Welcome to the final episode of this series, the Turf Roar boys are still fighting on three fronts, we lead the Premier League by seven points and are still in both the FA Cup and Champions League.

Our first match of the episode sees us travel to London to face Crystal Palace.  They have his royal highness Edwin Turkington in goal.  Despite peppering Turkington’s goal for 90 minutes he is in fine form, refusing to concede.  Then in the 69th minute, Aboubacar Camara scores.  A positive start to the final instalment.

Thankfully we are back to winning ways a week later as we breeze past Doncaster in the FA Cup 5th round.

Away to Wiki Rivals Leeds we score two in the first half hour and then shut up shop.

Captain Babb and Pistolo Petko get the goals at home to Birmingham.

Despite Luke Weaver’s best efforts to pull out the Super Keeper cheat code Pistolo gets a goal as we beat Portsmouth 1-0.

Our Champions League Quarter Final match is against French side Lyon, they have future CM Legend Seb Frey in goal and one of our previous Bene and Hot signings Manuel Viard.  Frey shows why he is rated so highly in future versions, he’s pretty good on this one too.  It’s going to be tough at the Moor.  

The FA Cup Quarter Final is a tough one, Man Red come to the Moor, it’s a very even game, fortunately luck is on our side as we fight back from 0-1 down to 1-1, before one of this seasons two signings, Glaucio scores the winner in the 82nd minute.

It’s the classic same team in the cup and league scenario a week later, this game is much more straightforward.  It seems Man Reds powers are finally on the decline.

Two weeks after losing the first leg 0-1, Lyon visit the Moor, it’s a familiar story, we batter their goal and go 1-0 up thanks to Captain Babb.  However, we can’t score a second and four minutes before half time we concede two goals to their only two shots!  Old boy Viard getting his revenge after we dismissed him for calling us a small club!  The second half brings more of the same, Frey saving every shot, until Pistolo scores our second and then Vernazza gets a third.  We have 23 minutes to score the vital goal, but try as we might we fall just short, damn you away goals!!

We head to Coventry in the league, the game is a little flat till Moldovan gets sent off, we score two late goals thanks to Terry and a rare subs appearance for Dangerous OG.

From Coventry to Nottingham, Forest are our nearest rivals in the League, Man Red having fallen away.  It’s a close game at the city ground, but, thanks to Savio (I’ve taken back everything I’ve ever said about him, he’s great) we sneak a 3-2 win.

It’s FA Cup semi final time, we are at Old Trafford against Boro.  Teams from the Northeast have been our nemesis these last few seasons and Boro knocked us out of the League Cup.  The curse appears to have been broken when we lead 2-0 at half time.  Bloody hell, f**king Craig Bellamy!!  It’s possible we used up all our Cup luck in season four, when we inexplicably won the FA Cup and Champions League.

We only have seven games left in the League, however we have amassed such a lead that after beating Sheffield Wednesday and Chelsea at home in the following two matches we are 16 points ahead and Forest only have four left to play.  The Premier League is ours, it wasn’t as exciting as the final day drama with Leeds last season, but it is the victory that we missed out on last time round.

I mess around with the team in the final five games, of course, the first one we lose to Boro, but after that we beat Villa in the Claret Cup, Leicester for one final Moor Roar, despite Captain Babb getting our first sending off in ages.  We draw with Sunderland, which for us is like a win and then thanks to Dangerous 1.0 and Pistolo we win our final game of the year at White Hart Lane.

We are runaway League winners, those 1-0 wins making a big difference, last year we lost or drew too many of those close games.

The season stats show that Pistolo was directly involved in 58 goals, Terry Henry 51 and that little wizard Savio really is quite good.

Here are our final League positions across the six seasons.

in terms trophies we were:

• League Two Champions
• League One Champions
• Premier League runners up 1999/00 and 2001/02
• Premier League Champions 2002/03
• FA Charity Shield winners 2001/02
• FA Cup Winners in 2000/01
• World Club Cup Winners 2001/02
• Champions League Winners 2000/01

Here are a few player histories from some of the more prominent and or longer standing players.

The OG Dangerous Dave, five respectable seasons.

Savio, he’s changed my mind, I will never question buying him again, he’s basically a bargain buy because Real Madrid don’t play him so he eventually wants to leave on the cheap.

Pistolo cost £24,000 and scored 90 goals, that’s a good bit of business.

Bjorn has Damien Duff to thank for coming back into the team, Duff played left wingback as a M/FL and he averaged 7.00+ so I rebought Bjorn and he was great as right wingback for two years.

De Souza joined at the end of season one, as soon as he was an U21 International, probably the best £130,000 I’ve ever spent.

Belgian Steve was a regen, but I can’t remember of who. Despite being a defender, he appeared in the midfield search so he must have a 1 in there somewhere, he was formidable as the DMC with a back arrow to the centre backs.

Finally, the skipper, Denis Babb, a random free agent in season two who was consistency personified, and scorer of the goal that beat Man Red 1-0 in the Champions League final.

Finally, a snapshot of the side, this was my main starting squad when all were fit, the starting 11 containing:

• Three Belgians
• Two Irishmen
• Three Frenchmen
• Two Brazilians
• One Bulgarian

It’s been a good ride, thanks for reading, I enjoyed working to the strange rules I had imposed upon myself. Side note, Belgium have some good regen keepers and a lot of attacking talent, but no disrespect to Steve Roussel and Steph AsStassin they are really lacking defensive and midfield options, which was tough, because apart from the Irish players, they were the only other European country I could buy freely from.  Turf Roar, over and out.