Ah…Tony Thorpe. That guy that gets snapped up in the first
few months of the game by a Premier League side without fail…and nobody knows
why. At the beginning of CM9798 Tony was at the start of what would also be in
real life, a short-lived spell at Fulham, having signed in the summer of 1997
after a prolific spell at Luton.
After 13 games, in 1998 Tony signed for Bristol City who
loaned him back out to Reading, and Luton (twice) also all in 1998. After becoming
fairly prolific at Bristol, he signed for…wait for it…Luton again in 2002
before leaving again in acrimonious circumstances. He went on to have an
unspectacular nomadic career continuing the trend of playing for more than one
club a year.
Happy Tuesday to you all! Here’s KingOfTheRooks with more from the Swedes in Barcelona. It’s the end of the season and it’s time for trophies, but will any of them be heading to Sweden?
Hello again and welcome back to Turnips on Tour. Last time out we completed a major miracle making it through to the Champions League quarter finals as the best second placed side with a squad of 10 players. Unfortunately, we lost the Super Cup 6-5 on aggregate to Borussia Dortmund following a commendable 4-4 away result. We closed out January with a 1-point cushion to an in-form Real Madrid who have just signed Alfonso, thankfully, we don’t need to play them again. Against all the odds so far, our Swedes have not wilted in the Spanish sun; here’s the run in:
February see’s us face 3 top 10 sides in Valencia, Real Sociedad and Deportivo. A customary 2-0 over 19th placed Oviedo is completed, along with the same result vs. Valencia. Away to Sociedad I make a complete turnip of myself. I mean to switch out Arvidsson but mistakenly remove the in-form Ernstsson. In the end, it’s a happy accident.
Arvidsson completes his hattrick in the final moments with two more strikes from some of my other ssons sandwiched in between. I claim the manager of the month award for the 3rd time this season and we massage the result Swedish style as we destroy Deportivo; the 4-1 is flattery to them.
A result like that against a team in red is exactly what I’m hoping for next as we take on Man Utd in the Champions League.
The turnips step out at Old Trafford and into the roar of the lion’s den. Our first game in Europe with our key players. We make a bright start as Svensson bursts clear and slots it past the big Dane. Asper makes a triple save however we don’t clear, and Butt smashes the rebound home only 5 minutes later. The goth is put through and slots home with ease. Mid second half, Schmeichel takes Ernstsson out, a clear penalty and red card, the linesman is flagging, the referee says no! Unbelievable! Man Utd pepper the goal but Asper stands tall and that is some first leg advantage.
Preparation for the 2nd leg isn’t idea as we make unbelievably heavy work of very weak opposition. After the interval, our lead is down to 2 points as Real just keep winning.
Oh and add to that Karlsson is out for a month and all our key players are at risk of getting injured on international duty. That’s my second choice ‘keeper getting a call up ahead of Asper…odd.
We…are…through! Asper gets MoM for resolutely defending from the onslaught of Sheringham, Giggs and Scholes. That was tough. And we lose Prytz and Kilhberg for the next game through suspension.
Our reward is two legs against Bayern in the semi-finals. The other game is PSV and Dortmund. Could be a chance of revenge on the cards. A proud moment for the international break as a side largely of our own making brushes Italy aside.
What ensues is an international hangover of epic proportions as we start the game against 14th placed Zaragoza in diabolical fashion. Despite Pascal’s first goal, this is woeful. We are lucky Real lose the Madrid derby to keep us top.
Next up Bayern Munich. We have given ourselves half a chance. Not sure why we were wearing our away kit at home though.
We follow-up with a poor 2-0 defeat to Atletico. Real Madrid will be ahead of us now until the final day unless they slip up as our game in hand falls the second last round of games.
We scrape a 1-0 at Sporting Gjion in preparation of the game of our lives against Bayern Munich. In contrast to the home leg, this time out we wear our home strip and Bayern wear their away.
Kipling’s boy puts us in the final where would you know it, we play Borussia Dortmund. In the league it’s one for sson and sson’s for all.
We are simply too good for Bilbao as our iron Ljung sets us on route to victory.
The man of son puts us out of sight vs. a battling Celta side who pushed us all the way.
We make easy work of Valladolid but Guiseppe Signori blows us away which means it will come down to the final day against Tenerife. We must win.
