Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - When They Kick At Your Front Door: A Brixton FC Story

BrixtonFC · 10-10-2023, 06:02 PM

Welcome to Football Manager 2014. If you don’t know what Football Manager is, read the next paragraph. If you already have devoted your life and soul to Football Manager, skip the next paragraph.

Football Manager is THE premier sports simulation computer game for managing football clubs. Clubs not teams, I’m talking association football, or as us ‘mericans call it, soccer. You can choose to manage a club in your nation of choice, though for some of the smaller nations you have to download custom databases from Steam Workshop. Everywhere in the world except ‘merica the football leagues have a promotion/regulation pyramid structure meaning that bad teams get dropped to a level below and the good teams get elevated to a level above. To put it in U.S. terms, the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions would have been dropped down to Division 1 and Alabama and Georgia would be in the NFL.

Let’s Talk Pyramid Schemes
For this story I am playing in England in the 9^th level of the English football pyramid (English football league system - Wikipedia). Essentially, at that level it’s a bunch of guys in their late 20s and early 30s trying to (re)capture that glory that eluded them. FM doesn’t come stocked with that many leagues for England (you can go down to the 6^th level) so I had to download a databased called “England lower leagues” by FloddyJump. Mad props, dude! (Because the base hair styles are very limited, I downloaded from FM Scout the FM2014 hair pack, titled “OLT Expanded Hair Pack v4.0 – No Shirts”. As an early 50s balding man, I'm absolutely not jealous of some of the hair styles. Or Harry Styles.)

However, because Brixton is a fictional club, I’ve had to add them to the database. The scenario I’ve chosen is that Brixton is owned by a Sugar Daddy who has pumped loads of money into the team, built a highest-quality Youth Academy, built a 7,000-seat Reserve Stadium (that will act as the Senior stadium for now), and is building a 25,000-seat stadium, which will lie on the grounds of real-world Windmill Gardens and HM Prison Brixton, set to open on 1 July 2018.

I’ve also granted Brixton a full complement of coaches because despite loving the endless scouting for players, I just cannot stand scouting for staff. I’ve got an assistant manager (hereafter known forever and ever as an AssMan), a head of youth development, two goalkeeping coaches, two fitness coaches, and five regular coaches.

I added Brixton to the Southern Counties East League, swapping out Phoenix Sports because they had the lowest Reputation (1). I’ve given Brixton a reputation of 1,001 (out of 10,000), which is just 1 better than the highest team in the SCE, Whyteleafe.

I have not added any players to the database for Brixton as I wish to start what is known as an Empty Cupboard Challenge. I plan to simulate through the season until Youth Intake Day, which in 2014 should be 13 March. This means I’ll only have grey players on my team. Grey players are filler and worthless. Sure hope I have a good record by 13 March so I can get promoted!

Game Setup
As far as other playable leagues, I added Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. I also added Belorussia so I could have a late-February start in order to have enough time to find players before the start of the season. However, I changed my mind on simming until Youth Intake Day but then I screwed up and forgot to remove Belorussia. Once I realized my mistake I removed them from the database but it’ll take several month of game time for them to disappear. (This is because you have to let a nation finish its season before it can be removed.) So with a start date of 20 February 2013, it’s time to start the fun.

Next
We’ll do a little bit more of introduction and then we’ll “start” the game by simming until 13 March 2014.

10-10-2023, 06:02 PM	#3
BrixtonFC n00b Join Date: Sep 2023	Welcome to Football Manager 2014. If you don’t know what Football Manager is, read the next paragraph. If you already have devoted your life and soul to Football Manager, skip the next paragraph. Football Manager is THE premier sports simulation computer game for managing football clubs. Clubs not teams, I’m talking association football, or as us ‘mericans call it, soccer. You can choose to manage a club in your nation of choice, though for some of the smaller nations you have to download custom databases from Steam Workshop. Everywhere in the world except ‘merica the football leagues have a promotion/regulation pyramid structure meaning that bad teams get dropped to a level below and the good teams get elevated to a level above. To put it in U.S. terms, the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions would have been dropped down to Division 1 and Alabama and Georgia would be in the NFL. Let’s Talk Pyramid Schemes For this story I am playing in England in the 9^th level of the English football pyramid (English football league system - Wikipedia). Essentially, at that level it’s a bunch of guys in their late 20s and early 30s trying to (re)capture that glory that eluded them. FM doesn’t come stocked with that many leagues for England (you can go down to the 6^th level) so I had to download a databased called “England lower leagues” by FloddyJump. Mad props, dude! (Because the base hair styles are very limited, I downloaded from FM Scout the FM2014 hair pack, titled “OLT Expanded Hair Pack v4.0 – No Shirts”. As an early 50s balding man, I'm absolutely not jealous of some of the hair styles. Or Harry Styles.) However, because Brixton is a fictional club, I’ve had to add them to the database. The scenario I’ve chosen is that Brixton is owned by a Sugar Daddy who has pumped loads of money into the team, built a highest-quality Youth Academy, built a 7,000-seat Reserve Stadium (that will act as the Senior stadium for now), and is building a 25,000-seat stadium, which will lie on the grounds of real-world Windmill Gardens and HM Prison Brixton, set to open on 1 July 2018. I’ve also granted Brixton a full complement of coaches because despite loving the endless scouting for players, I just cannot stand scouting for staff. I’ve got an assistant manager (hereafter known forever and ever as an AssMan), a head of youth development, two goalkeeping coaches, two fitness coaches, and five regular coaches. I added Brixton to the Southern Counties East League, swapping out Phoenix Sports because they had the lowest Reputation (1). I’ve given Brixton a reputation of 1,001 (out of 10,000), which is just 1 better than the highest team in the SCE, Whyteleafe. I have not added any players to the database for Brixton as I wish to start what is known as an Empty Cupboard Challenge. I plan to simulate through the season until Youth Intake Day, which in 2014 should be 13 March. This means I’ll only have grey players on my team. Grey players are filler and worthless. Sure hope I have a good record by 13 March so I can get promoted! Game Setup As far as other playable leagues, I added Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. I also added Belorussia so I could have a late-February start in order to have enough time to find players before the start of the season. However, I changed my mind on simming until Youth Intake Day but then I screwed up and forgot to remove Belorussia. Once I realized my mistake I removed them from the database but it’ll take several month of game time for them to disappear. (This is because you have to let a nation finish its season before it can be removed.) So with a start date of 20 February 2013, it’s time to start the fun. Next We’ll do a little bit more of introduction and then we’ll “start” the game by simming until 13 March 2014.