The Boys Are Back In Town
The Youths of Brixton return in good shape, raring to go.
I continue to work the lads learning the 4-4-2 Standard formation but also add the 4-1-2-3 DM Wide Standard. (In FM14 this formation was called the 4-5-1. I don’t understand the name change but I don’t think it’s an FM thing, it’s a global football thing.)
Trial Day
When you are in the lower leagues you will get invitations to Trial Days. We got such and I sent our chief scout to pick over the squads on 14 July.
There are some tasty morsels in there so I had my AssMan scout some of the more luscious treats.
One of Trialists is Captain Slow but he has no desire to play for us. Much like everyone else.
Cup Draws
The football gods are kind to us as we draw a team from one level below us for the FA Cup, March Town United. I go to look at their roster and that’s when I realize why we’ve been having an easy walk through the pre-season; all their player are The Greys; fake players auto-generated by the program to fill in empty slots on teams. This goes back to when I set up the game and did not select the “Add Players to Teams” option. Well drat.
For the FA Trophy, we host AFC Mansfield, a team at the same level of the pyramid as us. However, they are predicted to finish 18th in their league (of 22 teams) so I’m confident of this match too.
For the Southern League Cup, we travel to fellow Southern Counties East League crew Cray Valley Paper Mills. A company team? That’s interesting! I know that Airbus have a team in Wales. Back in FM2014 I managed to poach two good players from them.
Our FA Vase opponent, Loxwood, will visit us and again they are from the same pyramid level as Brixton.
Pre-Season Matches
• 1 July vs. Chinnor: 5-0. Macey and O’Donnell score before I sub everyone at 60’. Spearing gets one and Taylor gets a brace. Good stuff.
• 4 July vs. Penn: 5-0. Paul Taylor is the maestro in this match setting up goals and making key passes but Duckie gets Player of the Match (POM) for 2 goals in 30 minutes of action.
• 7 July at Farleigh: 3-0. Carroll gets a goal off a corner just 3’ in. O’Donnell and Rae get goals too but we are inefficient, going 9 of 20 shots on target.
• 10 July vs. Letcombe: 3-0. Our strikers are really clicking with Taylor, Rae, and Macey all scoring. Smith has been excellent in all matches stealing several balls.
• 13 July at Rayners Lane: 2-0. Macey gets two goals, coming at 28’ and 60’ after the team generally looked lazy.
• 16 July at Sheerwater: 5-1. Our first 4-5-1 usage. First goal was 7’ in and the second at 63’ after I did a full outfield swap. Our opponents got their goal off a Spearing penalty. Three of our goals came from our MCs.
• 19 July vs. Woodstock: 6-0. Macey gets his hat trick in 31 minutes and Smith continues his mid-field dominance. We are a budding juggernaut. Surprisingly, the game was not played in mud.
• 22 July at South Park Reserves: 4-1. We went on down to South Park, had ourselves a time. There were not friendly faces everywhere, especially as we were silky smooth in moving the ball and only slightly less so shooting the ball. We finally allowed a goal from open play but I’m fine with it. (Apologies to Les Claypool, and Stan and Kyle and Cartman and Kenny.)
• 25 July vs. Wallingford: 13-0. What can I saw about this ass-whooping? Four goals from Taylor, 3 from O’Donnell, 2 from Macey, and 2 from Rae. We are ready for the real games.
• 28 July at FCD Galicia: 2-1. They actually score first on a B.S. penalty. The team is putrid, especially Duckett, and the second team finally scores at 82’ and 42 seconds into 2 minutes of extra time. Hubris is a bad, bad thing.
• 31 July vs. Tring Corinthians: 5-0. A good bounce-back with mostly everyone playing well.
Well that was a successful pre-season. Our tactical familiarity isn’t wonderful but I think we’ll be alright. Everyone is Match Fit or better. Aside from Joe Clark missing two matches from a gashed head he picked up in the Penn bout, we escape the pre-season relatively unscathed. I have 24 fine players and no real gaps to fill. I’m feeling confident about the season.