Career South Shields Superstars (S6)

[AdamNufc]

SAND DANCING TO WEMBLEY

 

 

So out of boredom last night I simmed a full season with England fully loaded to see which non league teams would be promoted to the Conference North and become playable. Well a team local to me in South Shields ( people from here are nicknamed Sandancers) were the stand out newly manageable teams and I had to put my save with Barrow on hold as I could not turn down this opportunity 

I will instead be attempting to achieve super star managerial status with my local team and having recently read the brilliant time @samhardy had with another team that is local to me, Gateshead,  it would be great if I could even become half as successful as he did 

So the club will be playing in the 6th tier of English Football and it was always going to be a challenging first season with the majority of the squad being greyed out and having very low funds for transfers and wages 

This is how the squad looked as I turned up for the first day of training and I knew I had a huge job on my hands , we needed at least 22 players signed and could only offer at most £500 a week wages to players and only had a budget of around £5k a week for the full squad , I realised straight away I would have to go over the budget for the first season just to survive in the league and then try to balance the books if we got a successful finish and kept our job in the process 

 

We signed 11 players on a free and 13 players on loan and ended up around 6k over our allowed budget but we reduced that when we sold one of our players in January 

League Table

Surprisingly the first season was not difficult at all and we stormed to the league title winning the league by a comfortable 19 points , we nearly went bust along the way but sold a couple of players in January to balance the books and now financially we are doing very well, hope to be very self sustaining in the future 

 

Stand Out Players 

Parkhouse was our stand out performer with 41 goals and 20 assists in 38 games, he will ve vital for us next season in a higher division 

 

Holohan was our bright spark throughout the season , playing behind Parkhouse when we didn't go teo up top, he was on loan from Hartlepool but unfortunately didn't want to make the loan permanent at the seasons end 

 

Randall arrived on loan in Janaury to bolster our m8dfield and he was a hard tackler who chipped in with goals and assists throughout the second half of the season 

 

Signed from Swedish Prsmier Division wide Ostersunds FK on loan in January on a 3 month short term deal he scored 13 in 14 games but wouldn't join us on a permanent transfer even though we did have a bid accepted for him 

I started of unemployed when I simmed the first season with no coaching badges and a unknown reputation,  I understand even if I do well and get the superstar status I may not qualify as I simmed the first season but it would still be an accomplishment in its own right if I got South Shields to the top 

So onto next season I go at Mariners Park and hopefully we can consolidate ourselves in the conference next season

I hope yous enjoyed reading this and any comments and feedback would be welcome 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by AdamNufc

[Hamza lfc]

Great start!!! however, wouldn't you agree that this game is way too easy? 

[Woody]

10 minutes ago, Hamza lfc said:

Great start!!! however, wouldn't you agree that this game is way too easy? 

Please elaborate? 

 

Nice start @AdamNufc keep it up mate

[AdamNufc]

8 hours ago, Woody said:

Please elaborate? 

 

Nice start @AdamNufc keep it up mate

Thanks @Woody mate ,  I'm sure I can get them to the PL after a long start 

@Hamza lfclfc cheers and I've always found the first two promotions are often not too difficult but then it gets a bit harder with finances and such as you have way less facilities than teams 

[Rob]

Nice start @AdamNufc

Now don’t get the sack!

 

[AdamNufc]

8 minutes ago, Rob said:

Nice start @AdamNufc

Now don’t get the sack!

 

This is a new era @Rob , the Newcastle nightmare is over and it's onwards and upwards now! 

[Rich]

Very nice start mate, hopefully another season like that for Parkhouse 😊

[Ian]

Very nice start.

[AdamNufc]

 SEASON TWO UPDATE

So after our first season heroics it was time to put my managerial skills to the test in our first season in the Conference , for a team who 7 years ago were playing infront of 12 paying fans miles away from home in Peterlee and on the verge of going bankrupt, the 5th tier of English Football is lofty heights.

 

 

The stand out performance for me in our friendly matches was the 1-1 draw we managed against Watford where we performed brilliantly, hopefully this would be the first step in a succesful season!

