KickStarter Where's The Passion Lads? Let's Get a Job in Football Manager 2024

[wwsd]

So, a while ago FM24 was discounted on Steam. The first new Football Manager game I bought since FM 2010 way back in the day. With 14 years in between, I never really had the experience of being pissed off at small changes between different editions, because I simply didn't play them. After three seasons with Ajax, in which I conclusively demonstrated that I'm more competent than Maurice Steijn and Sven Mislintat (not a high bar, since they managed to put Ajax in the relegation zone at some point last season), I thought it might be fun to step away from the 8-figure transfer sums and high-intensity 4-2-3-1 Gegenpressing, and go for an old FM classic: the Journeyman save. What is a journeyman, I hear you ask?

journeyman /jûr′nē-mən/

noun​

1. One who has fully served an apprenticeship in a trade or craft and is a qualified worker in another's employ.
2. An experienced and competent but undistinguished worker.
3. Formerly, a man hired to work by the day; now, commonly, one who has finished an apprenticeship and is a competent worker in a handicraft or trade, but has not received recognition as a master; -- distinguished from apprentice and from master workman.
4. A competent and experienced worker who performs adequately but without a high level of expertise or imagination.
5. A tradesman who has served an apprenticeship and is employed by a master tradesman.
6. A competent but undistinguished tradesman, especially one who works, and is paid by the day.
7. A player who plays on many different teams during the course of his career.
8. A skilled worker who practices some trade or handicraft.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik

The definition most relevant to FM is the 7th one. In FM, one of the non-negotiable aspects of it is that you start unemployed and apply for a team still has a vacancy at the start of the game (or go on holiday and wait until someone gets sacked mid-season), and you hop jobs when it's feasible and worth it for the advancement. Although for me it's just as acceptable to fall in love with a club and take them into the professional leagues, but we'll see what happens.

In any case, the other definitions also apply: you necessarily start as little more than a day labourer, and slowly become a "competent but undistinguished" football manager. But eventually you can become more and more skilled.

Game start:

FM offers a host of different starting options, both for the game world and you as a manager. I decided to start the game in the "real world". This means that the teams will be as they were in the run-up to the 23/24 season, with any summer signings already present, but not the winter signings, who will automatically come in the winter transfer window. Maybe not so relevant for a low-league start, but I decided to disable the first transfer window. So the squad you get is the one you have to make do with for the first half year. I did allow the game to add key staff, since it also doesn't make sense for a rookie manager to be allowed to bring in his own backroom team.

Game start: Unemployed
Game mode: Real world
Adding key staff: Enabled
First transfer window: Disabled

Leagues:

You always have to choose which leagues to load. The more leagues are being simulated, the harder it is on your system. To balance this out, and since I'm playing an English lad, I decided to load all the leagues in the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland), plus all the leagues in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain to provide for a variety of opportunities on the continent. This still gives me 3.5-stars in game speed on my laptop. However, I can add or remove leagues during the game. A true journeyman is a globetrotter, so why not manage in Greece, the Czech Republic, Brazil or Indonesia at some point?

The manager:



Joe Hardman, 37 years old. A relic from a different era, he was the type of player they've been trying to rid the game of for years. As a defensive midfielder for his local Sunday league team, he quickly established himself as the key leader on the pitch and in the dressing room, mainly due to his ability to shout "OI U WOT M8???" at the top of his voice louder than any of his team-mates. But he also ended more than a few of his opponents' careers. So there was a bit of Schadenfreude in the local media when one bad step destroyed his right knee in 2019, and he never played football again.

His hobbies include having a laugh with the lads and summer holidays to Mallorca, drinking pints of lager and picking up birds. But his real dream was always to be the man in the raincoat, the gaffer, the... Football Manager. During the Covid pandemic, his career as under-assistant sausage roll procurement manager at Greggs came to a screeching halt, and he decided to study for his C licence online. So, this is debatable too, as some people advocate starting without any papers at all. But I don't know why any club would allow soeone to become manager without any loicence, unless he was a retired pro or something. So I decided to start with the lowest possible licence instead.



