Wednesdayboy

The backstory to Redditch - Champions of the World

The story starts in the most unusual of places, 106 miles north of Redditch in Sheffield. Joshua Darling had just qualified his level two coaching badge at the age of 29, he was playing for Sheffield FC but had suffered a back injury and the doctors had told him to stop playing Football due to it so he had decided to finish the season and then get a coaching Job at the club, but come the end of the season, the board were unable to offer him a job at the club due to financial difficulties. So Josh looked elsewhere. He contacted many clubs before he was offered the Job as First team coach at Redditch.

He moved down to Redditch and got himself a nice flat with his very nice room-mate Sean, Everything was set for the beggining of pre-season when the worst happened, The manager was found to be spending money the chairman had given him for the club on himself and was fired. The board asked if anyone at the club wanted the job and only Josh showed interest. He was later offered the job but the previous manager had left the club in bad state. The club was in debt and in a meeting with the board he was told that if he didn't take 1k off the wage budget and stay in the division at the end of the year, the club would go bust. So Josh looked through every player and sold nearly half the squad for nothing taking the wage budget down by 2k. But now Josh had a bigger problem, he had to take a weakened team that was predicted to finish bottom before the clear out to safety. Josh brought in some very young, talented players but the best player came from an unlikely source.

He was in his flat one sunday in June when his flatmate Sean Coburn asked him to come to watch his pub team as he wanted to show he knew the Redditch manager. But when he got there he found more than just praise from fans. It turned out that Sean Coburn was one of the best Players Josh had seen play football in the flesh. Josh had found the player that would keep Redditch in the Blue Square Premier North.

TBC soon.

apthered

a great start to what could become a great story
i read your other thread too and it seems that you have a really good challenge on your hands
good luck and i hope you can get there!

Wednesdayboy

Josh had brought in alot of great players over the past few weeks and they had had a great pre-season, Josh Wright, Dave McEwen and Sean Coburn had done well and a 1-1 draw against Man U Reserves was the highlight of the month and everybody was fired up for the opening game against Harrogate when another nightmare for Josh occured, his one and only Keeper had handed in his notice, it turns out that his wife was pregnant and he had to work longer hours to support his new family and didn't have time for football, now Josh had a huge problem on hands, he had no goalkeeper and no money to buy one, he didn't even have a wage budget left, he was going to put one of his reserve defenders in the net when it hit him, Why doesn't he go in net.

Before he played in central midfield for Sheffield FC, he was a goalkeeper for his local side, and was pretty good, and he would do it for free, but he had only 2 days to convice the Board to sign a new contract so he is both player and manager. Needless to say the board was very happy to hear that they could get a keeper for nothing at all and was happy to see the comitment of the manager towards the future of the club. Now he had his team ready he was ready to anounce his first squad to play Harrogate Town at home.

Hartynips

Great start to the story, It sounds like its going to be a "When Saturday Comes" for 2008.

Intresting stuff there matey, keep it going!

Wednesdayboy

OOC: Indepth match reports like this will only happen on special occasions, big wins ect, everything here is based on true events in FM08.

Its matchday, the squad is in the dressing room when Josh comes in.

"K guys I have something to tell you, as you know our onlu goalkeeper gary has quit the team so we don't have a keeper, but don't worry cos i'm taking his place."

Theres some words said while Josh gets changed about whether or not Josh is a good keeper, but they decide to reserve judgement after all, who would like to get on the wrong side of a boss that had sold half his squad before the season began.

Josh stands up infront of his team in his yellow and black shirt on and NO 1 on the back, it felt good to be playing football for a team again, he goes through the team on the board and gives there instructions before giving his speech,
"I'm not going to lie to you guys, were in for a hard season, everyone thinks were gonna by bottom with 3 points at the end of the season, you could win today and theres no pressure anymore for the rest of the season an you can finish bottom and no-one will be shocked, or you can win today, and on monday, and next saturday and you can give the papers and the leagues something to talk about, any team can go down, but it takes something special to keep a team up, why do you think I'm going in net, its not cos I'm Cech, its cos I'm willing to do anything I can to keep this team up and to push up the table, I'm not kidding guys but this league is wide open, its just 4-5 good teams and the other 16-17 our just like us, strugglers, Wright your good at maths, if theres 2 automatic places, playoff positions and only 5 teams garanteed to finish in them how many are left for the other 17 to get." Wright says, "1 boss". "thats right" says Josh, "if were the best of the crap teams and we can get that playoff spot and then who knows, but we need a win today to kick start our season, so come on guys, lets get at them, and give them something to worry about, they think were going to be push overs cos they think were the worst in the league so lets send some shockwaves through the Conference North."

As the teams leave the dugout and run out onto the pitch, the commentators begin to speak.

