Once upon a time, not too many years ago, there was a Golden Age of Football Manager dynasties on the FOFC board. This Golden Age was fading somewhat by the time I joined the forum, but a fortuitous search uncovered a number of great stories from days of yore.
Several of these classic tales told the stories of doughty little English clubs, doing battle in the eighth or ninth levels of their nation's football pyramids, clubs like
Diss Town and
Odd Down. I enjoy playing FM with small clubs like these, where I can immerse myself in a microcosmic world of football without famous names and real reputations to connect me with the "real" sport.
FC Santa Claus is a fairly big team, by Finnish standards. Their wage budget is a good deal higher than the clubs in the County Leagues of England. Managing Santa feels more like leading a medium-sized club and, while I enjoy it, I miss the vibe of a really small team. Even
Kendal Town, whom I wrote about earlier this spring, is a bit bigger club than I'm talking about here. I'll keep my Santa Claus game/dynasty going--it's a lot of fun--but I want to add a second game/story to my playlist, too.
The database I'm using includes nine levels of English football, down to the County Leagues. I'm going to manage in
Level Nine. I chose my team using a completely unscientific, somewhat convoluted system, including criteria such as these:
- kit colors--combinations I think look cool; not red, since that's what Santa Claus wear. Extra points for a nifty badge. My daughters, ages 8 and 5, offered invaluable insights here.
- team name--the more quintessentially English it sounds, the better.
- grounds name--again, if the name conjures up an image of a place where an English club would play, that's a plus.
- a lack of "history" on the FOFC forum--if I could identify a club as having been the subject of a previous story, it's eliminated.
The winner is:
Bishop Auckland Football Club.
The Bishops, or the Two Blues, were founded in 1886 by theological students from Cambridge and Oxford who were studying at the castle of the Bishop of Durham. (The "Bishop" half of the town of Bishop Auckland's name refers to the fact that the bishop made his residence there.) The students chose the light blue of Cambridge and the dark blue of Oxford for their club colors.
After playing for over a century at the Kingsway ground, Bishops moved to
Heritage Park in 2010.
Bishop Auckland compete in the
Northern League Division One. Division One contains 24 teams, and only the league champion will be promoted to the Regional First Divisions. If Bishops are relegated, they'll be lost in an unknown world...I have no idea what I'd do as the manager of a club without a home in the database. I'd probably be sacked for poor performance, anyway.
I'm hoping to have a good, long run at Heritage Park, and I'm hoping to enjoy writing about my experiences there, too. Hopefully some of you will find the story engaging enough to follow. Please feel very free to comment! I enjoy interacting with any readers I have.