Yes, in Football Manager nowadays, we can actually *roll* a character and min-max his stats! Is FM an RPG? Do these stats matter? Who knows? In any case, because of our amateur experience and basic coaching education, they are all very low at the start.

And so, on a rainy English summer day, Joe Hardman steps into the local Jobcentre, looks under the 'F' for 'Football Manager', and finds the following vacancies:




Thankfully, we don't have to tackle this alone. We have... a Personal Assistant!



The lovely Susan Dublin is a bit hard to make out in this tiny thumbnail, but she looks like she has fetal alcohol syndrome. In any case, when she wasn't selling sausage rolls at Greggs, she would often see Joe break legs, and has been a lifelong admirer who will be supporting us in this managerial journey.

Although the Ajax vacancy is open (a consequence of the setting I chose at the start, I guess), we probably don't stand a chance to get that job or any of the other professional teams here. For the moment, I would prefer to manage a club, not some shitty country like Gambia or Suriname, and definitely not Ukraine Under-20s or something. But beggars can't be choosers, so for now, let's just apply for all open managerial positions, and see who bites!



Joe's buddy John works at FourFourTwo and gives us a leg up by "interviewing" us as if we're already a prominent manager! Result! Indeed, why not go abroad? Meanwhile the rejection emails come in from Gateshead and Havant & Waterlooville, in the Vanarama National League, and National League South, respectively. Getting a job will not be easy.



We while away the summer days as more rejections keep coming in. It was to be expected that the application for Huddersfield, playing in the Championship, would not be successful. But so far, no luck with any non-league teams either. Susan enthusiastically forwards us the news that Sligo Rovers in Ireland have sacked their manager mid-season. "wd b a gd chance for u maybe?" she texts. So of course we apply. Surprisingly enough, they invite us for an interview! They are a professional club that used to be competitive in the Irish Premier Division, although their best finish in recent years was 3rd place in 2021.



What a difference a day makes: one moment you're in a Jobcentre, the next you're being flown out to Ireland! We decide to bluff our way through the interview: of course we'll improve the atmosphere in the dressing room, which has been lacking. As a result of this, Sligo are 9th out of 10 in the league. Of course we don't need to bring in our staff! Of course we're happy to start in the middle of the season with the club heading for relegation! The chairman politely thanks us, but won't make a decision straight away. Still reeling from this interview, we learn that all English clubs have rejected us, but Briton Ferry in Wales do want to talk.

Briton Ferry Llansawel A.F.C. are a semi-professional team in the Cymru South, the southern half of the second tier of Welsh football. However, they are favourites to win the league this season. After a long trip to Wales, the chairman Wyn Evans is surprisingly enthusiastic. They have been competitive in Cymru South for some time now, with three successive 3rd places, just falling short of promotion. Now he finally wants to take the club to the next level. For his manager, he seems to be looking more for a certain personality type, and is willing to take a risk.

After a week of waiting, finally we receive word that Sligo Rovers decided to go with a manager with significant Irish Premier League experience. However, Briton Ferry want to offer us a contract! As nice as it would have been to have some choice of different clubs, it's a chance to start our career with some silverware, if the team are as good as the media would have us believe. Time to pack our bags and move to Wales.





Next, we'll explore the club, its history, ground, supporters, and the Welsh football pyramid.

 

[Falksi]

Joe Hardman sounds like a top boy, he's got my backing.

 

[Andnjord]

An excellent initiative. Tally ho, Godspeed and all that, Joe Hardman truly sounds like a top bloke.

 

[wwsd]

A journeyman save is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get. I was wondering if I would get a big selection of clubs to choose from, even if they're not great, but in the event, only Briton Ferry were willing to offer our mad lad Joe Hardman a job. So then obviously a few questions spring to mind:

- Who are Briton Ferry Llansawel A.F.C.?
- Where is Briton Ferry, what kind of place is it?
- Why was the club only founded in 2009?
- How does the Welsh league pyramid work?
- What tactic do I play?
- Oops, looks like I got the one team in the league that's expected to win it - are they actually good enough? I have no idea.
- Do I need to be able to speak Llanfaircymrullewelynish or whatever Welsh is called in Welsh?

