Contract Assistant

The option whereby your assistant helps out by agreeing contracts with happy players when they have less than 20 or so weeks left to run on their contract is now turned OFF by default.   To turn this on, use the extra action AS ON.   To turn it back off, write AS OFF.  The bug that meant signing on fees were not enforced when the assistant agreed the contract has now been fixed.

Managing Reserve Team

To take control of your reserve and youth teams as well as your first team, use the extra action RT  ON.  You'll then receive match reports for both your reserve and youth team games, and the league tables for the mini league that they are currently playing in.  Both reserve and youth sides play in small leagues of six teams per league, the highest of those divisions is listed in the newsletter each turn.  After 10 matches, the winner of each mini league is promoted, and the bottom three sides are relegated.

Playing With Revenue

This mornings task is to somehow allow deals to take place for more than £100m... not as easy as it might sound.

Ross Sharp, Cokebaby...

I was incredibly saddened to hear today that Ross Sharp, known as Cokebaby to many of you, had passed away after his battle with cancer.  Ross was a really lovely guy, a massive part of the League Soccer world for so many years, and I know he'll be missed so much by all of us.  To lose someone at such a young age, just a couple of weeks after the birth of his son Jasper, is such a terrible terrible tragedy.

As a League Soccer manager, Ross was pretty good I think; I don't have any records of what he won to hand, though I remember him asking me often enough to set up a system to record it (I finally did so a month ago, but never got round to emailing him to let him know).  However, as a friend to pretty much everyone in the game he was exceptional.  For the best part of five years you could always find him on the Necom noticeboards, answering questions and doing a much better job of solving problems for fellow managers than I ever could.  He probably knew much more than I did and along with the likes of Jamie and one or two others, helped to create the brilliant online community that we have.  All our long email exchanges and chats helped to push the game forward, Ross was instrumental in a number of improvements to the game and the website.  Author of a massive 10,180 posts on the necom noticeboards, with his own custom title ('Master of puppets...') and an unbeatable signature - "unlike u ross, i am not a necom master - K.Hundal".  Kieran isn't always right, but he certainly got that one correct.

My thoughts, and hopefully those of everyone who has ever been anything to do with League Soccer anywhere go out to Ross' family, his wife Faye and his son.

Honours

Pretty much all the honours entries for 2011 and 2010 have now been entered into the system, and I'm pleased to say that for the past few weeks they've all be appearing on your printout sheets in two separate places.  The trophies you have won as a manager (in all games) will appear on your account details sheet, whilst the titles won by each team you manage will appear on their own squad sheets (even if the team was managed by someone else at that time).  I'm looking forward to getting all the rest of the information I hold into the system over the next few weeks, and then we can have some fun with manager profiles on the website and suchlike.

Game 5 - United Pip Derby To Title

Manchester United boss Ray Burton led his team to the Premiership title in game 5, thanks to a great last day victory over rivals Derby.  With the Rams three points ahead going into the final game, and with a slightly better goal difference, United needed to win by at least two clear goals.  With home advantage, they were possibly favourites for the match, but they were unlikely to be able to shut out Derby County - far and away the league top scorers - and so faced an uphill task to win by sufficient a margin.  It was looking good four minutes before half time, when Ronaldo fired the Old Trafford side in front.  It was even better five minutes into the second half - Sergio Aguero with United's second.  Now all they had to do was hang on.  Within minutes, Ribery came close to getting Derby back into the game, but Diego Lopez denied him.  Another great Derby chance fell to Chiellini, but he couldn't make the most of it, and the game was over.  United the champions, Derby the runners up for the second consecutive season.  Spurs came third - three points behind the top two, as were West Ham, champions for the past couple of seasons but this time around they narrowly miss out.  In the cups, Daniel Marshall's Liverpool completed an impressive Division 1 and FA Cup double, at the same time ending United's double dreams - the Anfield outfit winning the FA Cup final 3-0, Derby having picked up the League Cup a few weeks earlier when they beat Manchester City in the final.

The European League was won easily by David Burton's Juventus for the third season in a row.  They finished 13 points clear of runners up Real Madrid but lost out in the cups - Napoli won the FA Cup and Barcelona the League Cup.

Martin Adamson's Tottenham won the Champions League, beating the seasons surprise outfit, Hull City, in the final - 4-2 the final score.  Hull had an interesting season, being pretty much unmanaged all through but doing really well until week 18 - leading the Premier division and cruising through the Champions league - when they fell apart completely and didn't win another game.  Man City beat River Plate 1-0 in the UEFA Cup final.