Transfers

 

These are all the players we signed in pre season , i forgot to screenshot the players outgoing but a good few were out of contract and we also needed to replace the players who were here on loan last season 

Stand Out Signings

@Mr Tree will know all about my first signing,  former Brentford, Birmingham and Aston Villa attacking midfielder Jota was available as a free agent and surpringly he was willing to sign for only 1k a week 

In 49 appareances he scored 10 goals and provided 12 assists a great return and I rewarded hi  with 2 extra years on his contract as it was about to run out 

 

Some of you may know I have had two good seasons with Quigley at Barrow before and he was available for 22k so I snapped him  up which is a bargain considering he was the leagues top goal scorer this season and in all competitions scored  31 goals and assisted 13

Goal Keeper Crisis 

I always only have two goal keepers at a club but this season i had three however with one never playing i made the decision  in janaury to release him as he was out of contract at the end of the season and was aging 

Our bench warming second choice goalkeeper then got a two month injury further on in the season and then 1 month later this happened 

Our first choice goalkeeper was injured for 3 weeks , with the other goalkeeper still out for a month we would have to go 3 games with a greyednout goalkeeper in goal and another on the bench , we tried to sign free agents but none were in our budget range , we had a bit of a wobble at the end of the season but managed to steady it 

Now enough of my waffling on , yous are probably wondering where I finished so let me tell you.

LEAGUE TABLE AND CUP COMPETITIONS 

IT IS BACK TO BACK TOP OF THE TABLE FINISHES FOR THE MARINERS, another excellent season from the lads and who knows where this journey will take us, we nearly broke the 100 points barrier yet again but fell just 2 wins short of that magic number 

We fought brilliantly in the First Round of the FA Cup against League One side Peterbrough leading the match all the way until they equalised in the 86th minute taking us to a replay 

 

In the replay we found ourselves 2-0 down but fought our way back to 2-0 before we suffered late heartbreak yet again conceding in the 82nd minute and not being able to equalise 

Now this season report isn't finished yet as we have the small matter of a trip to WEMBLEY to tell you all about, yes the might South Shields went on a cracking cup run in the FA TROPHY reaching the FINAL

South Shields would face AFC Fylde at Wembley, both our goalkeepers were back and the lads all week seemed prepared and up for the fight 

SOUTH SHIELDS ARE WINNERS AT WEMBLEY

The game was awful and the performance was shambles for the first 92 minutes, we were second best couldn't match the opposition but somehow were only down one nil heading into stoppage time, I decided to go for broke , changing from our usual counter attacking syle to an all out attack style going 3 up top, it seemed we had no chance after Downing was shown a straight red in the 92nd minute but somehow our main man David Parkhouse popped up in the 95th minute to equalise with the last kick of the alloted minutes. So we headed into extra time and Elliot Anderson scored in the last minute of the extra first half period to send the South Shields fans into ecstasy and myself knee sliding down the touchline or more honestly my living room floor. The extra time sedomd half was one knife edge but the referee blew the full time whistle cue myself running into the centre centre circle fist pumping like Jurgen Klopp and 15,000 delirious fans attempting to invade the pitch. PANDEMONIUM

 

 

As the drunken celebrations ended and the hangovers started to kick in , there was a knock at my door from a player who wished to sign for us for next season, nope it was not Gazza, a player I bet @Rob had the joy of watching at spurs BUT it was a player  @Woody and @Scratch will both know very well THE ONE AND ONLY ANDY CARROLL

Thanks for reading guys!

Edited August 15, 2020 by AdamNufc

[Mr Tree]

Jota in the Conference 1k a week?! Jesus, this game gets silly. A beautiful man, gave us some great memories at Griffin Park 👍

[AdamNufc]

41 minutes ago, Mr Tree said:

Jota in the Conference 1k a week?! Jesus, this game gets silly. A beautiful man, gave us some great memories at Griffin Park 👍

It does but I certainly am not going to complain , he's been brilliant for us , don't know how the hell I've managed to pull it off getting him to join 

[Scratch]

Great stuff Adam, two cracking seasons and what's this about Andy Carroll signing? He's gonna carve up L2 for sure! Either that or the nightclubs LoL! 😄

BTW the way I don't think there's any problem with simming the first season. Holidaying while you are in a job that counts towards the challenge would be a problem, but holidaying until you get the job should be fine. After all if you start unemployed you are going to be holidaying through until some jobs become free. And you don't have to take the first ones that become available, you can keep going waiting for a different job.

[AdamNufc]

1 minute ago, Scratch said:

Great stuff Adam, two cracking seasons and what's this about Andy Carroll signing? He's gonna carve up L2 for sure! Either that or the nightclubs LoL! 😄

BTW the way I don't think there's any problem with simming the first season. Holidaying while you are in a job that counts towards the challenge would be a problem, but holidaying until you get the job should be fine. After all if you start unemployed you are going to be holidaying through until some jobs become free. And you don't have to take the first ones that become available, you can keep going waiting for a different job.

