- Build a new grandstand and bring the ground up to
Conference standard.
- Recruit a manager with Football League experience.
When he's poached by a League club, thank your lucky
stars; he was a bolshy ß@$*@®¶ anyway. Get a
coach who hasn't got a track record and will do as he's
told.
- Get him to win the promotion then bet £l,000
that he can win you the Conference at the first
attempt.
- Dig deep into your pockets. The coach tells you the
players that got you promoted aren't good enough to keep
you there. So pay high signing-on fees to persuade
players to make the long trek up the M6. And you need a
high profile signing to create interest. Make him the
highest paid player in the club's history, say a grand a
week.
- You need a centre forward. Get someone with a dubious
reputation, like Rod McDonald from Chester. He'll have an
argument with your coach and leave before the season
starts. But don't replace him. That way your team is
crucially short of firepower.
- When your regular goalkeeper goes into hospital for
an appendicitis operation, use three different goalies in
the first ten games. That will make your defenders play
like nervous wrecks.
- Make sure those new signings your coach recruited in
the close season don't play in the first few games,
except for the high profile guy that's getting all the
money. The concept of trying to win games in the
Conference with the team that won the UniBond and which
your coach said wasn't strong enough is certain to fail.
Then when the new signings do come into the team they'll
be short of match practice, they'll feel under pressure
as the team loses game after game and they'll play
badly.
- Use a 3-5-2 formation which will give your opponents
acres of space to run at your defence. Even when the
players look uncomfortable stick with it for the first
ten games. If you've got eight points by now, you'll be
lucky. By this time your coach will have to switch to
4-4-2, especially when he realises he's got two full
backs in the squad.
- Play Kingstonian, have a man sent off at 2-1 down,
panic and let in three goals in fifteen minutes.
- And finally, let Telford, Dover and Welling score a
goal in the closing minutes of games to deprive you of
all three points.
Issue 037 - November 1998
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