Two men in the Championship... We're back!!!

Manly · May 17, 2008

Bristol City ---- Ipswich Town

Mates, Footballers and Managers. Jack Teague and Ben Manning have played, worked and drank with each other, but now they become separate as managers of two Championship sides. Jack Teague has become manager of Bristol City after the surprising leave of Gary Johnson due to family reasons. Bristol City have come up from League 1 last season, and need passion, determination and lots of work to stay up. On the other hand, Ben Manning has taken over from Jim Magilton at Portman Road. Ipswich finished 14th last season, but will be looking to get back to the top flight, where they feel they belong.

Jack Teague and Ben Manning have been mates ever since their early playing days at non-league side, Alfreton Town. Teague started and finished his career at Alfreton, breaking his leg and ending his career in 2002. But Manning continued to develop and moved on to professional football with Gillingham. Although in 2004 Manning retired after he was released by Gillingham, and joined up with Teague to start a new career as manager. They worked hard over the next 2 years getting the highest qualifications necessary to come back to professional football. They went back to non-league football, and back with Alfreton Town, with Teague as manager and Manning at assistant. They worked together like joint managers, and managed to bring Alfreton into the newly formed Conference North.

They then went separate ways after a fall out with Alfreton Town chairman. Manning went on to Conference South side, Weymouth, where he brought them the championship and promotion to the conference. Teague moved to Halifax Town, and almost brought them success, only to fall out at the last hurdle in the playoff final. Teague and Manning continued to succeed at their clubs, until the big offers came for the start of the 2007-08 season. Dreams of managing top English sides has finally come true for Teague and Manning. But it's to be a tough season ahead for both...

Kiko_97 · May 17, 2008

Good luck with this guys.

Manly · May 17, 2008

Having cut my teeth under Jack I was particularly confident of doing well, given he had mentored me and shown me the ropes. I was really quite excited to be taking charge of a team like Ipswich, a side who played nice, free flowing football on a top-class pitch.

It was also nice for me to come "home", I had left my parents in Ipswich when I moved to Derbyshire, and although I wasn't living with them, it would be nice to be just down the road from them. I had decided (well, my girlfriend Megan had decided) that we were going to rent a flat by the docks "for the view". We picked the place and boy was she surprised when we had a room facing away from the water!

The team I have inherited mediocre for the league, and I will be trying to recruit new players, especially in the midfield, where we are quite thin in number and weak in talent. The 'star' of the side is Spaniard Pablo Counago, who is starting his second stint at the club, however he is not un-droppable, and I am very sure that youngsters Billy Clarke and Danny Haynes will push him all the way for a starting berth. Alan Lee and Jon Walters will also be hoping to catch my eye.

Watching "The Tractor Boys" on the T.V. it was quite apparent to me that the back 5 will take some work, and for the first part of the pre-season, at least, I will be taking a particularly close look at Dan Harding, Sito, Alex Bruce, Jason De Vos and, when he returns, Richard Naylor. Tommy Smith is the brightest talent in the U18 squad, and I will be looking to Jason in particular to tutor him in training sessions. Speaking of the youngsters, I am particularly excited by Jordan Rhodes, who consistently scores for the Reserves and the U18s.

Naturally, the transfer market will be a tough nut to crack, and I will hopefully call on Sir Bobby Robson for some guidance, and help in contacting the top sides in Europe to see if we can perhaps take a couple of starlets on loan.
The first training session will be an introducing morning, and a nice game amongst the lads, and I will be interested to see who works the hardest before the first friendly at Mr. Teague's rivals Bristol Rovers. I will try and win to please my mate.

freddiw · May 18, 2008

good work and good luck

good to see two very capable story makers teaming up and I hope this goes well and is a long running and prosperious story

treva · May 18, 2008

Arriving at Ashton Gate as part of the was the things I dreamt of back in my footballing days. Things had moved on since myself and Ben had started our careers up in Derbyshire with Alfreton Town. The quality of football nowadays had improved a lot, and I sensed that it would take me a few games to get the feel of the new style football being played. I also felt that mixing my job and colleagues with my personal life was the right thing to do. Being as young as 31*, with some of the players older than myself, I felt that getting to know the lads and going out for drinks with them was the way forward. If we were to stay in the league then there would need to be a tremendous amount of team spirit and work ethic involved. I wanted to create the perfect atmosphere between myself and the players.

