CM4 - Forest Green Rovers

[GoldenEagle]

Introduction

I have reached a decision to start a new dynasty with CM4, which was in part inspired by QuikSand’s recent dynasty tale. I will be following the typical lower league management rules, hence I will be using fictional players and no super tactics. I am really looking forward to the challenge, as I have never used fictional players before. I do have adequate knowledge of soccer tactics, having playing the game at a highly competitive level for years. We will see if that knowledge translates to success on the pitch in CM. In the past I have always ‘borrowed’ tactics, but not with this run.

The squad which I have elected to take is Forest Green of the English Conference. I have never worked with this squad so I think it shall be interesting. We are a semi-professional club (as most conference teams are) with just a local reputation. We will play our home games at ‘The Lawn’ (I love the stadium name). The Lawn will hold 4,000 spectators, however only 1,200 of those will have seats. We currently have adequate facilities.

Our staff consists of an Assistant Manager, a Coach, a Scout, and a couple of Physios. Our Assistant Manger, Ben Price, is decent at managing the game. I will upgrade this position in the future, but as of right now I really do not see the need for it. Our coach, Steve Kleg, is also decent at coaching, at least for a conference side. I will turn the most to Steve for judging player potential, as he is rated very high in this area. Our scot is just a filler and I will most likely terminate his contract after I come to terms with a couple of other scouts.

My first glance at the squad is a positive one. Currently we only have one goalkeeper under contract, so a back-up (or even a starter) will become our top priority. The defense looks to be shaky and we have very little depth. It will be a target area as well. I want to mention young Danny Gray, a 17 year old defender who I think has a lot of potential in his boots. The midfield looks like they can keep up with other conference sides. Young winger Chris Bannister is a prospect to be excited about as well. I really feel strong about what we have up-top. I think we have 3 or 4 forwards who will be able to score several goals. We $4,000 under our current wage bill which gives us some flexibility to sign some players. However we will leave some breathing room so our finances can be kept in good shape. Only three players’ contracts expire this season. I do not like this because it does not give me the choices that I want to make.

[Bee]

Looking forward to it. We need more CM4 dynasties.

[condors]

good luck!

[GoldenEagle]

July 2002

The first bit of news I get from the board is that they expect us to fight bravely against relegation from the Conference this season. This is good news for two reasons. The first is its not going to put a lot of pressure on us to win immediately. We can take our time building up the club and not rush into unneeded purchases or forced to sell off our talent. It will be a slow and gradual processes. Second, if we do win from the start, it will surprise everyone and will give us a chance to build a solid reputation from word go.

They also tell me that due to the financial state, we really do not have money to spend on transfers. This is not really disappointing and is, after all, what I expected. I do not think any Conference teams would give you money from the start, unless your Sir Alex. That being said, we may still look to improve the squad through free transfers.

Lets take a brief look at the squad. As others have eluded to all over CM land, the print to screen function is missing. To those unfamiliar with the problem, what it basically means as that we have to manually type out our roster. Since I am not good with aligning tables and such, I will simply type out the players and give a synopsis on each.

Goalkeeper

At goalkeeper, we currently only have one player on the roster. That is Carl Cook, a 31 year old. Carl is not a great keeper but may be able to get the job done in the Conference. His specialty is one on ones. He also is strong in the area of kicking and rushing out.

Defenders

Kevin Fox, who is 23 years old, looks like he will be starter for our club. He is versatile and can play on all three sides (is the center considered a side?). He excels in the areas of tackling and heading. He also posses strong mental skills.

Emmanuel Uzoma is 38 year old veteran from Nigeria. He is strictly a right back. I do not expect that Emmanuel will see much playing time this season. His best skills are dribbling and long shots. He may see a role on the bench as a defender when we are tailing late in the game and we need an offensive punch off the bench.

Neil Walsh is a bit younger at 20 years old. He can play the left side as well as the center. Neil is not a great defender and if he sees much playing time then you really know we are struggling. His best attributes are long throws and tackling. I suspect we will keep Neil around for a couple of years to see if he develops, as he is still at an age where he can.

