for 350 k.

What team did you start out with, should be easy enough with either shels, dundalk or waterford. Get the right formation and your laughing. I must have tried every formation with luton until i found one that works. But i have to say i am enjoying FM 09. I had to turn off the 3d affect as it took too long for the games to run.

Paul ince has just been installed as england manager, mad or what.

pablomakaveli

A couple of months before the season ends you should look for players whose contracts are expiring. You can find some really good players that way and is better because it is free (unless you have to pay compensation). For example good young players released by bigger clubs.

Getting loan players from a parent club as you've done can be very helpful as well especially for lower league teams.

try looking at leagues with cheap players as you might find one or two good players.

Ardscoil Ris

Haven't had a chance to do lower league management yet in FM09. Did it all the time in previous FM games.

DSB

Just finished my third season with Fisher in the Blue Square South. Got promoted to the Blue Square Premier via the playoffs having lost out on the title on the last day via a late equaliser.

Ben Farrell is an absolute superstar. Defo a recommendation for anyone managing at this level.

thusspakeblixa

anladmór wrote: »

league of ireland first division is near impossible for me to get promoted.

I got promoted with Shels.
It was tough, but I really have to recommend getting Conor Sinnott from Wexford on a free and then Steven Bradley from Drogheda on loan. They're both CM and give you a really solid base.
If I was one of the smaller teams in the division I'd start by signing a lot of Wexford players anyway.

Chanandler Bong

do yous all have FM 09 yeah?

thusspakeblixa

Chanandler Bong wrote: »

do yous all have FM 09 yeah?

I have 09 but I'm playing 08 now

DSB

Anyone else finding the jump from the Blue Square South to the Blue Square Premier to be very easy? Took me 3 seasons to get promotion but I've won 6 and drawn 1 of my first 7 in there. Not much of a difference in standard?

Daemonic

DSB wrote: »

Anyone else finding the jump from the Blue Square South to the Blue Square Premier to be very easy? Took me 3 seasons to get promotion but I've won 6 and drawn 1 of my first 7 in there. Not much of a difference in standard?

The jump to the BSP & L2 is much easier in FM09 than in FM08. Took me 2 attempts to get out of the BSS and then went straight up again the following 2 seasons although I did get stuck in L1 for a few seasons after that.

dsmythy

Daemonic wrote: »

The jump to the BSP & L2 is much easier in FM09 than in FM08. Took me 2 attempts to get out of the BSS and then went straight up again the following 2 seasons although I did get stuck in L1 for a few seasons after that.

I think in real life more recently a lot of teams coming up from the BSP do quite well. Exeter this year for example, so far at least anyway.

jusk

I'm finding the League of Ireland Div 1 tough enough, but hoping to get promoted in season 2 with Wexford. Finished 3rd in season one.

Conor Sinnott (mentioned above a couple of times) is ok, but he's by no means outstanding. There are scouts in the stands watching him every week, but he's not much better than anyone else I have. He does keep the aging Mustapha Hadji out of the team though currently.

Anyone know if aging has-beens on the downward slope of their career would be more tempted by short or long contracts / part time / full time etc - hoping to convince some unhappy old pros to sign up. Has anyone pulled off an unlikely free transfer to the league of ireland?

Also, Atillo Lombardo was appointed manager of Waterford!

dsmythy

jusk wrote: »

I'm finding the League of Ireland Div 1 tough enough, but hoping to get promoted in season 2 with Wexford. Finished 3rd in season one.

Conor Sinnott (mentioned above a couple of times) is ok, but he's by no means outstanding. There are scouts in the stands watching him every week, but he's not much better than anyone else I have. He does keep the aging Mustapha Hadji out of the team though currently.

Anyone know if aging has-beens on the downward slope of their career would be more tempted by short or long contracts / part time / full time etc - hoping to convince some unhappy old pros to sign up. Has anyone pulled off an unlikely free transfer to the league of ireland?

Also, Atillo Lombardo was appointed manager of Waterford!

