FC London (FM 2008)

[sovereignstar]

So this past week I had been preparing to start a dynasty in the lower Dutch league, but decided to scrap that in favor of something else that I've wanted to do for some time now. That something else is taking over a fictional lower league team in England, one that is ambitious.

There's no history as to how they got there, but FC London is a team in the Blue Square Premier. Their chairman is a wealthy Greek businessman named Socrates Babacas and he dreams of a day when his team will rival the likes of local powers Chelsea, Tottenham, and Arsenal.

Okay, so I'm not much of a storyteller, so I'll stop there and get to reality. I've edited BSP side Farsley, so apologies to them and their fans - not. I renamed their chairman and made him extremely loyal and ambitious. I've also given him very high attributes in business, resources, and patience. Once I get the game started I'll make sure I'm a favorite person of his as well. This is not exactly a sugar daddy situation (didn't check that in the DB), but I do want to have lots of balls in my court (oh yeah). Am I really going to get to the Premiership? Probably not. You'll soon find out that I play as slow as molasses. This is really for my enjoyment. I have a hard time sticking with any "normal" careers, so I want to try something that at least seems like it will be a lot of fun. I do hope this will be fun enough that I'll be able to take a pass on the next version - something that would be good for this dynasty's long-term health. Anyways, more on the setup.

I searched for unused London football stadiums in the database and a suitable one popped up. The Surrey Docks Stadium is apparently so beat down that Blue Square South side Fisher Athletic decided to bunk with Isthmian League club Dulwich Hamlet FC while they explore their options. Wikipedia says some folks want to redevelop Surrey Docks while the club prefers to build a new stadium elsewhere. For the purposes of this story we'll pretend that they've moved on and sold the hunk of junk to FC London. The Surrey Docks has a capacity of 5,300 with 400 seated.

Oh yeah, I've deleted all the players on the squad formerly known as Farsley, so this will be somewhat of a empty cuboard-type dealio. I've also deleted all the staff and will cause the contracts of the staff that is forced upon me to expire as soon as I can. I've gone back and forth on deleting the generated youth players, but I have decided that I will keep them. Other setup stuff I can think of:

Real Players: Yes
Fog of War: Yes
Reputation: 1350 (50 lower than the 2nd-worst prestigous squad in the BSP)
Training: 12
Youth System: 8 w/ Youth Academy
Balance: 400,000 pounds
Transfer Budget: 100,000 pounds
Wage Budget: 18,000 pounds/wk
Mild Rival: Chelsea (50/100) -- I don't like Chelsea much and it'd be fun if this budded into something down the line ...

I've haven't totally tested the empty cupboard thing before. I have done a few short test runs to see if everything works like I want and things appear peachy. I will cancel friendlies for the first 2 or 3 weeks in hopes that I can put together a team composed of very few or none of my youth players.

Putting together a squad should be very fun, but time consuming for me as I'm very meticulous when it comes to this game in general. I'm sure this dynasty will be a bit messy and all over the place at the start, so bare with me - I haven't embarked on anything like this before. I'll probably log transactions and miscellaneous thoughts as I go instead of summarizing everything neatly afterwards. Suggestions, comments, hoots, and hollers are definitely welcome. I have set up the 'FC' database, but I haven't actually created a saved game for the dynasty yet. That's something that will be done shortly after this post. I have, however, made a logo and kits and boy was that fun!



PS - Lynx is a UPS-owned parcel carrier in the UK, not a mascot(!)

[sovereignstar]

Will be back with the chaos in a bit.

[Chief Rum]

I like the odds this gets good. Good luck sovereign star!

[Young Drachma]

I love it.

[MacroGuru]

Actually, I have popped in on every FM Dynasty on here and none have caught my eye, but this one has!

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by MacroGuru

Actually, I have popped in on every FM Dynasty on here and none have caught my eye, but this one has!

Already feeling the pressure to perform!

[Coffee Warlord]

Wow, nice wage budget.

You're gonna hafta be carefull since your income is gonna suck.

[sovereignstar]

I made a mini house rule in that I wouldn't even start looking at potential players until I had my assigned assman sacked and my future one hired. I've taken care of that as well as rounding out the rest of my staff. Good financial situation or not, the board isn't given me much to work with quite yet. As for the hires:

In an assman I'm mainly looking for four things: judging ability, judging potential, motivating (for team talks), and in this particular scenario I'm looking for a guy that is good with the young ones. Northern Ireland native Sean Marks (age 33) has marks of 11, 10, 9, and 10 in those particular ratings. We're pleased to give him the one-year deal he wants - he accepts.

Unfortunately Marks lacks coaching ability, which matters because I'm limited to hiring one coach. I needed a guy that was versatile, someone that could coach goalkeepers and just about everything else. One guy stands out and that's 32-year old Thomas Dunne of Ireland. He has a 14 for coaching youngsters and all of his coaching ratings fall within a 7-11 range. I decided that he was just what the doctor ordered. Give him the one-year deal he's looking for as well in addition to a 3,000 pound bonus to make the deal certain.

Physio Damien Watson was pretty much the best available that was interested in working with us. He has a physio rating of 11. In regards to scouts, I sign one English guy and one Scottish guy. Duncan Sampson has a 10 for judging ability, a 9 for judging potential, and a 15 for determination. Greg McCabe has ratings of 9, 13, and 15. That wraps up my staff. 'Tis a small one for sure!

In other news I hope to have a team set for the first friendly that I didn't cancel, which is a home match against Championship side Sheffield Wednesday on July 23rd. Currently it's July 11th. I've asked the board to find me a parent club. It would be nice to be linked to any of the stronger non-Chelsea London teams, ie Tottenham, Arsenal, or QPR. We'll see what they say.