Unbelievable stuff! The pressure was on with Deportivo and Betis winning the other European trophies. We switch to 4-4-2 to combat the attacking nature of Dortmund that we felt the full force of in the Super Cup and fashion a boring and unlikely 1-0 win at the San Siro. We’ll be without our top scorer for our must win league game at Tenerife however which is bad and puts an end to Niclas Svensson’s season. Patric Karlsson the hero on the night.
Tenerife offer us swede FA in terms of opposition as Bengt Andersson lets us smash 3 goals in and with that we wrap up a La Liga and Champions League double! The board are delighted.
And with that here is the final table:
And the player stats:
And here are some vital statistics:
Transfer Fees: £7.5m
Wages: £2.7m
Income: £36.0m
Balance: £82.9m
Oh, and this happened. First time a B Team has won a major competition, they’ll be in Europe next season!
Oh no. 55 games were just too much.
Our cost per goal overall has been £69k which you have to say is a fantastic return. Next season will be tough as the Barcelona B squad start to become available on free transfers. Hopefully they move abroad but I’m doubtful.
Next season we’ll be competing on 6 fronts for La Liga, Copa Del Ray, Spanish Super Cup, European Super Cup, Champions League and World Club Cup so we’ll need to wheel and deal in the market to hopefully get some of the players we want and shed some of the failures to the reserves. See you next season!
Peter is a legend in the Championship Manager world and was
also a record breaker during the 1997-98 season. He was the youngest goal
scorer in the UEFA Champions League at just 17 years and 195 days when playing
for Olympiacos, a record he still retains to this day.
His reason for being at ‘Minor Team’ is due to his Greek
side Kalamata FC not being in the database. Olympiacos reportedly paid $3.5m
for his services. He eventually retired after returning to Ghana in 2012.
Unfortunately he did not reach the potential the gaming world set aside for
him, that said he can be picked up relatively cheap and at 16 years old you
will potentially get 20 seasons out of him.
Andrew is back with more from Swedes take Barcelona: Stockholm Syndrome. The Turnips on Tour have made an encouraging start but with a demanding board, Champions League results could mean everything…
Hello and welcome back to Turnips on Tour! Last time out the Swedish invasion had taken control of Barcelona, we had created the most enviable B side in the history of B sides who are making waves in the Copa del Ray, we’d made it to the Champions League group stages on 10 players, and were sat on top of La Liga at this very early stage. Here’s a reminder of the table:
Dhorasoo is a solid signing for any budding side looking for
a defensive anchor and made the cut for the last CM9798 Cup.
In real life Dhorasoo went on to sign for Lyon making over
161 appearances scoring 11 goals followed by short stints at AC Milan and PSG.
At Milan he was in the squad which had a very unfortunate night in Istanbul
against Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League final.
He went on to feature in a film called Substitute detailing
his role as an unused squad player during the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
I’ve been looking forward to this one. By now, you should know by now Andrew (KOTR) has been researching Scandinavian CM9798 players. What about a club could only recruit Swedish players? What if that club was a European giant? What if you ate Ikea hotdogs whilst you read this? Let’s hear more from Andrew…
Hello and welcome to my latest adventure. There is always a great deal of interest in the hidden depths of the CM9798 database much of which is caused by the games own limitations on the number of players a 16-bit game can handle.
Alfonso is fondly remembered by anyone who played CM9798,
along with many of the 1997-98 Real Betis side; if you wanted you could have
paired him up-front with his brother Ivan Perez Munoz. He went on to score over
50 goals for Betis, followed by a relatively unsuccessful spell at Barcelona
and a loan to Marseille before returning to Betis to end his career.
He also accumulated 38 caps for Spain, scoring 11 goals. A
point of interest is that Getafe named their stadium after him (Coliseum
Alfonso Perez) even though he never played for his hometown club.
Hello and welcome back to mission impossible; keeping a bunch of drunken kebab swallowing ‘athletes’ in the Premier League. Last time out we left you having made a bit of a recovery to drag ourselves out of the relegation places by the end of January. Troubling though that we have lost against a few of our relegation rivals and have been relying on unlikely draws with more upmarket sides. Also, we dropped a Bullock as Tony headed off to our bitter rivals Leeds United – last years PFA Player of the Year gone.
This has been a major blow as Dave Watson has failed to be as successful in the following games. That said, it’s a thankless task keeping our goal. The next few games prior to the run in may well see us drop back into the danger zone:
The next 7
games sees us play 6 of those against top 10 opposition. I’ll be happy with 4
points. The run-in through April and May see us go toe to toe with most of the
clubs looking to avoid the drop.