Never got anyone particularly odd to go to the First Division. Usually just raid Britain and the North for freebies if they are interested in signing. Can pick up a few good players for the division particularly from Scotland. Annoying thing about Wexford is that you can't pay wages. AI Wexford usually get plundered for all their talent. Pity because they have good training facilities and one of the best youth facilities not to mention plenty of money to burn.

thusspakeblixa

The assistant manager of Turkey was Wexford Youths manager in my game.
wtf?

dsmythy

thusspakeblixa wrote: »

The assistant manager of Turkey was Wexford Youths manager in my game.
wtf?

I just hired an Italian coach for an Irish First Divison team. Probably just using me to learn English. The swine.

jusk

dsmythy wrote: »

I just hired an Italian coach for an Irish First Divison team. Probably just using me to learn English. The swine.

I've made friends with Waterford manager Attillo Lombardo, and I now have a basic scouting knowledge of Italy - what a nice guy. . .

That_Guy

I started off my game with no job and after months of waiting I eventually got offered a job with Wycombe, ballsed that right up, got offered Gillingham, got fired because I didn't get into the play-off place with one point short, went to Darlington, got fired because I played what I believed to be their best players but obviously weren't because we got relegated..... So now I've started afresh with Newcastle. Hoping to get something out of it.

dsmythy

jusk wrote: »

I've made friends with Waterford manager Attillo Lombardo, and I now have a basic scouting knowledge of Italy - what a nice guy. . .

I didn't realise you could do that. Now i'm making friends with every foreign manager in Ireland i can find. Only got Wales knowledge off Ian Rush so far though.

jusk

dsmythy wrote: »

I didn't realise you could do that. Now i'm making friends with every foreign manager in Ireland i can find. Only got Wales knowledge off Ian Rush so far though.

Yeah, it's pretty handy. Also, being affiliated with a club from another country gives you full scouting knowledge of that country. I've just got Bath City signed up to be a feeder club for the Youths - so have lots of UK info, and even got some French knowledge from them. And having Robert Prosinecki as my coach gives me Croatia & Germany knowledge.

mewso

Started unemployed. Team Bath in the BSS offered me a job mid-December. They were in a relegation position. I managed to keep them up and finished 18th.

The following season I finished 16th. A difficult season. Up to this I had been applying strict LLM rules but decided to read up on tactics (against the LLM ethos). LLM is basically about playing the game as realistically as possible but who gets a job managing any football team without any coaching training? So half way through my 3rd season I read the T & T Framework stuff, took a look at some tactics and so on and things started to improve. We finished 12th and I resolved to get promoted the following year or move on.

So my 4th season we were at the top of the table all the time. In the end pipped for 1st though and ended up in the playoffs. By some miracle we managed to get through beating AFC Wimbledon in the final. We had never beaten them and they were becoming a right bogey team for me so it was that much sweeter. Late winner too. Always fun

So I've just completed 2 seasons in the BSP in mid-table obscurity and am aiming for promotion to the football league this time around. I like a long term game. The plan is bring Team Bath as far as I can, get hired by Notts Forest (I support them), win the league with them, get hired by Barca or equivilent and spend my Autumn years winning the World Cup with Ireland. Who knows

This is a tough tough game with many frustrations. My pet hate is my wonder strikers scoring for fun and then suddenly forgetting where the net is. Wish you could slap your players sometimes For all that when something goes right it's a fantastic feeling.

Oat23

I started off unemployed, late November i applied for the job at Ramat NaSharon in the Israeli National League and got it. They were 12 points behind at the bottom of the league, had no transfer budget and was £11 over the wage budget(:D), so i released a few crap players and got Gorges Ba on loan and Aviv Wellerman on a free, Ba got 17 goals in 20 games and Wellerman got 11 in 17, still got relegated on goal difference because my keeper was conceding 3 goals per game average.

Got fired because i couldn't drop down a division, Moved on to Sestao in the Spanish lower leagues, was getting 4,500 average to every game(2nd) but was still only predicted to finish 8th, loyal fans are great!. Again i had no transfer money and i had 300 yoyo's for wages left. I only learned after i joined Sestao that i had to have a minimum of 6 U-23 players in my team and nobody over the age of 27!!. It's so hard to find young players that are good and available free. But i got a couple of loan players and i won the league somehow. Now i got to compete in the Liga Adalante, my top player is worth 90,000, most of the players in this league are worth over 1,000,000!. This will be challenging.