Non-League To Big League: Part 1

Hello and welcome to Non-League To Big League, an adventure in Football Manager 2024 in which I'll endeavour to become a legend in the world of football management while going from the grassroots game (hopefully) all the way to the upper echelons of the sport. 

If you want to get a gist of the rules that I'll be adhering to then check out Lollujo's Non-League To Legend, Kevin is a massive inspiration to myself and many other FM players both on and off social media and I probably wouldn't be doing this now if it wasn't for his videos. 

The only difference comes in the shape of the fact I'll be using an extended database which goes down all the way to county league football. My first club on the road to glory will be Grimsby Borough. If you're unfamiliar with The Wilderness Boys, they play their home games at the Bradley Football Development Centre in Grimsby and compete in the Northern Premier League Division One (East) which is step four of the non-league pyramid and eight divisions below the Premier League. 

With one of the smallest squads and budgets in the division, the main aim for the opening season of the save is to battle against relegation down to the Northern Counties East League. If we can finish in the higher reaches of mid-table and make some inroads in the FA Cup then I'll be happy. 

It's on the road to Wembley that our season begins as we get the 24-25 campaign underway with a trip to Redcar for the extra preliminary round of the world's oldest knockout competition. 

Despite many people writing our chances of progression off, we manage to pull off an impressive 2-0 win. For the majority of the game, we're the better of the two sides but we have to wait until the later stages of the match to get our reward as we strike a nice 1-2 punch combo with two late goals in as many minutes. 

Our reward for the win over Redcar is another away trip, this time to Bradford-based side Thackley from the division below, not that we'll be taking our higher league position for granted, it is the FA Cup after all. 

Rather unfortunately, we can't carry the good form from the FA Cup tie over into our opening league game of the season as we come away from our trip to Pontefract empty-handed. We're not at the races from the off and we're punished as we capitulate to concede two goals in quick succession in the closing stages of the second half, the two goals coming either side of defender Luis Adlard receiving his marching orders for a second yellow card. To add further insult to injury, we then concede a third goal with sixteen minutes left to cap off a poor afternoon in which we can only muster one shot on target. 

Desperate to bounce back from the opening day setback we welcome the world's oldest football club as Sheffield FC make the short trip to Bradley for our first home game of the season. Thankfully, we breeze into a 2-0 lead midway through the second half thanks to goals from Caine Winfarrah and Sam Topliss before Callum Lovett (deputising for the suspended Adlard) makes it 3-0 in first half stoppage time. Despite Sheffield pulling one back early in the second period, our superiority shines through and Tyler Edwards puts the icing on the cake with our fourth in injury time at the end of the game. 

Our last action of this instalment sees us make the trip to Thackley for the preliminary round of the FA Cup, a good win here and we could be one step closer to the later qualifying rounds and the possibility of one of the bigger non-league sides coming to Bradley. Once again we look to be in a commanding position midway through the first half when new signing Dean Winnard puts us into a comfortable 3-1 lead, complacency creeps in and we concede a second goal to have us rocking but luckily we're able to hold on to our slender lead before a late goal from captain Adam Drury seals the win for us and puts us firmly in the hat for the next round. 

There's a certain level of excitement generated from the cup draw as it throws up a tasty looking local derby against our nearest rivals Cleethorpes Town at the Bradley. 

Exciting times indeed, having played four in all competitions and only lost one. I'll take that despite the fact there's still a lot of football to be played. 

Thanks for reading, I'll see you in the next one!