Many questions, but let's start with the obvious one: Who the hell are Briton Ferry Llansawel A.F.C.?

Surprisingly enough, Briton Ferry are based in... Briton Ferry. The Welsh name for Briton Ferry is Llansawel. So why is it called Briton Ferry Llansawel A.F.C.? Well, they are a merger of two clubs, Briton Ferry Athletic, and Llansawel, who were based in nearby Neath. So now they have this name that is either bilingual or just redundant, depending on your perspective. Before the merger, Briton Ferry had varying degrees of success, but dropped down the the fourth tier in 2008. Post-merger, they made their way back to the second tier, where they are favourites to win (and did, in fact, become #1 in the real-life 23/24 season, winning promotion to the Cymru Premier, the Welsh equivalent of the Premier League). More about the club history can be found on their website: https://www.britonferryllansawelafc.com/history.php

Briton Ferry, or Llansawel, is a town of 6,000 located on the mouth of the River Neath, just a 20-minute drive from the more famous city of Swansea. Also more famous in footballing terms, as Swansea City A.F.C. participate in the English football pyramid rather than the Welsh one, and they were in the English Premier League and Europa League during the 2010s.

A rather romantic documentary about the history of the town:



Some good old-fashioned #brokenbritain seething about the wider area from the unsurpassed channel "Turdtowns":



In the nearby town of Port Talbot, there are major steelworks. With the combination of steelworks and a beach, as a Dutch person, my frame of reference for it is that it's the "Welsh IJmuiden", but that probably means nothing to anyone reading this.

The area lies within the constituency of Aberavon, which is fair to say is a Labour safe seat, currently represented by Stephen Kinnock. In fact the area has a long socialist tradition.

According to the game, the stadium is called "The Old Welfare Ground", but it's actually called The Old Road. The stadium has a capacity of 2,000 and looks like a decent trip for some old-fashioned ground hopping:

The grand stand can seat 250 according to the game.

For Codexers with better education than Joe Hardman, the function of General Manager at Britton Ferry Llansawel A.F.C. is currently vacant. Don't miss out on this opportunity!

The first squad, pictured in September 2023:

Let's hope Joe Hardman will last long enough at the club for me to learn to identify all these players by their faces.

The club can be followed on Twitter: https://x.com/bflafc

The current squad can be seen here. It may differ a bit compared to the July 2023 game start in FM, without any winter transfers having progressed yet.

The squad in FM, with the star ratings from the assistant manager:




Now there are two assistant managers at the club, and if these reports come from Chris Llewellyn, they are actually pretty accurate, as he has a Judging Player Ability and Judging Player Potential rating of 12 each. So we will be relying on him a lot for the first indication of which players are good and which ones are shite. But in the end, it's all about performances. Our defenders, wing backs, wingers and strikers are all pretty good, but Cameron Berry is the only really good player in the central midfield. It'll be hard to make a useful formation out of this.

Three great players are leaving in the winter transfer window to reflect the real-life situation: the left midfielder Declan Evans, the playmaker Cameron Berry (also missing the start of the season due to injury) and the talented goalie, Aaron Jones. However, a goalkeeper, attacking midfielder and technical striker will be coming in January.

Before Joe Hardman took over, the club has already been playing some pre-season friendlies, winning three and losing one. In fact, we've got only one more friendly coming up against Cymru Premier side Haverfordwest County, and then it's straight on to the league:



The coaching staff consists of the manager, two assistants, and two goalkeeping coaches, whereas the board only want to have two coaches altogether. Could be problematic. In terms of scouting, there is a technical director, but no other scouts. The medical team has one physio, but nobody else:



Improvements can be made here, especially in scouting so we can look for some players to sign on a free as soon as possible. Note that we are a semi-professional club, so players, staff, etc. all work part-time, and training is only done on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Joe will be looking to bring in a Head of Youth Development, a Head Physio, a Chief Scout, and maybe another scout.