Being a long life supporter of Bristol City, which I felt was what the club were looking for, I had a great passion to do well. Gary Johnson had done some fantastic things for the West Country, not just Bristol City. He won promotion with both Yeovil and Bristol City, and has become somewhat of a god around these parts. The players had a great bond with Gary, but I felt I would need to try and bring them away from that frame of mind and get them onto my own wavelength. Although I wanted a new start, I was definitely going to call upon Gary's advice as often as I could and in times when it would be needed. Gary had done a great job and I felt that I would need some of his tactical nous and flair if I was to succeed.

The players though, are the main men. They do the hard work on the field, stopping goals, scoring goals, making tackles and working hard. Louis Carey had been the main to lead the team under Gary, and had done so for some time. I decided upon making use of Louis, with his leadership and connection with the boys, by involving him in as much of the discussions upon players and tactics as I could. I felt we had a strong defence with the skipper, big Jamie McCombe, Liam Fontaine, Jamie McAllister and some fine back ups. But the man who had caught my eye the most was Tamas Vasko, the huge Hungarian centre back. A fine loan signing that Gary Johnson had made during the summer, and I wished to play him as much as possible, as long as he worked hard in training and on the pitch.

Our strike force was what would need to be effective to stay up. Gary had signed Darren Byfield who looked very promising and could score us quite a few goals. Also the ?1 million pound signing from Swansea of Lee Trundle was a quality one. I had seen him play at Swansea and was very impressed, so hopefully he and Darren could link up well. With those two similar goal scorers we had Enoch Showunmi, a 6ft 7in target man. I felt that he would be vital in our season, but even with those 3 I was still not convinced we had the depth that was needed. My hope would be to gain another striker in the transfer market, although transfer funds are not available until we get a bit of income from selling players.

The midfield was secure, with Michael McIndoe, Marvin Elliot, Ivan Sproule and Lee Johnson, the later the only player not brought in by his father in the summer. We had Adriano Basso in goal, voted the best goalkeeper outside of the top league, and from performances last season I was assured of that. I always feel that the keeper is the most important position on the pitch, because goal-less draws every game throughout a season will usually keep you in the league. Basso would definitely be the main man as far as I was concerned this season.

Training would be light for the first day, and I would slowly build up intensity as we got further through pre-season. Our first match of the new season was to be away at Ebbsfleet United, the first club to be owned by an online football site. It would be a nice gentle start as manager, but I wanted nothing less than a comprehensive result.

pinchinator · May 18, 2008

look good though if i know joint stories...and i do it won't last

Yet hope you buck the trend tbh

covlad-99 · May 18, 2008

Loving it guys! 2 of my regular posters putting up a story together! Fantastic. SOTM contenders for next month no doubt. Awesome work guys.

Manly · May 18, 2008

It is always nice to win as a manager, and to win the first game seems to be a given for most guys. I was hoping to not be the exception.

I had intended to go and stay at Jack's the night before our game, leaving the boys in the hotel, to catch up with what's going on in what is certainly a huge step forward in each of our lives. However, I rang him and told him we were coming down to the Memorial Stadium to play Rovers, but he wasn't going to be in. He had already left for the next day's game at Ebbsfleet, which is fair enough.

I took most of the club down to Bristol, well all of the fit first team squad, and I also took Ed Upson, Tommy Smith and Paul Murphy, who I hoped to give at least some pitch time to.

The game itself was uneventful, really, with only the 3 goals any action of note. However, Ipswich's inability to keep possession for any length of time was worrying. It was also nice to see Owen Garvan try to control the game like he does so well.

Our first goal came from a mistake from their left back, and Fraizer Campbell stole the ball away and crossed for Danny Haynes to slot into the net. 1-0 to Town.

They then equalised via a goal I didn't actually see. I was talking to Brian Klug about how things were going when the majority of the 2500 crowd cheered. Their dangerman Rickie Lambert had scored.

I reminded the lads that there wasn't anthing at stake and a move started by Owen Garvan finished with Danny Haynes heading in off of the keeper. It was a nice team goal, and I hoped to see more of that in the future.

Game Summary:
Bristol Rovers 1 - 2 Ipswich Town
Ricky Lambert 27 Danny Haynes 12, 47
Man of the Match: Danny Haynes 8

freddiw · May 19, 2008

hey maney how is this working ???

online, ???

treva · May 19, 2008

freddiw said:
hey maney how is this working ???

online, ???