Simon Gray at 32 years old is a veteran who is a well balanced player. His strongest attribute is tackling. He also can be used in an offensive defender role, when we elect to push up. I expect that Simon will hold down a starting central defensive spot for us.

Ryan Edwards is a 23 year old defender who really do not expect to have much of a role or future at our club. He simply lacks the skills to play, even at this level. He does give it his all and for that I will probably keep the lad around for the duration of his contract. Unfortunately, that does not expire until 2007 and we have to pay him $800 a week, which eats up some of our wage bill.

Matthew Hodgson is a 30 year old defender who is a set piece specialist. He can not contribute much to us defensively and will probably spend the vast majority of the season sitting close to me.

Danny Gray is a 17 year old who I tipped earlier as someone who might have a bright future with our club. I still believe that and so does coach Steve Kleg, who as I mentioned earlier is great at judging player potential. Danny has a decent shot at starting for us this year.

Mark Edwards is a 24 year old Welsh defender who does not contribute much to our club at all. His contract expires soon I do believe and he will find himself a free agent when it does.

Midfielders

Gary Dawson is a 16 year old midfielder and while very young, he simply does not have the skills to play yet in the Conference. However, he is 16 years old and we have all the time in the world to keep him around to see if he develops into anything worthy of keeping.

Ian Atherton is another 16 year old midfielder who is virtually in the same boat as Gary Dawson. He is young but yet to develop skills that we can use. Again, he has all the time in the world to show improvement.

Phil Dawson is a 22 year old left winger who will probably find a role on our bench coming in late. He is really not skilled for a winger, but can finish goals at a decent clip. He may be what we need if trailing late in a game.

Adam Dawson, uncle of Phil, is a 34 year old center midfielder who will probably anchor our midfield. Adam is the only player on our team to be capped by England, playing eight times for the national team. We expect big things out of Adam and hope we are not disappointed.

Jamie Clark, 20 years old, will probably see time off the bench, both in the midfield and up top. He is a prolific scorer if we can get the ball to him. Unfortunately, he does not have great passing or playmaking skills and this will hamper his play.

Mark Andrews is a 22 year old right winger who has all but nailed down the starting spot. He is a great technique player and can hit crosses very well. He will also get back and defended. However, Mark’s stamina is awful and will probably only be good for a half.

Jamie Hill is a 31 year old veteran who will see a lot of playing time in the midfield. He is a plus because he has the ability to create plays and can defend. I think that Jamie will probably anchor the center of the midfield with Adam Dawson.

Chris Bannister is another kid that I tipped for being a great player one day. He is 18 years old and already has the goods to be our starting left winger. He is an excellent crosser of the ball and has some more skills to boot.

Richard Robinson is a 27 year old left winger who has very strong mental skills. However, he does not have the technical skills to match. I still suspect that he will be used in a back up left winger capacity.

Craig Pearce is a 17 year old attacking midfield prospect who I think will have a decent future ahead of him. He already has some basic skills and is very well balanced. I look forward to seeing what kind of future he can develop.

Strikers

Mark Greene is a 27 year old Irish striker who I think will do great things for our club. He can find the net very easily and seems to have a nose for it. He also can create, which is so valuable for a striker. But make no doubt about it, he is our goal scorer.

Dean Flynn is an 18 year old player who will probably serve time off the bench. I think Dean, if trained properly, will become very good player someday. My coaching staff tends to agree with me on that prediction.


Steve Evans is another 18 year old kid, who mark my words, has a chance to be brilliant one of these days. At first glance, I missed him but he might be our most exciting prospect. He will start and hopefully be able to score several goals.

Steve Niedzwiecki is a 37 year old Welsh striker who is on the club simply for his veteran presence. He will not play much and is not expected to help the club at all. I think he could be a good coach one day though.

Now that you have met the squad, it is time to get to some matches.

We made the acquisitions of two new scouts. Please welcome Adam Jordan and Galvin Wilkins to the Forest Green family. Both come as highly rated scouts and will help our club greatly. I am very excited to have them aboard. We immediately sent them to England an to search for youth players.

