Playing FM14, I take over at Dartford as they're being demoted from Conference Premier to Conference South, but before July 1. I spend June putting a staff together and trying to get good players on expiring contracts to re-sign, to no avail. Worse still, three first-teamers whose contracts run through the upcoming season have been transfer listed by request, including club icon Ryan Hayes (M/AM RLC), who has spent his entire 10-year career with Dartford, playing his way up from the 9th tier to the 5th tier.
I sign intended replacements for all three guys (a GK and a M/AM L are the others). As the season begins, Hayes is the only one whose skill is bested by his replacement's, so GK Locke and ML Swallow remain on the first team as the resident malcontents. They drag the team down to the point that I have a win-or-get-fired game at the first of October--we're sitting 16th with 11 points from 10 games in a very congested Conference South, while the Board has imposed playoff expectations.
Luckily for me, my strikers (all 3 on my 19-man roster) decide to go off in October, to the tune of 11 goals in 4 matches. We go 3-1-0 and I win Coach of the Month.
In the meantime, a league rival, Chelmsford, has fired its coach as it sinks in the league table and approaches us about Hayes. We strike a deal to get this unhappy guy out of the dead-weight category. (He had been skipping training, and never understood why I would d fine him a week's salary for every other miss and had limited him to 1 appearance on the season.) Fans are rightly ticked, as he was a club icon, but he wouldn't come around even as we shot up into the playoff places.
Immediately after the sale is finalized, Locke and Swallow tiptoe up to me, with their hats in their hands, and ask to be removed from the transfer list. (read: holy shit, he'll actually stand up to an icon and ship him out.) At the same time, Chelmsford releases a D/M/AML that they presumably signed Hayes to replace. This guy, Redwood, is more talented than Swallow and has League Two potential to boot.
...I'd have to say this long, annoying process of tolerating these three disgruntled veterans has taken a turn in my favor in the last few days.