Online game

-------------

Sunday 15th July, 2007

vs Ebbsfleet [A] [Friendly]
After a good week training with the lads it was off to Kent to play non-league side Ebbsfleet United. Was a gentle start to life as a professional manager to say the least, but not one I would take lightly. I had told the boys in training and before the game not to be complacent, but go out and relax. With all players fit I went about deciding the XI for the game.

----------------------A.Basso----------------------
B.Orr--------L.Carey ?---J.McCombe---J.McAllister
S.Murray---L.Johnson-------D.Noble----M.McIndoe
---------------D.Byfield--------L.Trundle-------

Subs: C.Weale, M.Elliot, L.Fontaine, T.Vask?, I.Sproule, E.Showunmi, K.Betsy & B.Wilson

A strong team to start but also a very strong bench. Marvin Elliot, who had caught my eye, was on the bench alongside pacey winger Ivan Sproule and big defender Tam?s Vask?. I placed David Noble at centre mid and played the two main goal scorers in Darren Byfield and Lee Trundle. I was looking for attacking play, and I felt that this side would prove to much for Ebbsfleet.

Playing away is always hard no matter who you play, and today showed that exactly. We had all the play and missed plenty of chances. They put up a good fight, creating chances of their own. A pretty exciting game in which I was disappointed not to come away with the expected win. We created and wasted many chances, which will need to be sorted out before the start of the new season. Byfield hit the bar and somehow every chance we created came to nothing. Showunmi came on and had a few chances, and Ivan Sproule looked very lively on the right hand side. They had some quality chances too, hitting the post in the 1st half, and somehow managing to not score with the ball rolling across the line for about 5 seconds as if in slow motion.

Overall a poor effort by the boys, and it would need to pick up for our next game with Dunfermline. With Bristol Rovers just a few games away, I was glad to hear the news of Ben beating them back in Bristol. But if our fans were also to go home happy after the game with Rovers, our performance levels would need to lift greatly.

Ebbsfleet United 0-0 Bristol City

Manly · May 19, 2008

Weekly Update of all things Blue

Since I began in the job, there has been numerous things to deal with, on all sorts of fronts. Firstly, West Brom offered Martin Dobson a job as scout, for ?40k compensation. Not to go down without a fight, I offered him a new contract with a slight pay-rise, and, sure enough, he accepted, and would stay at the club.

On the transfer market, I had heard good things about a few young players so put in a bid for some of them.

Dean Furman - Rangers - ?100k plus clauses ACCEPTED
Bogdan Stancu - Unirea Urziceni - ?360k ACCEPTED
Dan Gosling - Plymouth - Enquiry REJECTED
Fraizer Campbell - Man Utd. - Season-long loan ACCEPTED

We also had an offer of ?86k for Shane Supple, which I had to reject, but didn't rule out the possibility of him moving on at all, because it would be unfair of me to deny him the chance of playing for a Premiership club. (Middlesbrough, in this case.) The lad himself then said he "owed it to himself to move to a bigger club" and I was certainly not going to stand in his way.

Ed Upson was also awarded a new contract at the club, and I was going to keep a close eye on how he progressed over the next season or so.

covlad-99 · May 19, 2008

Some nice updates there lads, a half decent result for Maney and the Town but a bad result for Treva and Bristol City. Like you said Trev, performance needs to lift if you are to survive in the Championship. As for your signings Maney, Stancu becomes a top class player, Fraizer Campbell is a very poor player on FM08, so you may regret that one, but he may prove me wrong.

Manly · May 19, 2008

covlad-99 said:
Some nice updates there lads, a half decent result for Maney and the Town but a bad result for Treva and Bristol City. Like you said Trev, performance needs to lift if you are to survive in the Championship. As for your signings Maney, Stancu becomes a top class player, Fraizer Campbell is a very poor player on FM08, so you may regret that one, but he may prove me wrong.

He usually does quite well for me lol!

covlad-99 · May 19, 2008

The basis on my comment is that on my game, he is a reserve Nottingham Forest player

But like I said, he might prove me wrong!

KUTGW!

Manly · May 19, 2008

covlad-99 said:
The basis on my comment is that on my game, he is a reserve Nottingham Forest player But like I said, he might prove me wrong!

KUTGW!

We shall see

Fingers crossed he comes up with the goods, eh?

Two men in the Championship... We're back!!!

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