Championship Manager 2 96-97 - The Hereford United Rebuild - Season 2

Having over-performed in our first season, by winning the league and guaranteeing promotion to the Second Division, I was under no illusions that the upcoming season was going to be tough. There were key areas of the squad currently occupied with under-performing players and I knew I had to bring in some new talent if we wanted to have any hopes of surviving inside Division 2. This wasn't made any easier owing to a couple of factors... first and foremost, as expected, last seasons top scorer, Adrian Foster, departed the club on a Free Transfer at the end of his contract (he ended up signing for Coventry in the Premier League!) and owing to a nice little bug in the game I was unaware of, I wasn't able to sign ANY PLAYERS on free transfers at contract expiry (or otherwise!). I will explain why at the bottom of this post, but it basically meant I had to wait until the data update at the start of "Season 2" before I could sign any players again! Of a shortlist of 16, only 3 players were still available as options to me, and they all declined...! So in the end I had to hastily shop the free transfer market to bolster the squad and as soon as possible! It meant playing roughly 4 or 5 games before the squad was finally in a position I was happy with... but by middle of September I had brought in; Right Back Steve Hitchen, new Strikers in Gary Worthington and Ben Thornley - the latter a former Man Utd player, Left sided Centre Back Dean Venus, Attacking Left Winger Robbie Breckin, Winger Lee Cowling and Centre Midfielder Richard Walker. Expecting Steve Hitchen to be more of a squad player, I also signed new Right Back; Julian Alsford from Chester for £9,000!

We had a bit of a rocky start to the beginning of the season, getting wacked 4-2 by Wrexham in our first league game before just squeezing past Barnet by a goal difference of 1 in the League Cup first round and then having to play a couple of games before the new signings were fit and ready to go, meaning we struggled to pull back a point against Bristol Rovers with a 3-3 draw, a narrow victory against Notts County at home 1-0 and a crazy 4-4 draw with Brentford. It's fair to say the team were feeling the step up in competition! We were knocked out in the 2nd Round of the League Cup by Premier League Charlton, so no repeat of last seasons heroics! And out of the 2nd Round of Auto Windscreens Shield by Brentford which, was disappointing to lose against a team in the same division as us. Results in the league were a bit mixed, we lost games to Bournemouth, Oxford, York, and Wrexham again but picked up a handful of draws and some decent wins against Peterborough, Stoke, Gillingham and Plymouth amongst others which meant that after floating around 10th and 11th for a few weeks we quickly climbed up the table to sit in 3rd place by January.

My goal is mostly just to survive in Division Two this season and build up ready to push for promotion next season so currently sitting in 3rd place, I'd consider us fairly safe! That being said, the mixed season trend continued as we crashed out the FA Cup in dismal fashion with a 5-3 penalty shootout loss to non-league Altrincham in a 2nd Round replay after they held us 3-3 at home! We got humbled by Oxford 4-2 away, and Plymouth 3-0 away and Luton 3-2 away... and then Peterborough 2-0 away but thankfully managed to pick up wins at home to Brentford, Bournemouth and Millwall as well as a total annihilation of Swindon 7-0 at home which was a new record Biggest Win.

You might have spotted a new name there; Jason Cousins. Who joined us from Wycombe Wanderers for £190k after Centre Back and Club Captain; David Cooper, arguably one of our best players, left the club to join Brondby... but for a cool £800k meaning I'll have some cash to splash at the end of the season! Owing to our mixed form, it was beginning to feel like catching Wrexham to take the Division Two title was out of the question, but we sat comfortably in 3rd place for most of the rest of the season only a couple of points away from catching Notts County in 2nd. We proceeded to again struggle for wins away, losing to Luton and Peterborough and playing out a goalless draw at bottom of the league Brighton which we really ought to have won... but picking up some good results with a 3-2 win at Gillingham, a 3-0 win at Walsall and a 3-2 win away at Barnet (Barnet still have CM legend; Sean Devine so I count a 3-2 win away as a great win to be frank...!) by 26th April news broke that we had done enough to secure a playoff spot which, was incredible given that it was broadly the same team save for a few hasty free transfer signings!

But we were too far in now and I wanted to avoid the play offs! Job done at Barnet we had moved above Notts County on goal difference after they couldn't get passed Preston at home and played out a 0-0 draw. We had two games left to hold down 2nd. After we beat Bury 2-1 at home, Notts County too also got the better of Bournemouth away; 4-0. Meaning we were going to take it to the final game of the season. Not knowing if a draw would be enough we were away at Chesterfield, our away form being very spotty this season, but we managed to get the better of the checks notes The Spireites? Fair enough... The Spireites 2-1 after a 74th minute goal from Gary Worthington was enough to see out a win. I felt like we had done enough, regardless of the result at Notts County - Oxford we held a 3 point gap over 3rd place and sure enough. As soon as the game was over it was confirmed that we had achieved automatic promotion to Division One!

An absolutely incredible achievement given the fact we started the season with no new signings, had to cobble together some hasty free transfers and survive the increase in competition! I keep calling our form mixed but we did pick up 28 wins in 46 games so clearly we were still performing well! Even if cup competition performance had been poor in comparison. Player of the Season and new Club Captain was new free transfer signing Ben Thornley:

At 23 I think he has scope to continue improving and developing and with 22 goals and 12 assists he has been a consistent performer and I hope will continue to play well as we kick off the campaign in Division One next season! Equaling that 22 goal tally was second new free transfer signing Gary Worthington:

Not as consistent in terms of performance as Ben Thornley and also on the other side of 30 now, but with 22 goals and 21 assists, I still feel like he has been a pretty good acquisition for nothing! And although I'm toying with bringing in a 3rd Forward / Striker for next season, I'd like to think he still has something to offer the club and will at least get a shot at holding down his place next season.

Once again instrumental in Midfield, Warren Patmore provided us with 15 goals and 19 assists but sadly is likely to have played his last season for us as he wants to move on to a bigger club and is worth a cool £1.2 Million so although he has time left on his contract, I may make the decision to see if we can cash in to better bolster weaker areas of the team.

Unfortunately I wasn't in contention for Division Two Manager of the Year this year, it went to the Wrexham boss and rightly so! But whilst I'm broadly happy with how the season eventually developed, I am nervously anticipating next season in the First Division. We certainly felt the test this season in the Second Division and I suspect we may have to shop for a new Goalkeeper amongst other key positions as neither Julian Alsford, Steve Hitchin, Lee Cowling, Robbie Breckin or Richard Walker, have brought improvements in their respective roles and I will likely need to strengthen in all areas on the field in prep for life in the First Division. But this time, having been much more frugal with my loan signings... I'm hopeful I can conduct some savvy business in the contract expiry market and bring in some top level talent to face the test of Division One football! The rebuild continues!

To explain the bug: it seems if you have at least 5 loan deals in one season with your chosen club it checks some flag in the game code and you aren't allowed to carry out a 6th loan deal. Presumably this flag for a loan to loan transfer must share a check with club to club transfer deals for zero pounds during out of contract stage transfers because the game interprets it as a 6th loan deal and blocks it. It also affects "Free Transfer" players because the way the game works, Free Transfer is a club. Retrospectively I maybe could have got around this by offering a fee of £1k as an offer but I didn't think to try it at the time, I was too gutted!