Anyway, on the day of Joe's arrival, it's already time for the first friendly. Let's first say hello to the team:



A good start to get the morale up. For tactics, it's still a bit of a puzzle. There isn't really a formation that uses all our strongest players, unless we want to go with an asymmetric formation. Since we're up against an opponent from a higher league, we'll start conservatively for now:



With three at the back and wing-backs, we should have a strong block. We'll seek to get the ball to the tall guy and have the attacking CM run up to have 3 guys pushing at their defence, while the wing-backs seek the overlap. This is merely a template and it may change in further games, or get more customised. But probably best to keep it simple at this level.

Anyway, without further ado, let's take on Haverfordwest County in the first and last friendly.




With the pouring rain sending God knows what filth from the steelworks down onto our heads, we managed a victory over the (on paper) stronger opponents by the narrowest of margins. Both sides were playing a defensive game with little to enjoy for the fans. But good crossing by the Reds posed an aerial threat a few times, and on one such occasion, deep in injury time, a push in the box led to a penalty. Tom Walters stepped up to the plate and made no mistake. His description from the club's website:

---

Tom Walters​

Previously Cymru South top scorer and title winner at Llantwit.
Tom was a major summer signing with a number of clubs chasing his signature.
The 26 year old loves the physical side of the game, is great in the air and a prolific finisher and will be looking to continue his scoring exploits at the Old Road this season.

That will do it for today. Next, we'll actually start playing some competitive games!

 

[Andnjord]

Go Briton Ferry Llansawel A.F.C.!!!!!


Yeah, this is gonna be good.

Spoiler

Until it gets abandonned on page three, but this is some good stuff so far.

 

[wwsd]

So, after a little over a month of Joe Hardman's tenure at Briton Ferry, let's take stock of where we are. Appointments at this level don't really attract a lot of media attention, with only one journalist attending our first presser:



Sgorio is a real-life Welsh-language football show with live games and highlights. See below for some highlights of a real-life Briton Ferry game against Ammanford (Rhydaman) on April 9th, 2024:



The beautiful man with the slight double chin and beer belly who scores an epic four goals in one game is Luke Bowen. In this game, they won the Cymru South title and promotion to the Cymru Premier in real life. Bowen ended second in the top scorer's table with 29 goals. A great achievement that will be a challenge for Joe Hardman and co. to equal in FM. So how did we get on in the first clutch of games?



The first game against Llanelli Town, also considered title contenders, was a disappointment. We had more possession and shots, but very few that tested the opposing goalkeeper. This was followed by a second-round Welsh League Cup (compare to the English League Cup) elimination at the hands of Cardiff Metropolitan University. This is no disgrace, since they're in the Cymru Premier, one level above us. But it would have been nice to be more competitive in the cup. Form started improving with three straight wins afterwards, but this could not be continued at home against Caerau Ely. In fact our home form has been weaker than our away form so far. Although with an average attendance of 173 at Old Road, it would perhaps be hard to speak of a home advantage. With a strong recovery against Afan Lido, we are back in with a shout, and the league table currently looks like this:



Obviously it's very early days, and although we haven't had an amazing start, a title challenge is certainly still possible.

For Joe Hardman, managing in the lower leagues has also been a hard learning school. After the cup defeat, it's decided that the 5-3-2 is too conservative. It invites too much pressure, and we lack the individual quality to break through this. Although I don't want to download any broken tactics (and this probably won't help much with this low level of players), I did get some cues from FM YouTube, and made a copycat of the three flavours of 4-4-2 presented here. The video explains how to make a solid 4-4-2 for lower leagues in this iteration of FM, without trying to cheese the match engine. There are balanced, attacking and defending flavours. Defending here doesn't mean parking the bus, but defending up the field, while keeping more control at the back by pulling the wing-backs and flank midfielders back. The starting 11 then looks like this, with the tactic named after the pub team where Joe Hardman once showed his sliding tackles at ankle height:



We run into the problem here that there is no true right midfielder in the squad, and I already regret disabling the first transfer window. Luke Bowen, the real-life club top scorer, can play as a striker or as a right-winger in a three-forward system, but not as an RM in the 4-4-2 sense. He nevertheless plays reasonably well there, but understandably gets annoyed when asked to play out of position. I can retrain him, but at 35, he's probably not going to learn a lot of new tricks. But I can't exactly bench him either, what with his pace and the way he leads from the front:



Luke Bowen's profile from the Britton Ferry website:

---

Forward

Luke Bowen​

Bows boasts an array of experience at the top level in Wales and wherever he has played has always scored goals.
Luke will be looking to be in and around the top scorers of the Cymru South come May, Manager and Players Player last season as well as being named in Cymru South Team of the Season.

