Coleraine F.C - No, I hadn't heard of them either!

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TurboGav

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Coleraine F.C Hire Kierran Gavin as manager.
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So... I'm the new man about town (Village) they seem a friendly enough bunch here in Northern Ireland and they ****** love their football. Unfortunately as I took my first training session I realised that they can't play it, that'll change though, when I get my feet firmly under the desk... If we can afford a desk, we only have 6 balls!!!

Goals
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  • Win the Northern Irish League cup
  • Win the Northern Irish League
  • Fix us financially before we dream of anything European
  • Dream Of Europe
  • Stop Dreaming
  • Qualify for a Group Stage... That'll do for now I feel
Wish me luck I may well need it
 
I fully expect you to win the CL second season!
 
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Struggling to start​


My first game in charge is against Glenavon... 0-0. I would have been happy with this until I realised after the game that GLENTORAN are the good team! I played on counter the entire game against relegation candidates, I'm the special one alright!

Up next was Ballinamallard Utd... 3-3. I'm sure the neutrals loved this one but after being 2-0 and 3-1 up this is very much points dropped.

Warrenpoint away and we're missing 5 players... 1-1. I had a keeper and a left back on the bench and it was the left back that turned hero scoring with 5 minutes to play. (Apologies for not naming names but most of this lot won't be here for long)

Linfield now and they really are one of the big boys in this league we could be in for a real doing if we're not careful! So just to be safe I've went for attacking movement :S, I hope we can start quickly and catch them off guard.

1-0 after 12 seconds and we definitely di... AWW ****** **** 1-1 56 seconds on the clock and they equalised! FINAL SCORE 2-3

Right now it's the league cup and my chance to rest a few players against a weak P.S.N.I. side... This totally backfired and we went to penalties. We managed to squeeze through after 24 penalties, and drew Cliftonville so I can confirm our early exit from the competition just now I assume.

Ballymena away now and we draw 1-1... We Will Win, I promise.


Not looking great just now at Coleraine but we are mid table and that's what the board want. Probably the most notable talking point this month is that we lost a ball...
 
Hahaha you lost a ball, that made me chuckle!! Looking forward to this!
 
"My first game in charge is against Glenavon... 0-0. I would have been happy with this until I realised after the game that GLENTORAN are the good team! I played on counter the entire game against relegation candidates, I'm the special one alright!"

I don't get it, where you playing Glenavon or Glentoran?
 
Curtis21 said:
"My first game in charge is against Glenavon... 0-0. I would have been happy with this until I realised after the game that GLENTORAN are the good team! I played on counter the entire game against relegation candidates, I'm the special one alright!"

I don't get it, where you playing Glenavon or Glentoran?
Click to expand...

He was playing Glenavon thinking they were Glentoran lol
 
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Green Shoots
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We play Ards in front of a "Bumper" 305 fans and we record our long overdue first win 1-0, it was a bit of a damp squib though and the board don't expect the horde to be back any time soon.

Could we continue this incredible form with a result against Cliftonville? **** right we could picking up yet another point!! 1-1

Travelling to Dungannon with the team on a high we hammered them! Unfortunately the lack of finishing power I have in my squad resulted in us only scoring once but it was enough and we won 1-0

Unfortunately we had to play top of the league Glentoran at this stage and it all went a bit **** up, restricted to 1 shot... From 30 yards! They eased to a 2-0 win, wasn't too bothered though as 386 fans turned up.

And again as we travelled to Belfast to play Crusaders we seen the gulf in quality between the 4 "big" sides and the rest we were smashed this time 3-0 and had no answer to them.




Summary
Fairly happy with this month, I've tweaked my tactic enough now that we're finally playing a bit of football, sitting 8th isn't great but we did have a really tough run toward the end of the month there and if we continue playing the way we are point will come. It feels weird to say but I'm already looking toward next season, I've never managed a club quite this rubbish before though and I'm not sure what to look for, If someone would like to give me a bit of advice on totally rebuilding a team with no money that would be great!!

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Much Better

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We had a very tough game to start the month and end the first round of fixtures, Portadown really meant business and took advantage of our low morale scoring 4 inside 30 minutes we replied with 2 later on ensure it stayed respectable 4-2

At this point I decided to call a team meeting as our defence has had more holes in it than Oscar Pistorius' bathroom door and they needed a little bit of a morale boost, the players reacted very well.

This was good news as we hosted the league's big boys in the shape of Cliftonville in the last 16 of the league cup and gave them a proper seeing to, 3-1, it was my birthday and I couldn't have wished for a better present.

Unfortunately due to some wierd scheduling we were playing 2 days later and a less than fully fit team could only mark ghosts as we played Ballinamallard, a valiant effort saw us lose 2-1. F*ck the FA.

