The Ross County Challenge: A Highland Fling | @TJMitcham1983

I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with the Scottish Highlands — maybe it’s the endless hills, the sense of isolation, or perhaps it’s just the sheer madness of running a football club hundreds of miles from anywhere. Those long journeys to away games, the hardy handful of fans who make the trip, and the eternal optimism of men in woolly hats watching a team that’s probably just drawn 0–0 again… there’s something beautifully tragic about it.

In Championship Manager 97/98, the most northerly of these brave souls to grace the Scottish Football League were Ross County — proud representatives of Dingwall, a town that could generously be described as “remote”.

At this point in history, Ross County were the new kids on the block, having only joined the Scottish Football League in 1994, joining the newly expanded Third Division. The club’s chairman was Roy MacGregor, the local businessman whose ambition would eventually propel County all the way to the Scottish Premiership. In 1997/98, the man in the dugout was Neale Cooper, the former Aberdeen midfielder and one of Alex Ferguson’s trusted lieutenants from the glory days at Pittodrie.

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A Royale Mess – A Blog Squad Tale | Part Six: Talking Tactics | @KingOfTheRooks

Welcome back everyone. We’re taking a break from the action of the blog league to take a look at what tactics are being employed by each of the teams and have a closer look at some of the key performers in each team.

AIK – Matt

Matt has probably pulled a decent side from the hat, but not a lot of depth on the face of what we have seen so far.

Tactically Matt has chosen a 2-3-3-2 formation which is focused on splitting the pitch into two basic core elements of defence and attack. It should allow you to overload the front with AM’s or FW’s but the match engine will still recognise a healthy bucket of defensive bodies.

As ever, it’s a Direct style to get up the pitch quickly and efficiently but you need the personal up top to be able to manage that style. Matt has conceded 4 goals per game, so perhaps having nothing in the middle is a problem?

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I think we’re Cologne now – Part 1: Borders | @Matt_C_Wills

Hello and greetings from Germany. After my Leeds adventure I’ve now turned my attention to my Blog Squad Secret Santa shirt, where the excellent Mr Ross Bell sent me a FC Koln away shirt.

I mean, isn’t that amazing. Reminds me of Cameroon for some reason, but anyway, FC Koln – or simply Cologne as they are known in the game, didn’t have the best of seasons in 1997/98. 20 years after they won the Bundesliga, they were relegated in 17th place.

Looking at their squad, it’s not hard to see why.

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Harry Houdini & Happy Birthday CM9798! | @Emsonite

Hello everybody, it’s Dave here just borrowing Dean’s post. Today marks 28 years since the release of CM9798, no doubt a day you all have circled on the calendar. We have of course celebrated this game every year for at least the last 10, who knows how many more I’ve lost track of when we started this. What I do know though is that I have a great set of writers here who started out as fellow nerds I know on the internet to being good friends who I’m lucky to have stumbled across one day. Deano has prepared a great one off post which I wanted to use as our birthday post rather than me rehashing some sort of quiz type, which may yet happen next week but we’ll see. There’s also posts lined up from Matt & Andrew, so you’ll have some full weeks ahead w/c November 3rd. Anyway, enough from me, here’s Dean and “Harry Houdini” which I’ll let him explain.

Good Day to you. I haven’t done a blog for a while, it’s just finding the time these days. But today it’s pissing down so thought I’d dip my toe back in with a short challenge.

“Harry Houdini”  Simple premise; Let the game run, take over and try and save the club who’s bottom at Christmas. 

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Sporting Eeyore – Part 23: Goodbee

Bonjola and welcome back to Gijon for one final episode. We’re going to finish season 8 today and then put this save in the freezer. I’ve enjoyed it very much but it has ran it’s course, especially if we achieve our aims today. As a reminder, that is for Gijon to win the Champions League and the B Team (henceforth, The Bees) to win the Cup Winners Cup. Let’s get to it.

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Sporting Eeyore – Part 22: Price of Success

Bonjola and welcome back to Gijon for the 22nd and likely penultimate time. Season 8 is upon us and it will be a season like no other. Why you ask? Well, Gijon have won the league several times now and retained the Champions League, so that’s less important. The B Team won the Copa del Rey, which means they’re in the Cup Winners Cup. They must win it. We must win the Champions League, we can meet in the European Super Cup and confirm that we are the greatest club, possibly of all time. I don’t know. Let’s proceed.

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Sporting Eeyore – Part 20: World European Super Bees

Bonjola! Welcome back to Gijon, where Real Madrid have awoken and once again we have our work cut out to retain our La Liga crown. In this episode we’ll also have our first attempts at winning the World Club Cup and the European Super Cup, and if that doesn’t get your pulse racing then we’ll continue our mission to get the B Team into Europe and complete world domination.

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