Due to an FA Cup and League Cup backlog, we don’t play until late February and we’re now back in the bottom three with two games in hand. We visit Pride Park where we snatch a draw with mid-table Derby County. With two cleared off the line, it feels like points dropped.
We take an
absolute kicking from Spurs (4-0) which does us absolutely no good. We didn’t
turn up until the second half and now our other Bullock is suspended for two
games.
We fair better against 2nd placed Aston Villa, but we go down 1-0 as we have 4 shots cleared off the line and Novotny gets a 10 and MoM.
It’s not impossible, but this run against the top teams is killing my chances.
Big Al is out for a few weeks too.
Again, a valiant effort against a significantly superior Liverpool, and a late comeback just isn’t enough. We are just not clinical enough. We are now 5 points from safety…it all seems too much.
We lose the big derby 1-0 and I have to say, 8 points a drift and a complete inability to finish…I cannot see us escaping the drop at this point.
Our woes get worse as Martin Bullock becomes injured for two weeks after coming back from suspension and due to Man Utd’s cup exploits our fixture backlog extends. The gods do not like this spot of Yorkshire, that much is certain.
Another potential good return tossed out with the old kebab leftovers! Burton’s dismissal will see big Al return to the starting 11…as I have no other strikers. League Cup winners Blackburn put us to the sword, and it is all but over. Watson is about as leaky as a prolapsed rectum.
We get a draw at Old Trafford and the big dane denies big Al on the 90th minute…what a victory that would have been.
And this is the shit that pisses me right off. Big Al has one chalked off for offside and Moses sticks one in his own basket (and still gets MoM)…
The crazy gang live up to their name, and despite gift wrapping it for us, we win but really should have done some damage to the goal difference. Well done to the basket for getting us going.
We follow-up by giving the old faithful at Oakwell something to behold…a dreary 2-0 defeat to Arsenal. How they are down the bottom of the table I’ll never know. We are now 7 points adrift with 3 games to go…it is inevitable.
The board are simultaneously delighted but expect a higher league position…hmmm. The brutality of our squad and the seasons punishment has taken its toll:
And with a whimper, we are down. With Moses going off and De Zeeuw suspended, we played most of the game with two full-backs standing in against Duncan Ferguson…that was never going to end well. Devastated, all that is left to play for is pride.
The board are very disappointed at our relegation and are
now only ‘satisfied’ with my performance as manager. Hopefully all that money I
haven’t spent will help keep them happy.
Sheeeeeeeeeron…has his shot saved, but the real big Al takes the spoils for Newcastle. As Michael Owen sharply pointed out, the team that scores the most goals usually wins…
We sign off on our Premier League adventure in typical fashion with our 14th draw of the season. Our inability to either score or maintain a lead has been critical in our downfall. I am certain that had the man from Leek Town not left we’d have stayed up.
So, here’s the final table:
Liverpool roll-home with Sunderland and Newcastle in tow. At the bottom Forest and West Ham join us in relegation and the crazy gang survive to live another day.
All we needed was a goal scorer. Had Fjortoft not been out for 15 months, we might have scraped a few more points together. Clayton Blackmore is STILL the only other potential signing available. Lets take a look at those all important stats:
Jones can be discounted having played 3 games, which demonstrates the complete lack of ability we were playing with. I’m surprised we weren’t relegated by Christmas! Liddell ended up top scorer with 12 goals, Markstedt was next with 5 from midfield and Moses with 4 from defence.
In case you were interested, Bayern turned around the Bundesliga to win by a country mile, Real Madrid won a thrilling Champions League final:
And Real Betis break the duopoly of Barca and Madrid despite selling their best players to their rivals. So despite relegation, I leave Barnsley in a very stable financial position with funds available to consider a re-building exercise and return to the Premier League at the first time of asking.
I leave you with the end of season awards, of which this year, we achieve none (unsurprisingly).
Thank you for following our journey to the pits of despair
and beyond. It has been one of the most tense seasons I have experienced. Maybe
we’ll be back soon with a different mission…
One of the essential CM9798 wonderkids and a key signing to
set your back line up for a long time. John would make his Manchester Utd debut
in a 7-0 hammering of Barnsley in 1997 but never broke through at the club.
