by @FMDoop
Horse racing festivals and the birthplace of..Me. These are the two things that Cheltenham is famous for. Or to bring to Football Manager, many may know their last manager and ex-player Michael Duff. Duff was a must-buy for almost all managers on CM 01/02. Last season Michael Duff led his side to the club's highest English Football League finish after ending the campaign in 15th with 56 points in League One. After setting this new record, Duff decided to notify the board that he wished to pursue new opportunities.
Mike Duff - Championship Manager royalty
This is where it’s time to meet me if you haven’t already.
One mile as the crow flies.
That’s the distance from that special delivery room where I took my first breath, to Whaddon Road and the home of Cheltenham Town. After ripping up trees at Under-7’s grassroots football, Cheltenham contacted me to take over. Can I lead Cheltenham to glory? Can I take them to new heights? Or will I fall at the first hurdle?
I’m a strange FM player. I take things a little too seriously. If that’s even possible. I even have a spreadsheet for Squad Numbers. Hold on tight, you’ll see this later. I just like things the way I like things, I like to stick to what I know. If a system is proven and gets results, why would you move away from that system? I use @FridayNightFM’s custom squad views and I normally take hours before I hit continue for the first time. I have a checklist that I must complete before advancing to the next day. I like to think that I’m sitting at my manager's desk at Whaddon Road. I lean forward and I take my notebook out of the top drawer. First page:
Squad summary – Have a good look at the players I have, the players in the youth teams, and those out on loan. Pick your early favorites. Spot holes in the squad.
Chat to Staff – No such thing as a silly suggestion. Have a meeting with the staff, listen, watch, and learn. Make a good first impression. Work out quickly who you trust and who you want to get rid of.
Chat with the board – Can we get more staff? Improve facilities? It’s early but remember - if you don’t ask, you don’t get it.
Prepare for tomorrow’s press conference - Remember the 7 P’s (Proper Planning and Preparation Prevent Piss Poor Performance)
Get the friendlies sorted – 1 tough cup. One local cup. One easy cup. The last game is a confidence booster.
1 - SQUAD
You know, I don’t dislike this squad. I plan to go into pre-season with a 442 with a good spine of loan players to strengthen the squad. We are very lucky to have a very good pair of forward players in the shape of Alfie May and Aidan Keena. May is big and strong yet very mobile. He has the player trait of he likes to wind up opponents. My guy. This is lower-league gold. Shithousery to the max. I’m hoping to have a pressing forward and an advance forward as my forward line. Well, May could do both roles, easily. The young Irish striker Aidan Keena is very much a carbon copy of May - arguably more of a natural finisher but time will tell.
Another player I think deserves a mention is the right winger, Ryan Broom. A workhorse. Great with the ball at his feet and always looking to distribute the ball when he can. If we could strengthen the depth in the centre of midfield, that would be awesome. I'll pop a couple of feeders out and get my DOF on the phone. But looking at our budgets, we might just have to work with what we got.
2 - STAFF
My hands are very much tied here and I don’t like it (my wife might beg to differ). I love a big team around me to help, support and advise as we go along. In recent years I have been all for hiring the best technical director I can find and then setting him to work on improving the staff, only checking in on his work every few months. But with the lack of funds and the lack of willingness from the targets, I see no changes. This means I don’t have a new backroom coming in with me. However, I will look to strengthen and improve the staff as we go along if I can.
3 - THE BOARD
This brings me nicely onto the board. Nothing. Just nothing. They won't let me add staff. They won't let me get an affiliate. They won't let me have more money. They won’t even let me scratch my arse at this rate. Let’s move on.
4 - MEET THE MEDIA
After hours of shuffling bits around trying to find my ticket stub to the 2002 Football League Third Division play-off final which led a 10-year-old me to the Cardiff Millennium to watch FM wonderkids Michel Duff and Jamie Victory beat Rushden and Diamonds.
I get chucked into the mix with only three reporters, asking for a reason why I picked Cheltenham. Am I happy to be here? Am I happy with the squad? Do you know what I answered to each? Second from the left. If you know, you know. 😉
5 - FRIENDLIES
Again with me taking this game too seriously, I like to area-link each friendly. I like to make sure we are staying as close to home as possible to reduce travel time, costs, and fatigue and play games in clusters depending on the area we are visiting.
We started with a little tour of the local area. Working on the system. Having a good look at the players. Upping the confidence. Then we moved on to the friendly cups. Joe wrote a great piece on The Byline about how to earn the maximum during the preseason by creating Friendly Cup competitions. I follow this like the letter of the law regardless of the level of football you are managing. This is a great way to generate funds.
So that’s my preseason. Simple. Takes far too long and if we lose a few of the opening games it all gets ripped apart and I head back to the drawing board. I like to think I don't panic but naturally, when you sink hours into pre-season and it all goes Pete Tong, I think it is inevitable that the panic sets in. But the expectations for us this season are very low. We have been asked to avoid the drop. Bravely. This is mirrored in the season preview. Second favorites to go down. Also compounded by the fact that we open up the season hosting newly relegated Peterborough. Talk about easing us into the season.
First Game - Peterborough (H)
All I ask is we get off to a good start. I don’t expect a 10/10 performance. I just want to see players working hard, working for the team, and giving it their all. Peterborough was always going to be a tough game. On my monthly projections (this is another spreadsheet) I had this game down as a low-scoring defeat or if we are lucky, a draw. But the home crowd was loud and players came out of the blocks at 100mph. Peterborough was shocked. We had four really good chances in the first ten minutes hitting the woodwork twice. Then success. In the 27th minute, Aflie May popped at the back post with a header to score his first of hopefully many goals this season to give us a well-deserved lead half an hour in.
Half-time oranges came and went and we started the second half just as we started the first. Keena ran through and tucked a low-driven shot into the bottom corner. Life is Bliss. Management is easy. Slippers on. Cigar lit...oh shit, they've scored. Awful defending by Cheltenham leaves us with a very nervy 30 mins. We didn't park the bus, I just asked the players to waste time where they could and be more disciplined. Which in turn, led us to a wonderful start and a well-deserved 3 points.
Last season saw Rotherham promoted to the championship with 90 points. 87 to go then. 29 more wins.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
40 points is enough to keep you in the division. 37 more points. 13 more wins.
Here we go.
A cracking start to Doop’s new career as a blogger and as Cheltenham Town Manager - more to follow soon but if you can’t wait, be sure to follow him over on Twitter and you can hear him every Monday with the rest of the gang on 5 Star Potential, the longest running weekly Football Manager podcast.