I feel bad for murdering him as a goalscorer so far, but perhaps things can change once I can sign a proper right midfielder.

Who are our other big performers so far? Two names mainly spring to mind:



Thomas Walters, the poacher who scores a goal per game on average so far. He is doing for me what Luke Bowen did for the team in real life. You could already read his official profile in the previous post. Not only does he score from regular play, he also draws quite a few fouls in the penalty area. Which is good, because he's also our first penalty taker. Against Afan Lido, he converted his penalty in the most delicious way: a Panenka, in the Cymru South no less!



Cameron Berry, our most creative midfielder. Sadly, he will be leaving us in December to join Cwmamman to reflect the real-life situation. Another option that seemed nice and realistic to start with, but is not really fun in an in-game sense. It will be hard to fill his shoes. The central midfield has good pace and creativity, but is lacking in raw strength. On the plus side, that is the only lacking physical attribute.

A look at the team dynamics:





With the decent run of results, Joe Hardman is beginning to win over the squad. There are no true leaders, but Bowen is the most influential man in the squad, followed by the captain, target man Tyler Brock, who has not been a goal scorer so far, but is doing a good job "making war in the box" to enable Walters to shine.

First order of business: hold on to this form until the winter. Then find a replacement for Berry, and a proper right midfielder.

To close this off, let's take a look at the competitions we are involved in, and see what honours can be won:

JD Cymru South:
One half of the 2nd tier of Welsh football, bringing together the clubs from, you guessed it, southern Wales. There is also a Cymru North. The winners of each will earn promotion to the Cymru Premier, provided the champions can earn a Tier 1 Licence, which I assume has to do with the quality of the facilities. But aside from that exception, that means only the championship is good enough to earn promotion. This will be our aim, and it's the pre-season expectation. Although the board will accept a top-4 finish too. There are 16 sides in the Cymru South, meaning we will "only" have to play 30 matches, leaving room for no less than three different cup tournaments, see below.

JD Welsh Cup:
Similar to the English FA Cup. Our first-round game will be on 16/9 against Cefn Cribwr FC (I accept no responsibility for spelling mistakes as long as I'm playing in Wales), an amateur club playing in the Ardal SW league, one of the districts in the 3rd tier of Wales (not playable in FM unmodded). There are a total of 7 rounds in this cup. Welsh clubs playing in the English league system used to compete in this tournament, but are now excluded.

Nathaniel MG Cup:
This is comparable to the English League Cup, AKA the Carabao Cup. Like in England, it's also considered less prestigious than the FA Cup. We were eliminated from this cup by Cardiff Met Uni.

JD Cymru League Tier 2 League Cup:
I'm at a loss what this is supposed to be. The game lists Barry Town as the only winner of this tournament, in 22/23, so I think in real life this is the tournament known as the Welsh Blood Service League Cup. It seems to be a cup for teams in both of the tier 2 leagues, so the Cymru North and Cymru South. Our next game will be in this cup, against Baglan Dragons, who are also in the Cymru South league. Perhaps the one cup we actually stand a chance of winning.

 

[wwsd]

Some screenshots I forgot to add on Sunday. Just think of it as an outtakes reel:

Now I see why Llanelli are doing so well: they have two managers!

Very unsporting. I bet the 16-year-old one plays FM all day.

We also lost at Caerau Ely, probably because this lad swatted us aside with his massive right arm:

We did beat Baglan Dragons, but they did not go gently into that good night:

In fact, one of the main challenges in this league is keeping all the Williamses, Evanses and Thomases apart.

But the show must go on! Where do we stand just before the halfway mark?

At the beginning of December, we are 3rd in the league, but with a game in hand compared to the 2nd and 1st-placed teams. Carmarthen has been our bête noire, as we drew and lost against them in back-to-back league games. Tough motherfuckers, with many assists coming from their left winger Jones-Thomas, and converted by their striker Liam Thomas, a great finisher and joint top goalscorer with our own Thomas Walters (are you still keeping up with all the Thomases?).