I've sent both of my scouts to look for cheap youth. Looking at my scouting knowledge I see that I forgot to mention one other tidbit. I gave myself duel nationalities. One English, the other Jamaican. Ya mon! Also set the game up to retain all Jamaican players. Would like to take advantage of these two things somewhere down the road.

Obviously, it's time now to start making offers to some sexy footballers. In my testing I noticed that without any players on my roster most guys wanted to be first teamers, in the rotation at the very least. If I changed the roles of some guys they were no longer interested in my team. This pretty much means I'll have to reel in my key guys before I look to add depth. Pretty much what I should do anyways.

I'm sure this will be a bit frustrating. While other teams are looking for complimentary players I'll be looking for keystones and cogs. It's almost a certainty that some lads will break my heart and sign with other teams. We'll see. I'll roll with the punches as they come.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by MacroGuru

Actually, I have popped in on every FM Dynasty on here and none have caught my eye, but this one has!

What caught me was the uniform and logo designs. That's going all out, to do that. So if you don't want to be noticed in a dynasty thread, do not design your own logos & kits.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Wow, nice wage budget.

You're gonna hafta be carefull since your income is gonna suck.

I was wondering if that was a bit high and your comments only enforce that. I picked that number because another wealthy BSP team had that as their wage budget (believe it was Stevenage). At any rate I'll maybe look at lowering that now, so I don't get myself into trouble.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

What caught me was the uniform and logo designs. That's going all out, to do that. So if you don't want to be noticed in a dynasty thread, do not design your own logos & kits.

I even started a thread at the FM boards asking what guys thought would be realistic sponsors for a lower league English team. And I got some pretty good suggestions, including Lynx.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

I was wondering if that was a bit high and your comments only enforce that. I picked that number because another wealthy BSP team had that as their wage budget (believe it was Stevenage). At any rate I'll maybe look at lowering that now, so I don't get myself into trouble.

The next richest BSP team is Kidderminster. They've got 400k in the bank (which is my balance) and their wage budget is just a tad under 10,000 pounds. I'll lower my wage budget to that, down from 18,000.

[sovereignstar]

As expected, I glossed over something else - expectations. Mr. Babacas informed me that the boards wants the team to survive in the Blue Square Premier by the end of the two-year plan and fight bravely against relegation this first season. Pretty lofty stuff. They also want us to reach the Fourth Round of the Setanta Shield and the Second Round of the FA Trophy.

[Icy]

Great idea and setup, i have been thinking about something like this for long time but never started it. I'll be reading.

[Qwikshot]

more, more!

[sovereignstar]

Have time for a brief update while I'm on my lunch break.

Spent last night browsing through loads of unattached and transfer-listed players. The process is a pain in the ass of course as the information that's available to me on said players is spotty - can't use the attribute filters when players are missing important attributes. Because of that I'm finding myself giving loads of respect to the opinion of my assman. If he thinks a guy would be a decent, good, or quality signing then I'm sending someone to get a scouting report on him. I'm also paying attention to which players are getting interest from others teams. So far I've asked for scouting reports on 25 players. There will be more.

I can't always wait for the scouting reports as some guys are already being bid on, so I have made offers to 3 players. One is a pacey 19-year old from Scotland. Another is a 6-2 Irish-Japanese central defender (yes, that's what I said) who happens to be on Japan's senior team currently. Japan isn't such a bad national team, so I figured he was worth a flyer. Finally, my boldest move yet is offering a 19-year old Norwegian midfielder 1,000 pounds/wk and giving him a key role. He's missing some key ratings, but the ones I can see are pretty good. I can't scout him, since he's playing out of this region. My scout thinks he would be a good signing, so I roll with it. I have to offer him a key role, so the board will pony up for the wage he's requesting. I'll ponder this move throughout the day and it's possible that I'll do a 180 on the young Scandanavian.

Finally, I offered a trial to a 33-year old Ivory Coast national named Sam-Dominique Abouo. He's a worthy central defender whose ratings are totally visible. The problem with him is that he'd need a work permit and I'm not totally certain if he would qualify for one. Maybe someone can give some advice on this. While he's no longer on the Ivory Coast national team, he has been capped 61 times. Seems like he should get a work permit, but I'm not experienced enough to know. Once again, I can't scout him, so I can't get any advice from my scout currently. Was thinking I might be able to get around the scouting barrier by offering him a trial, then scouting him.

Interesting note. Out of the 35 guys on my shortlist 3 of them are English. There is just an influx of other Northern European players in the database. I'm interested in a dozen Irish players, 4 Northern Irish, and 3 Scots. Other countries that are represented currently: Australia, Ivory Coast, Jamaica (2 guys), Norway, New Zealand (2), American Samoa, and Trinidad and Topago.

Be back later tonight for more.

[Coffee Warlord]

FC London: We don't play Englishmen here.

[Qwikshot]

I'd be all for the foreign players, but that low in the league, you aren't going to get much...now if you were trying that in Germany, it would be different.

[sovereignstar]

Update: I'm finding the fog of war to be a very large pain in the ass. Even after getting report cards on players I still can't see many key attributes for many of the players I'm interested in. That is making the decision-making process very tough for me. I just don't like how fog of war is set up. I'd rather see inaccurate ratings than none at all.

I don't feel comfortable enough when I can't use the search filters. The LLM guys at the SI boards would probably laugh and call me names, but I don't care. I'm going to have to restart this very young saved game and turn off fog of war. I'm probably going to use fictional players this time around as well. Look for this to resume sometime later this week.

Update #2 (6/29): Bleh. This just isn't going to work out. For fear of this thing's long-term prospects I'm going to put it to bed. I'm going to start a more normal career and hopefully it'll turn into something I want to write a dynasty about. Until it does I won't post anything else prematurely.