Brilliant I will use it for the superstar challenge then 😀 probably pick some other challenges up on the way too depending on how well I do , I'm definitely staying at Mariners Park til we reach the top of the Premier League , all saves are on hold til it happens 

And he's already scored a couple , he is allowed one night out a month if he performs well , it's in his contract , we have 3 quality strikers at the club in Carroll. Parkhouse and Quigley so theres a nice bit of competition 

The only difficulty is going to be where the club won't improve any facilities for a while or funds , I can see us only being allowed to offer £1.6k a week even when we reach L1/ CH , unless we sell some players for big money , I'm at point where a couple I could sell easily for over £1m but don't want to risk it as the majority are under 26 and settled 

[Kanegan]

Great start mate. Back to back promotions well done.

[Woody]

As long as you keep him fit at his age Carroll willdo an ok job in the lower divisions.

Congrats on promotion and the successfultrip to Wembley

[Schwantz34]

Hmm interesting idea this one. Never thought to holiday through and see who ends up becoming a useable team. Might try that at some stage!

Well done too by the way. Top stuff so far 👏

[AdamNufc]

SEASON THREE UPDATE

So last season we won the Conference and won down at Wembley too in the FA Trophy Final, so after I let my players have a couple weeks off it was back to work down at the Mariners Park Training Pitch and I had to get myself to work in the transfer market to build a team that can stay in the division 

As you all know at the end of last seasom we signed Andy Carroll and after on,y ,eating go of 3 players we still went big in the market boosting our squad as we'd have more games with the Leasing Cup too

We signed 5 players on loan , Whiteman is a goalkeeper with all blue attributes with a couple of greens too meaning signing him on loan is very much a coup

João Pedro is a striker who joined on loan from Watford to provide back up to Parkhpuse and Carroll

Cian Harries was a quality signing on loan from Bristol City to improve our defence

We again loaned players from Sunderland in combative mifielder Bali Mumba and solid left back Denver Hume

Another huge signing was in the staff department where we managed to bring in Cristiano Ronaldo as my Assistant Manager, a brilliant player he will be a role model for our players with his vast experience 

A few months into my third season at the club I achieved my gold coaching badge and next on my list in a few years will be to reach supertstar status 

LEAGUE AND CUP PERFORMANCE

We had a fantastic start where we were third and honestly I thought we could potentially be looking at a third consecutive promotion but we couldn't keep up momentum and started looking ad a team capable of a late run into the play offs before our performances near the end of the season become a disaster and we slipped to 13th, still a succesful season when you consider the board expected us to battle bravely against relegation.

Another succesful season for David Parkhouse as he was the divisions top goalscorer and also won League Two player of the year we did sign a 31 year old Andre Gray from Watford on loan in January but he didn't perform anywhere near as good as our main man.

 

We beat Port Vale of League One in the First Round of the League Cup on penalties before losing to Burton in the second round, a poor performance in the Leasing Trophy finishing third in our group, we would of finished 2nd and qualified for the knockout stages but conceded a 93rd minute goal for us to lose and drop to third and we were poor in the FA Cup getting knocked out in the First Round 

MANAGER PROFILE

As you can see we have won more than we have lost and also done very well considering we have only spent £34.1k on players over 3 years, we have sold 900k worth of talent but put all that funds into the wage budget trying to increase the max wage we can offer players season upon season.

Both throughout and at the end of the season i had many job offers from teams in our division and a couple in League One but all were rejected as I remain focused as ever in my teams of getting South Shields eventually into the Premier League

This was just a short update for you all to let you know how I've been getting on and I will update yous at the end of season four where hopefully we have at least made the playoffs!

Thanks for reading 

[AdamNufc]

SEASON FOUR UPDATE

Well in my last update it was our first season in League Two and we finished a respectable 13th and for this season I had aims of reaching the play offs, so I got to work in the Transfer Market and also have a new tactic I would like to tell you all about 

Transfers In

 

We signed last seasons quality loanee Denver Hume from Sunderland for 130k our record transfer fee paid out,  up and coming striker Josh Gilchrist signed on loan from Newcastle and a bunch of loans and free transfers arrived also

There is two signings I would like to show you, both are experienced centre backs you will all have heard of 

Daniel Ayala

Former Middlesbrough player that I'm sure @smoggy90 would rate came into the side on a one year deal, apart from a lack of pace he has the attributes to still do a job for the side

Craig Dawson 

Former Watford defender Carig Dawson also arrived at Mariners Park on a one year deal to provide experience at the back alongside ayala, a lack of pace but a good aerial presence.