He went on to sign for Blackburn Rovers in 2000 and played
consistently during the promotion season to the Premier League. He can also
count himself a League Cup winners medal from his time at Blackburn. After
representing England B, he went on to a number of moves that just didn’t quite
work out, retiring in 2011 hanging up his boots after a final season in the
A-League.
Last week, KingOfTheRooks decided that keeping Barnsley up wasn’t enough. He wants to go one step further and survive another season using only real life signings. Does further greatness await?
Ey-up and welcome back to deepest darkest Yorkshire where
yet again we’re taking on a challenge only an absolute lunatic would take on;
keeping Barnsley in the Premier League (again) but on the basis of the squad
from the 1998-99 season. In reality, Barnsley finished 13th in the
First Division, John Hendrie was sacked, and they never reached the dizzy
heights of the Premier League again.
You left us previously rooted to the foot of the table having only managed to sign Mike Sheron, with the only other transfer target available a washed-up Clayton Blackmore, and, given we already have 6 left backs, we won’t be pursuing that one! Here’s a reminder of our depleted resources:
We can’t play Redfearn, Liddell and Fjortoft up for sale
(the latter out for 15 months anyway) and Krizan and Hristov without work permits.
We’ve picked up 5 points from the last 15 and really should have been at least
4 points better off but for late collapses.
We start November at Oakwell which has largely been a place we’ve kept the goals out. It’s the Kebab Shop Carriers vs. the Crazy Gang. We boss the match, and just can’t find the net so out comes Sheron and in comes McClare with Liddell pushed up top…and we win!
My good mood was short-lived. The dreaded big club release clause relieves us of our most prized asset as Leeds United come calling for the man from Leek Town. Well Dave Watson, you’ve got the first team place you’ve been crying for.
We are nothing without Tony, and we all hate Leeds.
It never rains in South Yorkshire, it just constantly pelts down…
One more in, welcome…Deon Burton
Another loss to a relegation rival, and things are not looking rosy in the gardens of Yorkshire.
Tony’s replacement, Dog Shit Dave, concedes both of Norwich’s (Second Division Norwich) shots and we exit the League cup at the 4th round. The plus here is less chance of injuries for vital survival games. Next up and Shearer vs. Sheron was never really going to be a contest.
The return of our iconic religious figure at the back and the joker see’s us win the latest Yorkshire derby, although Sheff Wed gave us a late scare after we withdrew said two plays. We remain bottom but now only 2 points from climbing out of our pit!!!
We continue to score goals, but without the shining star of Tony Bullock it is hard to maintain a lead, that said, we really should have scored more than two.
Upton funked us right up, as we lose 1-0 to relegation
rivals West Ham, Abou with the only goal. We didn’t even register a shot. The
lads still carrying the hangover from the celebrations after drawing at
Leicester. I won’t dwell on bowing out the FA Cup 3rd round to
Hartlepool other than to say the real Barnsley made the Quarter Finals
(somehow).
That is a MASSIVE three points. Absolutely massive. Only 3 points separate ourselves and 15th placed Sheffield Wednesday. This dog will not go down without a fight! We follow it up with a decent defensive result as we walk away from Roker Park (4th placed Sunderland) with a respectable 0-0 draw.
This is brutal. Marksedt has transformed since moving into midfield and is our top scorer with 5 goals. He is also our chief corner taker which tends to be the catalyst for our chances. We close out January with a superb point against second place Chelsea, which we could have won (story of my season).
At this point in time my main concerns regards keeping our
fight alive are that Liddell has to be sold if we receive an offer; Adi Moses
has a big club release clause and is a wanted man, and, with the board refusing
to allow me to cheat and list him for loan until the window closes I am
completely on edge. Clayton Blackmore remains the only constant in available
transfer purchases.
With that, we have pulled ourselves back out of the relegation zone for the first time since the 26th of August.
At the top of the table meanwhile it is all change from what you would expect, that said Man Utd have improved on their bottom half finish last season:
Over in the Bundesliga it’s the tightest title race I’ve ever seen.
And in La Liga the dominance of the big two is being broken:
So the board know just how hard I’m fighting to keep the club afloat.
And with that, we’ll say you again soon duck, to find out
whether we can really pull off mission impossible II, or whether the
footballing gods have it in for us and our already diabolical and small squad
is further depleted by the circling vultures at the top of the table.
