Championship Manager 2 96-97 - The Hereford United Rebuild - Season 5

Like my Queen's Park save before this one, I found myself on Season 5 with everything I'd set out to accomplish, accomplished; I'd took Hereford United from Division 3 to Premier League champions. And I had thought; do I want to carry on? But this season brings with it the challenge of retaining the league and proving it wasn't just a fluke, as well as the opportunity to play European football. So I decided to focus on padding out the squad and picking up a few new first team signings if possible. The season started with the news that our best Centre Back; Ian Morgan had broken his pelvis in training, meaning he will miss all of this season followed by Paul Tomlinson retiring at age 36, which was a shame as he served us well in the lower leagues, but he hadn't featured at all last season.

I had a little bit of cash to spend, but my budget was immediately torpedoed by an announcement from the board that they were expanding the ground capacity again; up to 18,843 at a cost of £1,230,000, however with just enough cash to play with I smashed transfer budget records again with new signing Neil Sheppard, an Attacking Midfielder from Kettering for £1.7 Million (to note; Kettering are in Division 1 in game and have had an incredible rise with back to back to back promotions since 97-98 season) and took a risk on £800k signing Danut Niculescu from Gloria Bistrita who I think is going to be my new left Wing Back or Centre Back to fill in for Ian Morgan. He's a Sweeper in game but I think he will still perform well in either one of those roles. I brought in Nathan Freeman from Man City for free as a 3rd choice backup Goalkeeper, and fleshed out the squad with some youth free signings; Left Wing / Centre Back - Glenn O'Shea, Centre Back - Danny Samways, Left Winger - John Barrick and Forward - Mick Donnelly.

The season got off to a very rocky start... we lost the opening game of the season and Charity Shield 2-0 to Crystal Palace, but bounced back with a 4-0 win over Middlesborough followed by back to back 3-0 losses in the league. I decided I needed to make some changes, and tried switching to Sweeper Defensive to get the most out of Niculescu. We smashed West Brom 6-1 and I thought the wobble might be over but we then lost our first game in Europe to Ajax 4-1, suffered defeat at Everton and Bradford and just squeezed past Coventry in the League Cup Second Round Leg 1. Only 10 games in to the season but Mark Wilson just wasn't the same player, our new signings were having trouble adapting and we were really suffering for it! I decided to go back to basics: back to 4-4-2 and back to the players who I'd tried and trusted before and things seemed to get better. We smashed Rapid Vienna 4-0 in Europe;

With Steve Mautone missing the game due to injury, something which; spoilers, will become a re-occurring theme... We then picked up a win at Oldham and sent Coventry packing in the League Cup Second Round Leg 2 before stringing together a decent set of results; beating Watford and Newcastle in the Premier League, knocking Oldham out the League Cup, and drawing 2-2 with Sparta Prague in Europe in a game we should have won. We lost to Stockport 3-2, who seem to be developing into a strong team in the Premier League, but picked up wins against Ajax, Aston Villa, Rapid Vienna, Liverpool and Derby across all competitions before earning a 1-1 draw again at Sparta Prague to see us qualify from the group stages of the European Cup.

Considering I fully expected those 3 other teams to be stronger than us, and my expectations were solely on enjoying the experience I was pleasantly surprised that we managed to get through! Meanwhile form in the league was a bit mixed. We picked up good wins at Blackburn, Derby and Arsenal, but lost to Huddersfield away meaning that by January we sat in 7th, comfortably in the top half of the league but off pace to catch Aston Villa and Leeds at the top.

We dispatched Non-League Stafford Rangers from the Third Round of the FA-Cup in a 6-0 win, and scored a 3-2 win over Middlesborough in the Premier League before swiftly being ejected from the League Cup Quarter Final by Leeds 5-3. With Mautone out injured, neither Freeman nor O'Connor were both at the level required and we were suffering for it. Form continued to dip, we salvaged a draw against Leeds in the league, but lost 2-1 to Man Utd and 3-1 to West Brom. We did manage to get passed Charlton 3-1 and in the interim knocked both Port Vale and Watford out the FA Cup but results continued to stay mixed with losses at Bradford and Oldham, but wins at Newcastle and Watford. Our prize for making it through the European Cup group stage though was hosting and visiting European super club; Barcelona!

We picked up a great 2-0 win at home against the Catalans and I thought we might have a chance of making the Semi-Finals! We eliminated Non-League Welling United from the FA Cup and beat Everton 3-0 in the League, but in form Aston Villa demolished us 3-0 in a game that wasn't even close, before the European dream was swiftly brought to an end in Spain where Barca beat us comfortably 4-1. With the Premier League title drifting further and further away with each loss, any chance of silverware rested with lifting the FA Cup, and we had been drawn against Leeds in the Semi Final. Leeds are, in game, one of the best teams in the world right now... and our record against them this season is: a 3-0 loss, a 5-2 loss, and a 2-2 draw so I feel like we go into the game as slight underdogs...

Well, for what it's worth, it was close! And having Steve Mautone back has certainly helped but both Sheppard and Wilson were disappointing, symptomatic of their seasons, and as a result we just weren't good enough. There was 8 games of the season left to play but we had no hopes of catching Leeds at top and to be frank, it was just a case of going through the motions. We picked up 5 wins, including a great 7-0 smash at home against Huddersfield...

... losing 2 and drawing our final game of the season against Stockport to end the season on 64 points and in 6th place. Ordinarily I'd have been over the moon with that! But having come from comfortably winning the league by 10 points last season, it felt anticlimactic.

Our player of the season, Ironically was Steve Mautone who missed half the season with a handful of injuries. And when he was gone our backups were just not at the same standard. Especially disappointing of Derek O'Connor who I fancied as our next Number 1. But when Mautone was in the squad, he kept us in with a shout at a number of games and helped salvage draws and wins in our mixed league campaign.

Top goalscorer again went to Mark Wilson with 23 goals and 19 assists in 40 games which, again ordinarily would have been good. But after a season of scoring 36 goals in the Premier League prior, it felt a bit disappointing, and he 20 goal tally flatters to deceive with him often not performing well for 2 or 3 games, but picking up hat-tricks against weaker teams.

And similarly Jason Rees was once again top provider with 23 assists in 34 games but his form was very mixed and his spot in the first team was rotated around my other central mids. His poor form almost certainly was a major factor in our inability to create chances this season and that combined with poor striking form has been the factor in falling behind in the league this year.

And I think it's there, for real this time, that the Hereford rebuild story ends. There is work to do with this team next season if they are to compete for silverware, and upper mid-table is by no means to be sniffed at for a team in only their second season in the Premier League but I feel it's time for me, as the manager, to take on a new challenge. At time of writing I have my eye on the Wales job as Bobby Gould is in trouble, but in the event that doesn't come to play I may look at moving to another club and taking on a new challenge (like maybe rescuing West Ham who are currently in the bottom half of Division 2!). However in terms of blogging; the story ends here. Slightly anti-climactic...! But on reflection; we took Hereford United from the brink of relegation to Non-League, all the way to the top of the Premier League and playing competitive football against Ajax and Barcelona and I can leave the club proud of what we accomplished!