 

Transfers Out

We cleared out players who would likely get minimal game time this season adding 275k to our transfer budget 

Tactics

I decided to go with a modified version of a tactic I had used in a past save where I got Dagenham to go from League Two to second in the Premier League, so I hope to replicate that success here with South Shields. Its a asymmetric tactic which you could say is a lopsided 4-3-3/ 3-4-1-2 depending on how you look at it, I would have played both full backs but I found we didn't have a strong right back but did have a strong winger in Jota and two good left backs in Williams and Hume. We set up inma attacking style against teams we knew we had a chance of beating and a counter style against teams where we thought we'd have more of a challenge

I thought we were all set with a brilliant tactic after this performance in pre season where we beat Reading who are two divisions above us in the Championship, let's see how we got on throughout the season shall we

League and Cup Competitions 

WE ARE GOING UP!!! South Shields will be playing League One football next season after finishing 2nd. We were 1st after 23 games but ended up having a brief pior run of form but after getting back on track we stayed in the top 3 positions for the rest of the season. Gateshead came up with us, so next season we will have two Derby rivals as not on,y will we be playing Gateshead next season but we will also be playing against Sunderland

Nothing to shout about in the Cup Competitions going out early in all three competitions, hope to have a cup run next season but the priority will be keeping ourselves in League One

Awards and Injuries

David Parkhouse and Jota were selected in the Team of the Year for League Two

Parkhouse was the leagues top goalscorer yet again and again won player of the year for this level 

 

This is how Big Andy looks at the end of his contract and its a good job we decided not to renew as just before his expiry he got injured for 4 months. 

 

Conclusion

After a fantastic season we need to be prepared next season for the step up in standard of play, as always we will aim in just staying in the division and anything else will be a bonus, I  sure if we can keep Parkhouse fit we will have a chance of surprising anyone in League One

Thanks for reading and any feedback/comments would be appreciated 😀

[Ian]

A nice promotion and with a bit of luck we might see South Shields in the premier league before too long. Keep it up.

[smoggy90]

Good work with the promotion, going along nicely mate. 
Ayala was a very solid defender over the years for us. He rejected a new deal last summer and left this summer at the end of his contract, still looking for a new club I believe. 

[FuddledFox]

Going great so far but it’s a shame you didn’t keep big Andy as he is looking quality 😬

[Woody]

Well done mate.

Just saying though, regardless of how you do next season it will be demed a failure if you fail to beat Sunderland home and away! 😉

 

 

[AdamNufc]

9 hours ago, Ian said:

A nice promotion and with a bit of luck we might see South Shields in the premier league before too long. Keep it up.

Thanks @Ian I'm pretty sure we will be in the Premier League not too soon! 👀

3 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Good work with the promotion, going along nicely mate. 
Ayala was a very solid defender over the years for us. He rejected a new deal last summer and left this summer at the end of his contract, still looking for a new club I believe. 

Thanks @smoggy90 He was quality for me! And thank you! I'm sure we will do well in the step up to the Championship where we will have to play your lads 

2 hours ago, Foxy said:

Going great so far but it’s a shame you didn’t keep big Andy as he is looking quality 😬

Thanks @Foxy It was a good first season for him but his attributes sharply declined in the second season! 

1 hour ago, Woody said:

Well done mate.

Just saying though, regardless of how you do next season it will be demed a failure if you fail to beat Sunderland home and away! 😉

 

 

Thanks @Woody I've already played the season and you will find out soon whether I was a success or failure! 

 

Thanks again to everyone for your comments , season 5 has been played and you can all read up on it tomorrow when I post the update! 

[Scratch]

Nice work mate, congrats on the promotion, but I'm not sure selling Andy is the right way to go! 😄 

Nah, fair enough, looks like you are building a good squad there, L2 better watch out. Can't wait until you get to the PL and play Newcastle!