"Hello and welcome to the first league match of the season here at a sunny Vally stadium against Harrogate town, lets hope we get a good game and a win for Redditch today. Harrogate kick off, Jackson passes it back to wood who boots it up field, Holland trys to get on the end of it but it goes out for a goal kick, Darling boots it up field and Merris beats a redditch player to the air but it falls to the feet of Wright who plays it to the left to Ogden who cuts inside and runs forward, he's 40 yards from the goal, he plays a beautiful ball through the middle of the two centre backs, McEwen runs after it, the keeper comes out, McEwen gets there first and... SLOTS IT INTO THE CORNER OF THE NET, WHAT A GOAL 1 MINIUTE INTO THE GAME, AND ITS JOSH'S NEW SIGNING, DAVE McEWEN!"

... 1-0

"And thats a long ball by Harrogate thats caught by Josh, he boots the ball long to the left and its brought down beautifully by McEwen, he turns and runs at Harrogate's defence, he skips past one challenge and looks up, he crosses the ball low into the box, Iqbal gets goalside of his marker and attacks the ball, he strikes it left footed across the keeper and INTO THE FAR CORNER OF THE NET, WHAT A WELL WORKED GOAL BY McEWEN AND IQBAL AND 7 MINIUTES IN, REDDITCH FIND THEMSELVES 2 NIL UP!"

... 2-0

"Wright gets the ball at the halfway line and runs at Harrogate, confidence is runnign through every players body now, he beats his first man and his second he's 30 yards from goal, Wood slides in and miss's the ball. He's given a yellow card and Redditch are given a direct freekick 25 yards out, Coburn steps up to take it, he hits it over the wall and IN TO THE TOP CORER OF THE NET, I DON'T BELIEVE IT, 3-0 TO REDDITCH AFTER 40 MINIUTES. HE BENT THAT BALL LIKE BECKHAM, THE CAPTAIN SCORES HIS FIST GOAL FOR THE CLUB AND WHAT A GOAL, REDDITCH LEAD AFTER 40 MINIUTES, 3 GOALS TO NIL!"

... 3-0

Hunter finds himself some space and plays the ball into the path of Jackson, who hammers it into the roof of the goal with 5 miniutes left, Josh got his fingertips to the ball but the sheer power of the shot sent it in, although Redditch have already won, Josh will be dissapointed he didn't keep a clean sheet."

... 3-1

"Its over, and Redditch win there first game of the season by 3 goals to 1, a great sign of things to come."

A smile comes across the boss's face as Josh walks off the pitch to a cheering crowd, he knows the club can survive now, all they need to do, is beat the teams in line for Promotion and the ultimate dream can come true.

TBC soon

Wednesdayboy

Several weeks have past since the Harrogate match and things haven't been going as well as they did on te first day of the season, several losses and draws and only 2 wins puts them in the relegation zone, and 2 points from safety, but there is something besides the league that could cheer the players and the fans up, a cup run.

It was the draw for the FA Cup on Wednesday and Joh called all his players into the dressing room to watch the draw, but instead of getting a little team below them they got Cambridge City. Now you might all think Cambridge City are a poor team, but Cambridge had loaned them some good players and they were top of the BSS but miles after being undefeated all season, they were going to take this match seriously, and with the match a week on saturday, they had little time to prepare.

Can they pull it off or will they fail to get past the 2nd qualifying round and will they stay up or will all of Josh's hard work not stop this sinking ship.

BirdyFC

Good luck with this Wednesdayboy. Hopefully you can turn your fortunes round with a good win in the FA Cup

KIU

Chris

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Wednesdayboy

Its cup day, Josh is in goal and Redditch have made the greatest start they could of asked for, after 16 min Amjad Iqbal slotted home from 6 yards to go 1-0 up. As the half goes on Cambridge start to come back into the game and in the second half they start like they finished and Redditch found themselves on the backfoot.

Then Cambridge got there goal, a shot from the edge of the box going straight into the top corner. Then 18 min later, they get another putting them in the lead. Josh tells his guys to push up, telling them that there behind and have nothing to lose and shurly enough the game starts to change.

Redditch are constantly attacking Cambridge and they have loads of chances, hitting the post but nothing seems to go there way when in the 88th minute the ball is cleared by cambridge and it goes to Redditch man Coburn, who boots the ball back into the box to an offside Gareth Law who heads it in making it 2-2.

It looks set for a replay and with 5 min added on in injury time Cambridge went defensive, trying to stay in the draw, but then 4 min into ijury time, Josh Wright hits the ball into the top corner from 35 yards to steal the game from under Cambridges feet.

Final Score: 3-2.

Schmidy

Well played mate, keep it up

Thanks to liveru for the sig

Hartynips

Great cup win there WB keep your chin up mate, im sure it'll all come good!