We are however the greatest goalscorers in the league. We concede quite a bit too, as can be seen from some of the 5-3 and 4-2 results so far. But the same can be said for most other teams. The defending quality in the league is not very high, there is a lot of free-flowing football, but also goalies dropping the ball into their own goal like a hot potato and stuff like that. But as long as we score more than the other fellows, we'll be all right. Our last two games have also seen two clean sheets. Our next opponents, Cwmbran Celtic, are the only decent defending side, conceding only 12 out of 14 games.

In September, we went from strength to strength, and Joe Hardman won his first award:

The locked transfer window (a mechanic that I'll definitely enable again in future saves *cough*) is closed, but that does mean we can sign in players on a free again!

Another guy named Williams, because why not? With this lad, we've got a proper right midfielder again, so Luke Bowen can play up front. Williams is a simple man with a simple plan: dribble along the right flank, beat his man, and whip in that cross!

In the game against Goytre, our top goalscorer Thomas Walters got on the scoresheet within 11 seconds! We weren't able to hold on to the lead however, as the game ended 1-1. Our first draw in a season full of wins and losses so far.

Goytre hurt us again in the Welsh Blood Service League Cup, holding on to a draw and taking the penalties better:

A blow to our ambitions for sure, as this was the one cup we might have gone all the way to win, seeing as it consists only of clubs on our Welsh tier-2 level. But when even Thomas Walters starts missing penalties, you know it's not to be this year.

The Welsh FA Cup brought better luck on penalties against our Cymru South competitors, Cambrian & Clydach:

The next round will see us play Cymru Premier side Penybont, a game for which we will have to be at our best if we are to stand a chance of getting into the quarter-finals.

Meanwhile, we are finding an alternative to scouting players. Although we do have two scouts employed, they are also part-timers, and their judgment is questionable compared to the kind of scouts and analysts they have at top-level European clubs. So what can you do instead? Simple: offer trials to unattached players and see if you like the cut of their jib. Simply weed out all the obviously rubbish ones on day 1 of the trial, and test the others for 4 weeks, and all their attributes will be revealed. At the moment, we are trialling left-backs to replace the departing left-back talent Connor Goldsworthy:

When asked about this new approach, Joe Hardman continues to woo the media with his charming personality:

"Oi mate, are you slow? Do you know what a trial means? It means we're trying someone. Never ask me a question again, you daft cunt."

However, our goalscoring record speaks for itself:

Alas, Cameron Berry left the club on the 1st of December on his pre-arranged transfer to what appears to be a West Wales Premier League (4th tier) side. Why? God only knows.

Don't blame Joe, it was arranged before his time!

Berry missed a lot of games due to injury, but was still creatively useful in nine league games and four cup ones:

The official club website described him as follows:

Cam Berry​

23 year old ex-Swansea City midfielder signed last season.
Hampered by injuries Cam will be looking to get a full season under his belt and break into the Reds midfield.
Will add creativity and composure to the squad.

Midfielders are already being trialled to replace him at the earliest convenience, because there is nobody else in the squad at his level.

Who have our other big hitters been in this autumn?

With the arrival of Luke Williams, I was able to play Luke Bowen up front again. He started promisingly there, but fell off a bit during the games that we failed to win: the tier-2 League Cup elimination against Goytre and the back-to-back games against title contenders Carmarthen. Then he got injured, and the decision to let Tyler Brock take his spot was an easy one to make.

---

Forward

Tyler Brock​

Tyler was a regular on the scoresheet last season.
24 year old forward who has played for Carmarthen and Pontardawe, Ty has versatility, is quick and knows how to finish.

Declan Evans, a left wing-back who can also play as a full-back or left-midfielder, has been a creative force for me. Alas, he too will be leaving for greener pastures (well, our local rivals Trefelin) in January. A good crosser, he made 4 goals and 7 assists in all competitions, and will be missed.

---

Defence

Declan Horgan-Evans​

24 year old left footer signed previously from Pontardawe, Decs has a great engine and boasts incredible speed, always a threat down the left flank.

