This post is gonna be a little different from the norm. I like to chat absolute nonsense about what’s going on in the football world currently but in this one I’m gonna talk about my greatest achievement playing Football Manager. FM12 to be precise.
I had started as Sheffield Wednesday. My favourite club. At this point we were in League One, favourites to get promoted along with Sheffield United (then managed by Danny Wilson) and Huddersfield (then managed by Lee Clarke).
I got off to a very promising start with Gary Madine banging them in for fun as well as Ben Marshall (before his loan deal ended) and Michail Antonio grabbing a few themselves. I was sitting pretty at the top of the league. Liam Palmer had been putting in some stellar performances, despite not scoring many goals everything just seemed to run through him. Tidy…
~ Side note: don’t really rate Madine in real life but he’s a cracking little poacher on FM12. Especially in League One ~
I ended up going on a nice cup run in the Johnstone Paint Trophy and won 4-1 against Crawley in the final, Gary Madine and Chris O’Grady with two apiece. Whilst I was doing all this Sheffield United had flopped to 12th in the league (Danny Wilson was soon replaced with Aidy Boothroyd)...this season was turning into a reyt belter. You’d think I’d have called it a successful season after that but the Johnstone Paint was just a side act. I wanted the league title.
After the cup triumph we went on a bit of a wobble. I’d dropped to 2nd behind Huddersfield and couldn’t seem to catch a break over them. When I won they won, when they lost I lost. Neither of us seemed to draw and eventually I found myself 2nd, 2 points behind Huddersfield with just a single game to be played.
I had a look at the fixtures for the final week. I had Yeovil who had already had relegation confirmed. Huddersfield had Bournemouth who also had already been relegated...God sake.
Looking at the table I thought to myself “the best I can hope for is for Huddersfield to draw.” Even with a draw Huddersfield would win on goal difference. I needed to win 4-0 against Yeovil and pray to God that Huddersfield drew at best.
I’d been playing a direct 4-4-2 all season but decided I needed to go all out in this game. Went 4-2-4, looking to overload the opposition box with all my 6 foot players. All I needed was 4 and with my current goal scoring record I was gonna be lucky to get that. My team looked like this;
~~~~~~~~~~~~Weaver~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~Buxton~~Jones~~Batth~~Helan~~~
~~~~~~~~Palmer~~Semedo~~~~~~~~
Antonio~Madine~O’Grady~Assombalonga
~Side note: That was incredibly annoying to type out~
I gave them a calming team talk (a nice reaction) and sent them on there way…
They were all f*cking over me! there were about twenty highlights all for Yeovil. I couldn’t believe how much they were dominating me. I could understand why they had been relegated though because they didn’t finish a single chance. Some sound saves from Weaver but mainly poor finishing from their strikers.
I made it to half time at 0-0, I asserted that I wanted more from them all! They took it well again. I brought on Clinton Morrison for Madine (I needed a little more experience and strength in that final third). I didn’t want to look at Huddersfield score so I just continued on.
Second half was a little better I had a few chances but it was still pretty even. Either team could win this! around the 60 minute I noticed Liam Palmer was having a bad game by his standards, He’d had a great season but today he was struggling. I brought him off and stuck on the legend that was David Prutton.
The match continued. 88th minute. 89th minute. 90th minute…+4. I had four minutes added time to win...the 4-0 is gone now this is all about pride. Suddenly in the 92nd minute a highlight starts.
Jose Semedo is tackled in the centre circle, the ball is played through to a Yeovil striker who is 1-on-1 with Nicky Weaver. B*llocks. Suddenly Rob Jones comes in with an inch perfect tackle out of nowhere to save me from embarrassment. The ball bounces to Buxton.
Buxton into midfield. Midfield back to Buxton. Buxton to Jones. Helan. Batth. Prutton. Batth. Jones. Buxton. Antonio. Semedo. Helan. Assombalonga...Semedo...Helan...Batth...Helan….
This was going on forever. Just get it forward!!!
Buxton had the ball and he knocked it 30 yards forward to Prutton who was in Yeovil’s half. Chris O’Grady came short. Prutton played to pass to O’Grady and just made a straight run through the middle of The Glovers defense. Chris then turned and played a chipped pass straight through to Prutton. Bounced. One touch…
PRUTTOOOOOOOONNNN!!!!!
I looked at the clock. 93:58 Prutton had made it 1-0 with 2 seconds left!
I cheered my tits off haha. My brother turned and said “Shut the f*ck up. It’s only a game.” I thought ‘nah he’s just guaranteed himself a new contract the gypsy lookalike b*stard. I may not have won the league but what a way to end it.”
Anyway won 1-0 clicked continue...turns out Huddersfield had lost 1-0 to Bournemouth. I checked my inbox ‘congratulations on winning the NPower League One'…oh my God…
PRUTTOOOOOOOONNNN!!!!! thought he was an absolute legend ever since! haha
David Prutton won me the league in the last two seconds of the season. For me that was better than Aguero for City.
Sadly some of you reading might be wondering why there is no picture with this post. Well in my second season I somehow managed to loan and buy Danny Batth. He was a free agent but he was contracted to us? every time I went to look at his profile a few seconds later Football Manager would crash and it’d say “there was an error” or something.
Good thing that happened in all honesty because I signed some reyt crap in my second season and we ended up like second bottom after about ten games…but hey ho onwards and upwards.
Just wanted to share that with everyone and I hope you enjoyed it.
Cheers for reading.
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