Cloughie's Legacy - FMFormation.net - Football Manager

BradHally · 18-05-08, 05:43 PM

I jumped out of bed after hearing the phone ring. I galloped down the stairs trying to reach it before it stopped. I reached the phone. It stopped. I moved towards the kitchen, when the phone rang again. I pounced on the phone, lifting the reciever up. 'Hello' I said.
'Hello, is that Bradley' said a unrecognised voice,
'Yeah, speaking, who wants to know.' I replied,
'Well, I do in fact, I represent a football club in the Football League' the man spoke back quietly.
' What football club is that, may I ask?'
'Nottingham Forest' came the reply,
'What can I do for you, Mr Nottingham Forest'
'Well, you are an unemployed football manager aren't you' That bit was true but what followed was not,' You did say in the media that you could do a better job than what Brian Clough did, did you not'
'Er ... No', came the somewhat disgruntled reply by me. What I had said was that no one in the world could do a better job than what Brian Clough did, but the media being the media decided to try and make a big scoop out of it and here I was most likely in trouble!

'Well, thats what I am lead to believe by the 'News of the World' in yesterdays edition'
'Yeah, about that I did not mean any offence to any one in the club and wish to apologise to you' I spoke in a apologetic voice.
'Oh, I don't expect an apology like that, words mean nothing to me at the moment, only actions'
'What's that supposed to mean?' I asked.
'What I am telling you is that to me actions mean more than words and so I move on to business.
'What business is there to be done? I am an unemployed football manager and you have a manager. There is no business!' I exclaimed madly.
'Have you seen a newspaper yet today?' He asked
'No, and what has that got to do with the price of fish?' I replied cheekily
'I will spell it out to you then, Nottingham Forest are without a manager.' He spoke slowly like a parent to a toddler,'and we, the board and the chairman want you as the replacement'
'Really?' I was amazed, Nottingham Forest, two times winners of the European Cup wanted me as their new manager!
'Yes, really. Here's our contract offer, a three year deal worth £2,400 a week. By the end of that contract, we want to be in the Coca Cola Championship.' He sounded serious.' Do you accept?'
'Yes, of course I do' I said without a moments hesitation,'By the way, who are you?'
'I am Nigel Doughty, and welcome to Nottingham Forest. Can you come to our training ground today please.'
It was an order.
'Yes of course I can, at about half past eleven'
'That's fine'
With that I bid him farewell and apologised for my rudeness if he noticed any. I put the phone down and jumped up the stairs and got my suit ready and changed into some casual clothes.

I opened the garage door and hit my plipper and went for the back door of my car; a Land Rover. I hooked the suit, now in a bag onto the hook over the door. I closed the door and walked into the side door of my house, leaving the garage door open. I poured myself a glass of milk and drank it. It was cold. Perfect. Then, I opened a draw and took my wallet and my mobile out. I put them in my pockets. I went outside locking the side door and checked the front door. I opened the drivers side and got in the car. I turned the ignition. The car startled into life. I drove out of the garage. Then, I stopped the car and went and closed the garage door. I got back in the car and drove at a reasonable pace to the Nottingham Forest training ground.

I arrived at the training ground at approximately eleven. I got out of my car, locked it and strolled over to reception. I asked the rather familiar blonde receptionist if I could see Nigel Doughty. She asked who I was. I replied' Don't you know who I am' expecting an response that would show she knew me. But it was not to be. She did not know who I was but asked that if I was
'Yes' I replied.
'Mr Doughty told me to tell you to go straight through to his office.'
'Thankyou' I said to her and walked confidently to the chairmans office through a maze of corridors..

Eventually I reached his office where I was directed to the media room by another attractive blonde. I walked to the media room taking three wrong turns but I arrived there in one piece. I opened the door and was met by a reception of flashing cameras. I was ushered to my place on a three man panel. I recognised one man; my agent whose name I could not remember. The other man I assumed was Nigel Doughty.
The press conference began and lasted an hour. By the end of it I was bored stiff as the chairman would not let me answer any questions instead it appeared to me that he wanted to hog the limelight; my limelight!

The conference ended and I was led out to what was a large room with a leather sofa and a cupboard as well as a desk. On the desk there was a computer monitor. There was also a black leather chair. I was told to sit on the chair. Nigel walked in and sat on the sofa. He signed a piece of paper and handed it to me. It was my contract. I signed it. Then, he handed me a CD. He told me that on the CD there was all of the teams value and attributes given by the assistant manager. He also handed me another piece of paper. On it was the transfer budget and wage budget for the season. He left the room and left me to my own devices. I decided to load the PC up and look at his disk.