Working On Honours

I'm currently working on a system to record honours won for managers.  I have loads of paper data and the big hall of fame document to go off - the idea is to get all that typed in to the system whilst at the same time getting it to record all future honours.  Then once those two are joined together, we'll have that long promised list of what you've won in place.  For some people it'll be a very very long list - I only did a couple of games yesterday and Jamie Messenger for example had a massive file full already!

Staff On Out Of Contacts List

A reasonably big upgrade to the system today - long called for and finally implemented I'm pleased to say.  Staff members can now be placed on the Auction and Market Lists and also now appear on the Out Of Contracts list.  This should probably make it easier for you to keep your staff wage bills under control; obviously we don't want to make things too easy but this is a change that managers have been calling for for at least the past 15 years...

Looking at the game 8 turns this morning there are a few small glitches in the system that will be fixed before your next turn - the headings need to line up properly, and the specialist positions for coaches aren't shown - but these are pretty minor and will all be fixed for the next turn.  Anyone looking to sell off staff feel free to market or auction list them on your next return sheet!

Game 69 - Lyon Win It At The End

The battle for the Serie A title in game 69 this season saw a titanic struggle between Rich Coupland's Atletico Madrid, Joe Hughes' Lyon and Pat Lyons' Real Madrid.  The three were close all season, with three points between them pretty much throughout.  Atletico were dominant in the cups - beating Palermo 1-0 in the final of the FA Cup, adding to that the UEFA Cup where they beat Chelsea 2-1 in the final and the League Cup - Real Madrid beaten 2-1 in the final of that one.  The league title proved just one step too far for Rich's side though. In week 18 when they drew 1-1 with rivals Real and Lyon lost 1-0 to Dominic Howlett's Hoffenheim side they led the table by a point, but lost 1-0 the following week to Glen Pine's Real Madrid and were back playing catch up.  Week 21 went against them when they were beaten 3-1 by Real Madrid and suddenly they were out of the running.  With one game to go though, that result left Real Madrid on top but with a tough away game at Anthony Woods' Bayern to come.  Lyon beat Benfica 3-2 in their final match, Real couldn't do the same - going down 2-1 at Bayern - and the title went to France.  A great performance from Joe Hughes' Lyon, who win the league with 45 points, two clear of Real Madrid, with Atletico a point further back and James Teager's AC Milan finishing fourth on 41 points, only four behind in the end.  Steve Bennett's Arsenal won the Champions League, beating AC Milan 1-0 in the final, whilst QPR won the British FA Cup, beating Liverpool in the final of that trophy.  The League Cup was won by Chelsea, Blackpool beaten 2-1 in the final by James West's side.  Glen Pine's Bournemouth side dominated the Premier Division, winning the title by 10 points, with 56, from Steve Bennett's Arsenal in second and Pat Lyons' Man United in third, both on 46 points.  James West's Chelsea were fourth with 39 points.  

Game 33 - Chelsea Just Edge It

Stuart Flight's Chelsea went into their final game of the season knowing that nothing short of a victory would be enough for the title.  Despite having led the table all season, the Stamford Bridge side had been unable to open out any sort of a lead, with Jamie Messenger's Preston North End and David Knowles' Everton sides both battling hard to keep up with the leaders.  Chelsea travelled to Middlesboro in the final game one point clear of Preston, who were at Arsenal and Everton - who visited Man City.  The Toffees were first to come unstuck, only able to draw 1-1 at Eastlands.  Preston managed a 3-2 victory at the Emirates which put all the pressure onto Chelsea.  They came through, just about, scraping a 3-2 win themselves at the Riverside.  All that left Chelsea as champions with 52 points, Preston second with 51, Everton third on 49 and in fourth place David Knowles' Norwich back on 43 points.  Preston beat Bolton 2-0 in the FA Cup final after losing 1-0 to Swindon Town (Jamie Messenger's feeder team) in the League Cup final.  James West's Barcelona side won Serie A, their 52 points saw them five clear of Daniel Brickles' Borussia Dortmund with Sean Hallyburton's Real Madrid third on 40 points and David Knowles' Zaragoza fourth with 34 points.  Barca completed the domestic treble, beating Palermo 1-0 in the FA Cup final and Zaragoza 2-1 in the League Cup final, but came up short in the Champions League final where they lost 2-1 to Dortmund.  Bayern Munich beat Man City 2-1 in the UEFA Cup final.

