Spurious Logic

This is (not) SPARTA!

What inspires a man* to get involved in football? For the players there's the money, lifestyle and the permission to play a game and call it a career. For successful managers and coaches theres the achievement of managing a squad, the plaudits of your peers and of course, the money from transfer backhanders.

But what about those other guys. The ones who show up week after week, for little to no pay and nothing but constant reminders of their own adequacy. Maybe it's a love of the game, desire to contribute to the local community and foster a collective spirit. Or maybe they just can't meet people any other way. I don't know.

Regardless of this I've got to deal with this ambitious but underskilled crew and try to try and get this club promoted.

Alan Davies is an angry man (personality: Temperamental, outspoken, short-tempered, confrontational). He's fantastic with the youth squad and maintains discipline through fear but he's never going to amount to much. A part-time Blyth Spartans contract is probably the limit of his abilities. And frankly, I'm inclined to think even that's beyond him.

With the worst possible ratings in physiotherapy (which is no big deal), tactical knowledge ("yes 1-5-3 is a good tactic.. wait, how many players?") and fitness ("never mind the broken leg, you're doing the beep test today") he's really quite crap. Unfortunately with a £35,000 severance cost. He's here for now. I'll try and renegotiate his 5 year deal down but he tells me "It will require a very large contract for him to consider agreeing terms". You can imagine it wasn't expressed in quite so politic terms when the offer was made to him.

Michael Coar is also an angry man (personality: outspoken, volatile). He's a marginally better coach than Davies but not much better. He too has the worst possible ratings in fitness and physiotherapy but in addition to this he's also totally incompetent with regard to man management, player motivation and judging player ability. I'd be better off taking what he says about a player and then doing the exact opposite in all cases.

These two men hate each other.

If Davies recommends a player then Coar states that he's not good enough for the club. When Coar recommends a tactic, Davies contradicts him. Every time. It's as entertaining as much as it's predictable.

Apart from these two Jake Hunt, our fitness coach is the only staff member vaguely fit for purpose with a fitness coaching rating of 9. From 20.

Bizarrely, given  the complete lack of competence on the staff side the club is actually in very good shape. It's got £220,000 or so in the bank which is an obscene amount of money at this level (or indeed any level until well up the league ladder) but there's no explanation as to the source of this wealth. Croft park is a small ground, there is no sugar daddy millionaire owner and the team plays in a non-league competition with no T.V. money.

...competition...

Blyth Spartans are a renowned (at least to people who read wikipedia) F.A. cup team. Regularly doing very well in the competition. This  would explain their financial well being. Which probably means that the board wants me to repeat this ....

....yes. "The minimum expectation is that the team reach the fourth round qualifying of the FA cup". Shit.

I'm all for doing well in cup competitions as it brings in good money but I've always prioritised league performance as getting up the leagues is what really improves the long term prospects of a team and knockout competitions like the cup are so... random. Great fun to watch but hell to manage.

Given the funds available to me, I privately expect to get this team promoted at the very least by the end of next season. Possibly this season depending on how the players measure up and recruitment goes over the next few weeks. I'm not sharing my hopes with the board but I'm quietly confident.

*Karen Brady/Sian Massey/Delia Smith etc excepted for the sake of rhetorical question...

I had to make a 300 reference at least once. I promise it won't happen again.

I'm having issues with the person in which to write. Is this a story told from the first person in the character of the manager of Blyth Spartans or from the perspective of someone playing the game? I've tried the first person approach with the previous instalments but I end up writing a lot of "he said" "then she said" ... I'm all for setting a scene but this incidental waffle doesn't help anybody.

I'm going to try a mix with a first person introduction setting a scene and then a more mechanics based approach for the following sections.

Man on a bench in the rain image from flickr user stevenharris.