I sat the desk for 6 hours working out who to play where and what formation to play. But at six o'clock, I decided to give up and drive home.
What had my big mouth got me into?

jakielove · 18-05-08, 05:56 PM

nice story enjoyed reading it

BradHally · 18-05-08, 09:02 PM

I reached my house and immediately went inside and turned Sky Sports News on. There was me on the telly! I picked my laptop up from inside my desk drawer. I turned it on and checked my e-mails. There was 3 unread e-mails. I looked at them. One was from Plymouth, another from the chairman and another from the assistant manager. I read the one from the assistant manager, which made uncomfortable reading. He wanted to be released from his contract. I reluctantly agreed with him and released him from his contract. The next email from the chairman was describing what was a package which the receptionist now known to me as Donna gave to me as I left the training ground. It explained to me that inside it there was DVD's and a CD rom with more in depth player profiles. The final email from Plymouth was that were bidding £375k for my goalie, Paul Smith. I accepted after looking at his valuation, which was £110k. I turned my laptop off and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning at 7:30 AM. I cooked myself breakfast and got changed into a tracksuit. I had left the house by 8:15 AM for the training ground.
I arrived at around 9ish and went straight to my office where I sat playing Solitaire. The chairman came in. He had with him an entourage of people, who he introduced to me. There was Fred, the kitman who gave me 2 cardboard boxes full of training kits and tracksuits. Then, there was my personal assistant Joanna. I was then told that I had a meeting with the main candidate for the vacant assistant managers job the next day at 10. Training was between 8 and 9:30.
I went home and shared my evening with a pack of 4 Carlsbergs and then went to bed sleeping like a log.

**Jonners71** · 19-05-08, 11:41 AM

Like this mate, nice one - keep it up

BradHally · 19-05-08, 05:58 PM

I walked into my office and was greeted with a smile from a man, who I assumed to be the only candidate for the vacant assistant managers job. 'Hi, its John isn't it?' I said friendly,
'Yeah, I take it that you are Bradley' He said in a thick cockney accent
'Yeah, I assume you still want the assistant manager's job' I said as I sat on my leather chair, ' Take a seat'
'Thanks, Yes, I am still interested just because of the history of this club' He replied
'Its amazing, I hope I can rival it and do that I'm going to need to big time'
'Thanks, its nice to feel wanted unlike at Fulham, where they just gave me the youth team to work with'
'Oh really' I said sounding suprised,' What sort of wage are you looking at?' I asked him
'I don't want you to break your wage structure just for me but I'm looking for around £3,500 a week'
I hummed and harred a bit over this for several minutes.
'That's a bit over what I had in mind' I said as I remembered that I was only £5,000 a week under my wage budget.
'If thats a bit too much, I can go down to about £3,000'
'I will give you £3,100' I said trying to stay in his favour.
'You my friend have a new assistant manager' He said.
'Great! When can you start?' I asked him
'Tomorrow, as long as you pay the fee today'
'I will get on to the chairman to tell them we have a deal and that he can pay them the £275,000'.

With that he said farewell and left my office taking Joanna as a guide to get him to the front of the building. I got out my chair and ran to the chairman's office. I knocked on it 3 times.'Come' said a voice
I walked in and informed the chairman about my agreement with John and told him to tell Fulham as well as pay them. He sounded suprised when I told him the fee but he understood when I told him how good he was and would be with our young squad. I walked out of the room and went straight back to my office.

While, I was in the chairman's office he told me to make a recommendation a parent club for us. There was Manchester City and Manchester United. An easy choice really. I chose Man United. The chairman phoned the club, told them they had been chosen, then emailed city to tell them that they were unsuccessful.

I turned the computer on. I loaded up Firefox and checked my emails. There was a new email in the inbox. It was from Manchester United. It was a list of all the players they were sending me. There was Tom Heaton, a goalkeeper, Micheal Barnes, a midfielder, Micheal Lea, a defender and Dong Fangazohu , a striker. I emailed them back telling them of my acceptance of them all. Then, I emailed Coslada about a little known gem in Spain that they had but was out of contract; Alex Fernandez.

Coslada replied a few minutes later putting the players agent into contact. The agent rang me 5 minutes later as I was just leaving for lunch with Joanna. He told me that the player would be very interested in moving to the club. I offered him £350 a week and he accepted the offer without consulting the player. I told him to get Fernandez into the country by tomorrow and told him to tell the player to come to the training ground straight away, as long as it was before 6 o'clock. If not get a hotel and come to training at the training ground the next day. He said that it was fine and he would be there before 6 tomorrow. Then, I grabbed my coat and took Joanna out for dinner.

BradHally · 20-05-08, 06:36 PM

My first month of management flew by, one day I was in a foreign country, the next I was at the training ground signing players. Overall, in my personal opinion, pre season went pretty well. In the space of a month, I had signed Alex Fernandez, Micheal Lea, Micheal Barnes and Dong Fanghouzu,Tom Heaton and recruited a new assistant manager, who said that I needed to bolster my midfield as it was weak. I disagreed with him about that and did not sign a midfielder. Resultswise, we were very inconsistent winning a few against harder,better teams and drawing or losing to team who were weaker and a lot lower than us in the league structure. Anyway, matchday 1 approached...

