Leatherhead Football Club

Honestly, the thing i was most excited about on FM10 when i saw the new feature list, was the improvements to the editor. A tad sad maybe, but the main reason for this was so that i could add further leagues to the English structure and be able to play as my local team, Leatherhead, who preside in the Isthmian League Division One South, two leagues below Blue Square South.

Luckily, when i got the game some nice fellow ove ron the official forums had already created a DB that took the english structure down to level 7 (exactly the level i needed)

So i present to you:

Leatherhead FC 2009/2010

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I joined the club and was told to achieve a solid position in the league with £0 transfer money (not that i was expecting anything) and a wage budget of £2,058. I had a squad of 14 players, 3 reserves and 11 youths. The team was alright in places but the Defence and midfield needed improvement in small places so i delved into the world of ~~dodgy alley dealing~~ Free transfers, once i'd cleared my youths and a few reserve players to hopefully try and push my wage budget up (they actually gave me a bit of money for transfers after that, i'm not entirely sure why...) Anyway, here's my dealings in the Transfer Market;

Ins

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Craig Lewington is an AMC who can hopefully bring a bit of creativity to my midfield.
Julian Charles is a ST who should be one of my starting forward's and looks like a good buy
Joe Day is a GK who looks alot better than my current keeper
Ndiwa Lord-Kangana is, i confess, a playe ri bought mainly for his name, but actually looks like a pretty solid DC
and finally Charlie Welch is a much needed ML who looks pretty nifty.

Outs (getting rid of deadwood pretty much)

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So after my transfer dealings my starting XI in a 4-4-2 formation looked like this:

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And so onto the season, Pre-Season went pretty well, two losses to start but then a draw and a win once my new signings came in, a final loss to League 2 opposition left us finishing pre-season on a low but i was confident we would have a good start to the season.

I'm currently on the 1st January 2010, a game or two over the halfway mark in the season and here's how the table looks:

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I'm actually shellshocked at how well this is going so far. The team gelled well together after the first 5/6 games and despite a few narrow wins, disappointing losses and a few too many draws for my liking we've managed to claw our way up to 2nd. One factor in this was our successes in the FA Cup Qualifying Rounds and the FA Carlsberg Trophy Qualifying rounds which meant we ended up with three games in hand on the teams above us. Everyone's scoring goals, my two highest scorers are Midfielders, 3rd is my Right-Back whilst my two central defenders are joint on goals with both my strikers. It's been a phenominal start and i cna only hope it keeps on going, we're currently on an 11 game unbeaten run in the league but the games have mainly been scraped draws..

One final point before i finish this update is our success in the FA Cup Qualifying Rounds. I wanted us to have a good run so i told the lads to try and win every game we played. We played well through the first two rounds and found ourselves facing Blue Square South highflyers Woking. I couldn't see us getting a result but here's what happened:

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An unbelieveable but thoroughly well deserved result, we dominated from start to finish and let in a silly goal in the second half that almost caused a comeback but we held on. We managed to get to the First Round proper! Only to lose 2-0 against League 2 Northampton, but nonetheless a fantastic achievement. (and i JUST noticed we won the game on my birthday