In our first friendly, we hosted Colchester, who is a second division side and one that is far superior to our own side. I do not think the match will be very close but it will give us the chance to see what our player can do. Well we lost the match 2-0 and no players really stuck out in my mind as having a good performance. Forest Green 0 Colchester 2

The next friendly we played was against Norwich, a powerful first division squad. We took the lead early and held it going into halftime by a score of 1-0. Steve Evans scored the goal. I was very impressed with play of some of our players. In the second half we put our ‘B’ team in and they scored 3 goals. Forest Green 1 Norwich 3

We then played hosted to another first division side in Gillingham. We expected to again get beat. We played our first time for the entire length of the match. We wound up winning 1-0. We will take this for what it is, and that is simply a win. Forest Green 1 Gillingham 0

[Barkeep49]

Yeah to another CM dynasty.

[GoldenEagle]

Let’s not go any further without first looking at our strengths and weaknesses. I think that this is one of the more important parts of the game and can really help you get into CM4. I have been very impressed with the way we have played so far in our friendly matches. If it is any sign to come, then I think we will have no problem in the Conference. But it usually is not, so we will have to strive to continue to improve our team and make them into a serious contender for the Conference championship.

Strengths
-I like the play of our forwards so far in the play of the friendly matches. They have shown the ability to score when they get the ball and right now that is very important for us. If Mark Greene and Steve Evans can stay healthy, then I think they will carry us very far.
-We have several young and exciting prospects. In addition to Steve Evans, we have a couple of other kids who can be great players one day. If we keep them, then we will slowly rise up the levels of English soccer. If we sell them, then they will net us quite a bit of spending money. The worst case scenario is that they get unhappy and leave the club without us getting some sort of compensation.
-Our midfield is not bad for a Conference team. In the future we will look to improve on this if we are as successful as we hope we are down the road. But right now the unit can get the job done, which is really all we can ask of them at this point.

Weaknesses
-Our defense right now is not up to par, and that could yield some goals once we get into Conference play. We are continually looking for our scouts to return defenders who can help our team. (Unfortunately my scout never began his English search, is this some sort of bug? How can I fix it?)
-We will still like more prospects to come out of our team. Hopefully our youth squad will provide us with some very good future players. We may or may not with our adequate facilities. We will look to upgrade this in the future.

[condors]

unless you hired more scouts i believe you only start with 1 if you have him scouting other players or next opposition he will never start the english search

[GoldenEagle]

Originally posted by condors
unless you hired more scouts i believe you only start with 1 if you have him scouting other players or next opposition he will never start the english search

He finally started the search and came back with some good players so far.

[Desnudo]

I'm looking forward to watching this dynasty develop. Forest Green was the first squad I played in CM4. I played them up to the Premier League, not playing lower league restrictions. I haven't been able to get past mid-table in Premier though due to lack of funding (relative to the big daddies) and inability to get a stadium expansion. I'm still playing in the sweet original 4000 Lawn.

Still quite a challenge for me though, and I think you have your work cut out for you. They are definitely a low budget squad for sure.


*spoiler*

Something you might want know is that the max stadium expansion is very limited. Since my board wouldn't give it a go no matter how many times I asked, I checked using the pre-game editor. So ever having a lot of money and transfer funds is likely out of the question.

[klayman]

uh...that's brutal. I think you have to have a min 18000 seat stadium just to play in the Premiership. If they didn't upgrade you, well there is something wrong. Is it a fresh start from EP5 or a continued save from a previous game?

[Desnudo]

It was a continue from EP4. I don't know if they fixed the stadium expansion problem in EP5. It doesn't seem so from having read the message boards.

[GoldenEagle]

Desnudo - I am glad to here of your trials and tribulations with Forest Green. It sounds like I will definitely have my work cut out for me, which is what I want. Tell me, did you use real or fictional players?

Klayman - I agree, that is brutal. I didn’t even know EP5 was out yet. A 4,000 seated stadium in the EPL would never happen, but the chances of Forest Green ever making it are slim too.

Also, I am sorry I haven’t updated in awhile. I had to work 12 hour days last week and now I have fallen ill. I am sure I will resume soon.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Is it possible to go in and manually edit the maximum expansion using a game editor?