I walked into the dressing room at the Liberty Stadium, Swansea, a bundle of nerves. I went to the bathroom several times whilst the players were changing and warming up. Then, it was time for me to give my first proper team talk to my football team. I told the players that they were under no pressure for this match and to just go out and enjoy it. The teams were called and the players departed the changing room, I followed at the back. We was met by a roar of noise as the players ran out of the tunnel. I walked to the dugout, taking the atmosphere in. I reached my seat, unzipped my coat, revealing my black suit with a red tie. I threw my coat down and sat on it and got ready for the kick off.

The game started badly as withing 30 minutes Swansea were 2-0 up. I was furious at the assistant referee as one goal was offside, but I was also fuming at the defence for conceding both of the goals. Half time came, the players went back into the dressing room and received a rollicking telling them to buck their ideas up or else. I took me seat under the dugout.

The final score was 3-0 but we played better football than them and the goal was a defensive mistake. To make matters worse, my central defender was injured and will be out for 3-4 weeks. But, I believe that the replacement will be able to handle it. I boarded the team coach angry and upset that I may have possibly been mistaken about my first impressions of the team.

The next match was a League Cup game against lower opposition, so I let the assistant manager take centre stage controlling the team but I picked it with my formation. Heaton was ineligible so in came rookie goalkeeper

The match went well and we won to go through to the next round against Southampton. The next game after the league cup was against Crewe, where we drew 2-2. The first home of the season was against Doncaster, where we earnt a hard fought 1-0 win.

**WozzaWolves** · 20-05-08, 07:20 PM

Fantatic stuff mate!

Really hope you keep this going, i'll definately be reading this ;D

KUTGW

BradHally · 20-05-08, 09:05 PM

Thanks for the comments guys.
I'm not stopping this as I may have a chance of promotion this season!
I'm going to do one game per month in depth and about the cup games in the style of the league cup game vs Morecambe (sorry for not adding this in the post).
All criticism will be taken and improvements to the format will be made as I go on.

BradHally · 28-05-08, 12:06 PM

Southampton arrived at the City Ground for the 2nd round of the League Cup. Again, I let the assistant manager pick the team because I did not expect to achieve anything out of the tournament. The tactic, an attacking 4-4-2 remained the same as the league matches. The first half came and went, we had a 2 goal advantage, Dong was the scorer of both. But I would never have dreamt that the second half would have seen us concede 5 goals in a manic 20 minute period. I was fuming. The defence had been ripped to shreds. It had also fallen like a house of cards in a gale. It was unbelievable. The final score was Forest 2 Southampton 5.

Everyone in the team was present at training the next day. They all received a severe rollicking and a punishment each, which was to run a 25km run the following day. As I told the team the news, there was a wave of groans. I said,'Shall I make it 30km'. The response to that was much better, and was followed by a chorus of no and your alright boss.

I went into my office about an hour after training and checked my emails. There was one from Colchester regarding Nathan Tyson, my striker. I read it. Then I reread it. There was pure amazement on my face. Colchester, in the championship had offered me £375,000 for Nathan Tyson. I sat on the sofa in the office contemplating what to do. Then, I searched up the names of my transfer targets. There was one at Colchester, Kemal Izzet. He was a central midfielder and was valued at around £250,000.

I saw the chairman at lunchtime. He told me to do what I felt was necessary to get the player but then I told him about Tyson. He told me the valuation that Colchester had given me was over the top and it would mean that the club would recoup some of the £600,000 they paid for him a few years ago.

I emailed Colchester back after having Tyson's agent on my back for a good hour badgering me to accept the offer. I accepted the offer and made a £250,000 bid for Izzet. I recieved a reply a matter of minutes later. It said that they had accepted the offer for Izzet and are proceeding with contract talks with Tyson. I spoke to Izzet's agent on the phone who told me his demands. The demands were £3,000 a week. It was within my budget so I agreed after insisting on a 3 year contract.

Izzet arrived at the training ground the next day and the formalities were completed.He was officially a Nottingham Forest player.

**Jonners71** · 10-06-08, 02:30 PM

Still good stuff - hope you keep it going

**liveru** · 10-06-08, 03:33 PM

Bloody good story here mate.

I love the quote from the News Of The World in your first post.

Brilliant. Keep up the good work.

**Hartynips** · 11-06-08, 05:12 AM

Hey Brad a great story really enjoying this.

Good signing in Izzet too! kutgw mate

BradHally · 14-06-08, 02:58 PM

Thanks for the comments.
The next update will be as soon as I load up FM again which could be in a few days time or when I get bored of revising for my RE and Science.

**Hartynips** · 14-06-08, 07:59 PM

Good job fella, you'd better or were coming round!

Only jokin, I know from experience its difficult to keep a story going. Anyways hope you come back to it soon.

**Bfc-Fan** · 16-06-08, 04:07 AM

Quote:
"I emailed Colchester back after having Tyson's agent on my back for a good hour badgering me to accept the offer."

Badgering lmfao, nice one, love it.

Keep it up mate, hope u keep it up.