We played Glenavon and this time I was ready for them, after accidentally showing them far too much respect the first time we played them we put on a professional display and won 1-0. I don't like Jose Mourinho but I feel right quoting him when I say "we don't have a recognised striker"

And finally this month we hosted Warrenpoint and gave them a good once over, they are struggling at the moment and their manager is in trouble. My CB didn't help when he turned in 2 corners 2-0 FT.


Summary
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Gary Twigg and Curtis Allan are far too good for the league's defences and I'm hoping the are sold in January! Mid-Table is where we were asked to be and we couldn't be more mediocre if we tried! As a birthday present the boys clubbed together and bought some bibs for training! I feel it's had a positive effect.


Finances
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Well they are ****** awful! The Rangers think they have it bad. I don't know what my chairman is doing with money at the moment but I'm not ****** happy. A nice wee sheikh or oil magnate wouldn't go amiss.

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Signings

Try bring in some free players such as Mark Stafford from Ballinamllard Utd and even if possible try get some free players from larger sides like Cliftonville or Linfield. Also attendances aren great in irish league but they get more than what it says on FM
 
Paddy FM14 said:
Try bring in some free players such as Mark Stafford from Ballinamllard Utd and even if possible try get some free players from larger sides like Cliftonville or Linfield. Also attendances aren great in irish league but they get more than what it says on FM
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Just checked out Mark Stafford! What a player for this level! I would assume so, when Celtic played Cliftonville at Solitude (the most intimidating name for a stadium ever) 7000 were there
 
TurboGav said:
Just checked out Mark Stafford! What a player for this level! I would assume so, when Celtic played Cliftonville at Solitude (the most intimidating name for a stadium ever) 7000 were there
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And Celtic won 3-0 :D
 
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I Feel Happy

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We travel to the most dominant team in NI, Linfield, and we dominate the game!! Absolutely fantastic performance from my boys as we hammer them 3-0.

We then have Ballymena Utd who I have learned are our biggest rivals, it didn't help our performance however and we crashed to a humiliating 3-1 defeat. We manage to compete vs the big teams but get embarrassed by the teams around us it seems...

It was League cup QF time and we had Annagh Utd... We scored after 1 minute and there were no more highlights boring and not good enough 1-0. We've drawn Crusaders and this time I really do expect this cup run to come to an end.

Bottom of the league Ards were our host and we went 2-0 up and survived a late scare to win 2-1. Told you we would start winning!!

Now then, we have Cliftonville at Solitude. This to me is the hardest game we can possibly have thanks to Cliftonville's reputation... My players clearly didn't care though as we were in a free scoring mood up front and a bunch of misers at the back... 1-0 2-0 3-0 and finally 4-0!! It looks like Eoin Bradley might be a decent striker after all.

We're incredibly only 6 points of Europe as we head into December and I hope with a few loan additions we can push ourselves into contention for the play offs. #MakeUsDream
 
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"We don't let this slip, we go again!"

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Dungannon prove just a bit too much, after a heroic effort against Cliftonville we go down 3-2.

Yet again we pick it up against the big teams and we beat Glentoran2-1, delighted!

We have Crusaders twice in three days now and I reckon we need something from these games or it could play havoc for morale. First up we host them in the league and then we travel to Belfast for the League Cup Semi.

We absolutely smash them at home, they rested a lot of their players, but we didn't care and we walked out of the stadium feeling ten feet tall! 4-2 at the final whistle is certainly one of my finest moments in charge... Now we get the mini bus to Belfast and set up in the travel lodge over night.

I know this won't be easy.. In fact it'll be the biggest game of season, so I'm putting a little bit extra detail into our match prep. The two goals they scored at our place were long balls over our defensive line... We were too high up and pressed too much, so we're going to sit back and sit deep this game and hope for an incisive counter. I've also done a bit of man marking and changed the us to defensive. I feel like Mourinho and I don't like it.

kick off
25 minutes... Eoin Bradley is scythed down just outside the area, I scream for a penalty but the ref isn't quite that kind, but it is a dangerous position

27 minutes... Bradley receives treatment and he should be ok... But I can't risk my top goalscorer picking up a serious injury and he comes of to be replaced by Stephen Carson. It's Carson to take it and he thunders the ball home!!!! 1-0

HT - Crusaders make all their changes at half time in the hope that they can get past our bus.

It turns out they couldn't and we're in the FINAL!!! Where we will play Ards.



We lose 2-1 to Portadown and I'm not perturbed because it was me that got it wrong...

Summary

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Although we're 7th we're just the 3 points off 4th so I'm actually very happy with the way we're going. We drew Cork City in the All Ireland Cup, they are pretty much the same level as the big boys in this but they have one or two outstanding players. Will need a great performance... But that's ages away yet.

Our finances just keep getting worse we're now 91.6k and it's not a problem that is going to go away. If a team offers big for my players in January even if I don't want to sell the board may take the deciding vote... I wouldn't blame them.




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My experience in the lower leagues is that Determination means a lot. Especially when the players have very little skill and aren't terribly athletic. Also, VERY tall goalkeepers.
 
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