Hello! I really thought I was done, I had become devoid of inspiration in the world of CM9798 and the CM Cup was to be my only focus of writing for the foreseeable future. But time is a great healer, and as I sat on Zoom through July playing group games and having a frankly brilliant time with fans of the game, I realised I had more to give. That and my wife is due with baby number 2 in January, so it’s now or never really.
Anyway, my last save took me to Barnsley on the original version of the game. It was fun, I surpassed my expectations in terms of both ease and speed for making Barnsley a global force. I thought to myself, what else have I always fancied achieving on this game? and as usual, the simplest answer is usually the best.
I want to take a club from Scottish Division 3 to the Champions League and beyond. I know, I know – Peter Jones already did that on this very blog and we all had a great time reading about Alloa running wild. So now I want to do it and hopefully you’ll all come with me on the journey.
I’ve chosen Cowdenbeath for a few reasons. Firstly, I feel like there’s a number of beef jokes to be made including the blog title. It remains to be seen whether I go for Beef or Beath but either way. Secondly, they’re pretty terrible. I looked at the 96/97 table and they were 7th out of 10. Arbroath were bottom but they went on to get promoted in 97/98 and I don’t want that sort of expectation on my shoulders. Our lads were then 8th in 97/98, so basically they are poor at best and I have a clear conscience that these boys are at the bottom of the barrel and the only way is up.
With £86k in the bank (£14k came out for wages on day one, which seems a little unnecessary) and every player valued at £5k, we need to find a solution.
Luckily, I always have one at the top of my contact list:
I also remembered this guy, who I think was a CM9798 Academy hero back in the day. So that’s the front 2 sorted.
A bit of experience at the back. Our captain, big Johnson. Err big Nige.
Another Academy stalwart between the sticks.
Andrew Duncan, everybody’s favourite free transfer. I would guess he will not last long.
Westlife’s finest.
A DM left/centre…
Robo Cod.
Add a couple of North London loanee signings and we have one very bloated squad…
But a will to win.
Montrose…Montrose…Montrose. I hope they’re crap.
I’m not planning to do every single game in this blog but I certainly will to start with. Unless they’re all interesting. In Micker we trust.
Off to a great start, the defence might be a problem.
625 people felt the need to show up for this new era of Beef Football. Duncan is dismissed and we lose to Montrose. We’ll see them again for the finale of this series soon.
Next round of the cup and the Micker is off the mark, twice in fact.
Stranraer are a division higher but considering there are 6 Premier League sides in there, that could have been a lot worse.
Another cup, another game with Montrose. They thrash us to death this time. Sigh.
We definitely have problems. David Gower is sent off for commandeering an aircraft and it leads to us conceding five goals to Berwick. A 5-3 loss having been at 3-3 with 5 minutes to go…let’s dig deeper.
I see, 6 on target, 5 goals. It seems our goalkeepers have no hands.
A late loss to Stranraer ends the dream of the Scottish Coca-Cola Cup. It was some dream.
Five more at Alloa.
And then 4 at Albion Rovers.
If you’re struggling to keep track, that’s 4 defeats out of 4 and 17 conceded.
I’ve been chopping and changing goalkeepers and have concluded they’re all terrible. Heritage is probably least worst. An adjustment to 4-2-3-1 brings an immediate upturn for the Micker but a red card for Nigel the magnificent.
He might have 20 for influence but he’s a fool. So let’s sign Matthew Bound, another standard free transfer.
This is what we’re lining up with. Pearson isn’t really a 10 but I don’t have another.
Still, if it works, don’t question it. East Stirling fail to score past us, the greatest indignity.
It’s a bit ropey at Hampden Park, which in game holds less than 10,000. Anyway, the front 2 are both at the double despite not really being a front 2 anymore. Conceding is less of a problem when you’re good up front.
Any thoughts that we have turned a corner are immediately forgotten with a tame defeat to Ross County. McBain – let’s get silly.
Two weeks without our own action hero too.
Ahh, the first inevitable bid.
Obviously he goes and the tribunal earns us £4,000. Thanks, courts. That’s not great, I was relying on it being a couple of hundred thousand to help the finances.
When all else fails, sign Tomlinson. I don’t know why these players are so keen to come to Scottish Division 3 and why nobody has snapped them up already but whatever. It’ll work.
That’s more like it! Except Doncaster aren’t deemed a big enough club so I can reject and await an even bigger bid.
Even without the Micker, we recover from being 2-0 down inside 7 minutes. Tomlinson’s debut is a success.
Montrose, yet again, this time ends in a draw. I’m quite happy with that in the circumstances.
Look at the crowd! They can’t wait to watch Beathball as we serve up another defensive shitshow but manage to win 3-2.
Gower and Day have both gone back to London whilst Codner is out for 6 weeks, so back to the freebie market for reinforcements.
This is all the proof needed to show we have gone full circle. A solid 1-0 away win. You just try and stop us.
There we are, up to 4th. Outscoring everybody and not even the worst defensively anymore. Thank you Berwick.
It’s good to be back but we’ll leave it there for this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed episode 1 as I’ll be back next week with more. So long!