The new right-midfielder Liam Williams is already fitting in well, with 1 goal and 3 assists in his first 8 games.

Jack Hurley is transfer-listed and not rated very highly by the staff, but he has nevertheless contributed 8 assists, topping the league table for assists in fact! Better take him off the transfer list.

---

Midfield

Jack Hurley​

24 year old cultured midfielder who has previously played for Port Talbot and Afan Lido.
A vital cog in the Reds midfield who returns after a spell away in Dubai.

He must have been swimming in pussy in Dubai, once he told them that he was signing on with Briton Ferry!

Josh Bull has made most of his appearances from the bench, leaving him little time to impress, but he has done a decent job in the time given him.

---

Forward

Josh Bull​

New signing from Barry Town, Josh has been prolific every club he has played for and will add extra ammunition to the front line this season.

 

[wwsd]

Winter signings and games

The period of December-January was the time to shore up the squad in preparation for several players leaving on pre-arranged transfers. After testing a great number of players, the following players were brought in:

Another pacey right-winger with a good cross. He is more versatile than most players, as he can also cut inside from the left.

Not the fastest in the business, this left winger does add depth to the squad.

A hard-working young left-back who will replace Connor Goldsworthy, who left on January 5th.

While all this is going on, the league continues. On Boxing Day, Briton Ferry finally officially swoop the #1 position in the league. There have been a couple of moments before where it was undone by competitors with a game in hand, but now we are the undisputed league leaders:

It came in a bizarre game at Baglan Dragons where we had no less than 40 shots and 3.84xG, but only scraped a 0-1 win.

Transfer activity continued in the new year:

This talented central midfielder will replace Cameron Berry.

Furthermore, Briton Ferry also already had a bunch of incoming transfers pre-arranged for January. The star of the bunch is Corey Hurford:

Unfortunately, as an attacking midfielder or shadow striker, he does not really fit into Joe Hardman's 4-4-2 tactic. But at £200 per week, this is not the kind of player that can just be kept out of the team. Despite the risk of changing the system mid-season, Hardman makes the following decision: the target man is taken out of the equation. Instead, Hurford will play as a shadow striker behind Walters.

His ability to get between the lines works amazingly well, with 4 goals and 2 assists from 6 games. With this new, more subtle tactic, journalists start heralding the age of HARDMAN-BALL!!! Yes, you heard that correctly:

A talented defensive midfielder and a new reserve goalie to replace the outgoing one, and that's the last of the signings:

Hardman-ball is not only creative, it's also destructive. Our players tend to give everything for their red shirt, and journalists begin to take notice how many yellow cards we grab:

"Oi mate, we are fucking pacifists compared to some of the teams out there. So what if we get carded a few times? None of my lads has been sent off so far. Sure, Jack Hurley gets a little physical at times, but that's what he's being paid for. Except not really, because he doesn't get a salary, but you get the idea. The point is, right, that we're like fucking Gandhi out there, and if you disagree, we can step outside and sort it out man to man, right now."

The Ammanford manager is named "Gruff", so now I can't help but think of him as a dog. He envies our abundance of young talent. But Gruff, maybe the problem is you, when you're fielding a central defender who is closer to retirement than he is to his U19 days:

Maybe give some youngsters a chance? Anyway, we beat them 2-0.

The games played in winter:

On December 9th, we lost the cup game against Penybont, ending our final cup run. We were not terrible, but overall a fair result. With only the league to focus on now, we remained unbeaten for the rest of the winter, and took a comfortable 5-point lead in the Cymru South:

Not bad when playing in conditions like this:

Only 6 more games to go before we'll know whether our title and promotion ambitions will be fulfilled! Out of these six games, the ones at home against Abertillery Bluebirds and Taffs Well are must-win, as they are in the relegation zone and likely to go down. Afan Lido are a decent mid-table side, but should be doable too. Caerau Ely are a strong opponent that we lost to at home in August. One of the "best of the rest" competing for the top 4. Trefelin should be an easier opponent again. Hopefully we'll already have the title in the bag before closing the season against the Llanelli, currently ranking 2nd.