[AdamNufc]

SEASONS FIVE & SIX UPDATE

Well over the last few days I have really been enjoying this save and playing it constantly meaning in this update I will be telling yous all about two seasons I have completed since the last update, so in the last uodate we had just been promoted to League One , lets see how we got on 

Season Five

 

Transfers 

As you can see in the summer before season five we completed a lot of transfers, with several players coming in on loans and frees. The main man from back in my Dagenham save TJ Eyoma signed as did well known rebel Ravel Morris on, former Sheffield United centre mid John Lundstram also joined the ranks 

We made £2.2m from sales and put all of these funds into increasing our wage budget, you might wonder why Morrison also left during the season adter only signing in the summer , well after 13 games he was regularly being a disruptive influence in training and reacted badly when I foned him so I decided to terminate his contract 

This signing I was most looking forward to seeing play , Godfrey Wright on a season long loan from Man United looked to have all the attributes to find the back of the net plenty of times 

League Table & Cup Performances 

Its back to back promotions yet again as the lads finish second meaning we will play Championship Football next season! We lost 4-1 against Hull near the end of the season which is a shame as we would of won the title if we had managed to beat them but never mind as we well exceeded our expectations for the season!

Throughout this save Cup Competitions have not been a strong point apart from when we won the FA Trophy and again it was a poor showing in the cups knocked out early in all three!

Players Performance

 

 

I said earlier on I was excited to see how Godfrey Wright would do for us and he did not disappoint scoring 24, assisting 12 and having an average rating of 7.96

Our other main striker signed on a free after he left Hibs was Harvey Knibbs and he also did well finding the back of the net 25 times and providing 7 assists with a 7.53 average rating 

 

 

Our attacking midfielder Daniel Kemp won League One Player Of The Year

Managerial Performance

 

I was awarded the League One Manager of the Year Award which if I say so myself I thoroughly deserved after leading a team, tipped by many to be relegated to yet another promotion 

 

SEASON SIX 

Jordan Lukaku was signed on a pre contract back in January and arrived in July at Mariners Park BUT after a lot of transfer activity in the summer ( which I will talk about later on the in update) he was already surplus to requirements , so i offered him out for transfer 

He hadn't played a single game for us and you can see by his history in his last two seasons at Dijon he averaged less than 6 for performance BUT QPR offered £7.25m for him and I accepted straight away

Transfers 

Yet again only bosmans and loans arrived here on the coast in South Shields, I forgot to screenshot the outgoing players but the reason for lots of players arriving on loan was because I sold a lot of players for fees over 1m minimum to mean we could transfer more funds into the wage budget meaning we are now able to offer wages of up to 30k a week 

League Performance & Cup Competitions 

Before we get into how we performed in the league and cups I want to show yous this result qe had in pre season . We went to St James' Park and beat Newcastle 2-0, a fantastic result that would surely set us up for a good campaign 

We finished 16th in the table but had a part just before the end pf the season where we won six games in a row and I thought we were heading towards finishing in the top half but we couldnt keep up the winning run 

In the League Cup we were poor but we reached the last 16 in the FA Cup before losing 4-2 to Southampton, an improvement and hopefully we can go further in the cups next season 

Conclusion

This is the end of the two season update, the aims for season seven are to reach the play offs and hopefully scrape our way up in to the Premier League 

I know my posts aren't in as much detail as some of the others on this forum and was wondering if anyone would be interested in me posting a update talking in detail about my tactic, what I look for when signing players and where I go in to detail about 5 or so players who have stood out for me through the seasons? Let me know 

Thanks for reading guys!

[Rob]

Well done for staying up

[Ian]

A nice promotion from L1 and a tough first season in the CH. Just need to dust yourself off and go again.

[Rich]

Great season in L1 mate but always going to be tough going up to the championship, squads are a lot stronger and for a smaller club relying on loans and free’s always tough. Hopefully build on the squad and push on next season 👍

[AdamNufc]

If anyone is still following this thread from couple FMMs ago, would anyone be interested if I posted some sporadic updates of this save again? Managed to transfer the save file from my iPad to my phone so quite tempted to carry the save on again and try push into the Premier League for old times sake!

[Meow]

4 hours ago, AdamNufc said:

If anyone is still following this thread from couple FMMs ago, would anyone be interested if I posted some sporadic updates of this save again? Managed to transfer the save file from my iPad to my phone so quite tempted to carry the save on again and try push into the Premier League for old times sake!

Oh go on and update if you are still playing, I'm actually doing a similar save in FMM22 with Salisbury at the moment. About the same stage where you are now, just promoted from League One into the Championship.

I'd love to see a continuation of a save that already has gone so far.