Welcome back to Holland! Last week saw us kick off our latest stupidity as the Retirement Academy was born. You can relive that here. If you’re not a fan of reading the past, here’s the table as we join today’s action:

Last week I didn’t really introduce all of the squad so there will be some tangents this week if any of the lesser lights get up to much. It’s a vital first game too, as we host league leaders ADO Den Haag – the poor buggers have no idea of the Pardewing they have to come. Sadly we’re second best throughout even before our Kox gets injured.

I’ve made a few jokes about Kox so I thought you better have a look at him:

Obviously named after the former Newcastle manager. There’s nothing worse than your Kox being in poor form. And injured.

This team is going to drive me mad. Off to Den Bosch and we’re 3-0 up inside 18 minutes.

Home to the mobile company and another goalsfest sees us run out 4-2 winners. The Micker got us back on level terms following a mazy dribble, is there anything he can’t do?

Neville Southall has been sacked by Stoke and for £200 for a week, he’ll come to Holland.

The ironically named Excelsior prop up the division but any hopes of an easy three points are extinguished when our lead is cancelled out twice. I wish we could defend.

We meet Veendam for the third time and it’s a game of two halves. 2-0 up, cruising only to be pegged back to a 2-2 draw. Southall’s debut is not impressive.

I’ll introduce you to De Jong, he’s fairly hopeless.

What a mess this match is away to Emmen. The Micker misses a penalty but makes up for it by giving us the lead. Half time is a disaster for us and we’re 3-1 down when Sirakov pulls one back. Southall makes his only save of the day from the spot but they score from the rebound. Get us home.

Three without a win so struggling VVV Venlo might not be the worst opponent. Losing Twiss for a month is practically a disaster but we score five in his honour.

Cup action now as we face the trip to 4th placed NEC. Isn’t the NEC in Birmingham? I think Crufts is held there. We are definite underdogs but we scrap our way to a lead but we can’t keep it. At 3-3 it’s on a knife edge but we run out of steam towards the end and it’s a 2nd round exit.

We’ll focus on the league eh? I don’t think you’ve seen Rutten yet so here he is:

We’ve got Go Ahead Eagles next and I take a look in amazement at their squad which is full of forward lefts for some reason. They’re top of the league…

It’s a disaster of a match. Both centre halves see red and future Liverpool player Jan Kromkamp sees his penalty saved by Betterton but he still has time to put that right. Urgh.

The injuries and suspensions are killing us. That and a lack of talent. It’s not pretty but there’s only two games left before the winter break

Why are you all so ill disciplined?! The old/young buddy system means nothing to these people. Despite playing 86 minutes with 10 men we almost win but in the end we get a draw.

We finish with the last game before 6 weeks off. I am a big fan of that. It’s Haarlem heat again only this time Melgarejo gets a late winner. We needed that.

Melgarejo is our Paraguayan child (when signed, he’s just turned 18 three days ago) who I hadn’t heard of before but I’ve given him a chance.

All of that leaves the table looking like this:

We don’t really deserve to go up in my opinion and I’m not sure I want to. The only good news is that nobody wants our young players, who despite having a big club release are not living up to the hype. The Micker on the other hand has 19 in 19.

This is a strange save. I have no idea if we’re any good, there’s a lot to work out. Centre backs and goalkeepers seem to be the weak spot but I guess the aim of the game is to develop the youngsters until they are good enough, if we can hold onto them we’ll be ok it just might take a few seasons. Join me next week when we’ll come back from the winter break for the remaining 15 games. Toodles for now!