Game 7 - Benfica are Champions Of Europe!

Iain Gardiner's Benfica lifted the Champions League in game 7 this week, beating Billy Black's Chelsea 2-1 in a gripping final.  Benfica were probably the stand out team in a well fought game 7 season, and fans will be no doubt disappointed to lose their manager who is rumoured to be moving to Old Trafford before the Super Cup games take place next turn.  Their trophy haul included the Serie A title but they were defeated 2-1 by Mark Watters' Inter Milan in the League Cup final.  Unmanaged Chievo won the FA Cup, beating Toulouse 1-0 in the final.  Benfica were totally dominant in Serie A, they had a 10 point lead by the half way point of the season and finished up winning the league by 15 points, on 54 pts with second placed Inter on 39.  Barcelona were third with 36 points with Atletico Madrid trailing in fourth on 29.  Joe Spencer's Liverpool led for pretty much the whole season in the British Premier division, holding a four point lead over Billy Black's Chelsea as early as week 4 (Chelsea drew their week 3 and 4 games, Liverpool won theirs) and maintained this gap throughout the season.  The two drew 0-0 at Stamford Bridge in week 5, and then again in week 15; the gap still four points.  Liverpool slipped up in week 16 and 17, and suddenly the gap was down to just a point - with G.McNaughton's Celtic also in the hunt - but successive defeats to Aston Villa and Everton left  Chelsea too much to do, and they eventually finished 7 points behind.  Liverpool win the league on 49 points, Chelsea second on 42, Celtic on 41 and David De Freitas' Newcastle closing in to finish on 40 in fourth place.   The FA Cup final saw the top two do battle - and Liverpool take the double with a 3-2 victory over Chelsea.  This was revenge for the League Cup final a few weeks earlier where the two met again, Chelsea beating Liverpool 2-1 in that one.  Celtic lost the Super Cup final - to Liverpool again, 3-1 the final score, but G.McNaughton's side won the UEFA Cup though, beating Valencia 3-1 in the final.

Game 8 - Title Wins For Porto and Bolton

It seems like a long time since they last won one, but Sam Roberts' Bolton Wanderers yesterday wrapped up the Premier Division title in game 8, a 3-2 home win over Everton proving good enough for the Trotters when closest rivals, Pat Lyons' Man United, were held 1-1 at Newcastle.  Glen Pine's Porto also have a title winning history, and they are champions once again after beating Marseille 3-2.  Game 8 turns take place three times a week and a season costs just £8 - email us if you want to take part!

Game 25 - Friday 17 June

I really like game 25 - it's a fascinating mix of managers which makes it quite unlike any other game. There a group of guys who have all been managing the same teams for more than 10 years - James Crump , Mark Upton, Martin Flack, David Broom and more. Then over the past few months there have been new managers joining - but in the main new managers with lots of experience in our other games and it'll be fascinating to see how they get on with the challenge. So far, only Jamie Maycroft is up there at the top level - his Bayern Munich side this week won 1-0 at home to David Flack's Barcelona and are joint top after 9 games with James Rooney's Lazio. James Crump's Valencia are two points behind the top two after two goals from Nicolas Anelka saw them beat Thomas Flack's Hercules 2-1 at home this turn. Martin Flack's AC Milan are two points more back, after a 3-1 home win over Porto. Apart from Jamie, the new managers in the game are biding their time in Serie B, David Burton's River Plate unbeaten and top of the table there and it looks like Dan Marshall's Real Madrid and Glen Pine's Galatasaray will be amongst a number of sides battling it out for the second automatic spot and the playoffs. No new faces in the top flight of the British league, there David Broom's Aston Villa are the new leaders despite dropping points with a 0-0 draw at home to David Flack's Middlesboro. Last weeks leaders, Robert Crump's Chelsea, lost 2-0 at Bolton and the third placed club, Lisa Marie Broom's Everton, were held 1-1 at Mark Upton's Ipswich. Again, the new entrants are doing well in the second tier, Roger Flack's Spurs are top but close behind them are Jamie Maycroft's Wolves, Glen Pine's Man City and Jamie Messenger's Sheffield Wednesday.

Oh Dear...

Wow, it's been a while since anything was posted on this blog - in fact I had no idea it even existed until attempting to set up a new one today. Seven years on from that meet, and it's great to see that the managers mentioned, the likes of Sam Roberts and Jamie Maycroft, are all still managing away with great success.