Okay, so you’re probably thinking, “Hang on? The End? Already? But we’re only midway through the third season!”
I’ll tell you now that today’s chapter is not going to make pleasant reading. It’s January 2021, and results at Shrewsbury Town – who ended 2020 on such a positive note – are about to take a major turn for the worse. So much so that I am eventually and shamefully pushed to my breaking point.
At the end of this post, I will seek your feedback on… ‘what happened next’… and I will ask you, “What happens next?” Can I possibly continue as Shrewsbury manager, or is it time to call this a story and do something else?
TRANSFER WINDOW
Before I get into the gruesome details, I’ll quickly update you on what’s been happening in the January transfer window. And no, I haven’t tried to sign Fábio Coentrão for Shrewsbury again.
First off, you might be pleased to know that we got decrepit forward Alex Rodman off our books as quickly as we could. Rodman dropped down to the National League to sign for Wrexham, with the initial £8,250 transfer fee showing how little I valued him.
Meanwhile, a couple of youth players were recalled from loan spells at Halesowen because they were – to be frank – playing terribly in the National League North. Left-back Pat Cahill and midfielder Steve Gordon both returned to our Under-18s side, and their long-term futures would be assessed in the summer.
And now we come on to Sean McLoughlin, who has finally completed his free transfer from Cork City after signing a pre-contract agreement in the summer. Though my assistant manager rates McLoughlin as only our fourth-best centre-back, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the 24-year-old Irishman is still pretty bloomin’ solid.
Yeah, okay, maybe he’s got only an 8 rating for Composure, but still… he’s a model citizen. And yes, he’s only 5ft in, but he’s a Model Citizen! And he’ll need some time to establish himself in the side before he can be an effective mentor… erm, hello? HE’S A MODEL CITIZEN!
You’re now probably wondering why there isn’t any more transfer news to share with you. I’ll let these next five games explain why that is.
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs IPSWICH TOWN (FA Cup, Round 3)
Sitting 3rd in League One, we were the bookmakers’ favourites to knock out an Ipswich side struggling in 18th in the Championship. We justified that tag after barely two minutes, thanks to one of Charlie Colkett‘s customary through-balls. The recipient was none other than Lee Angol, who surged past visiting defender Tommie Hoban to put us 1-0 up with a calmly-taken 10th goal of the season!
Disappointingly, our only other shot on target in the first half came right at the end of it. Bryn Morris sent over a free-kick to centre-half Kyle Howkins, whose header was well caught by Bartosz Bialkowski in the Ipswich goal. Meanwhile, the Tractor Boys had created hardly anything going forward, leaving their strikers Khalid Boutaïb and Ashley Fletcher starving. A shock was on the cards…
…until two remarkable strokes of luck turned the tide in the away team’s favour. The first came after 61 minutes, when Grant Ward sent a right-wing cross into the box, attempting to find Boutaïb. Our other centre-half Tosin Adarabioyo got in the way, but he could only chest it past his own keeper Freddie Woodman, who was too slow to spare his blushes.
Unbelievably, nine minutes after Ipswich equalised with an own goal, they were gifted the lead with another! Ward tried to pick out substitute forward Tyreece John-Jules with another centre, but a deflection off Shrews left-back Tyler Denton caught Woodman out again!
The statistics were heavily in our favour and suggested we could’ve beaten Ipswich quite comfortably. Alas, some poor finishing on our part and those two own goals meant we were knocked out of the FA Cup in the cruellest of manners.
How do you lose a match 2-1 without the opposition registering a shot on target? That’s how. I love football, but she can be a cruel mistress.
Ah well. Maybe our luck would turn in midweek, when we took on a lowly Bristol Rovers side – now coached by former Bradford interim manager Paul Trollope – at the Memorial Stadium…
BRISTOL ROVERS vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 27)
Hmm. To paraphrase Kylie Minogue, we just couldn’t get Ipswich out of our heads. We fell behind after just six minutes, when Bristol Rovers’ flamboyant attacking midfielder Harry Charsley got his head to Billy Gilmour’s corner kick. Woodman was comfortably beaten by what proved to be the only goal of the game.
We actually had the ball in the net more times than Rovers did, only for the offside flag to deny us twice. Our first potential equaliser was ruled out in the ninth minute, when Sullay Kaikai was dubiously flagged after driving in a Colkett pass. There was no question about another offside call on the half-hour, as Rafa Mir was well clear of the last defender when Luke Garbutt crossed to the far post for the Spanish winger to finish.
Both teams attacked with plenty of might in the second half, though we were left wondering at full-time what might have been. While defender Conor Masterson bravely stopped Rovers increasing their lead, the Pirates’ rearguard was similarly resilient against our frontline.
The hosts held on for a valuable win that took them out of the relegation zone and dropped us down to 4th, below Luton. Had we won, we would’ve stayed 3rd and moved to within a point of Charlton in 2nd.
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs HULL CITY (League One, Match 28)
Charlton lost again over the weekend, but we inexplicably threw away another opportunity to take advantage and close the gap. Shouldering most of the blame was our debutant defender McLoughlin, whose hopes of a clean-sheet victory against Hull eventually turned sour.
Though David Moyes’ boys started strongly, we hit them on the break to go ahead after 20 minutes. The evergreen David Edwards donned our armband in this match, and he led by example when rifling in a dipping shot from Angol’s pass at the end of a clever counter-attack. Hull keeper George Long then had to save several opportunities to bolster our narrow advantage before half-time.
A hard-fought, high-quality contest started to turn 10 minutes from time. Moyes made a tactical masterstroke that Manchester United fans seldom saw from him, abandoning his customary 3-4-3 for a more positive 4-2-3-1. I tried to counter that by ditching the 4-4-2 for the 4-1-4-1, but from then on, it was all one-way traffic.
Victory started to slip from us when the Tigers first showed their bite in the 88th minute. Ravel Morrison – the very epitome of wasted potential – produced a moment of magic by hammering the ball into Woodman’s top-right corner from just outside our ‘D’.
And then McLoughlin threw it all away in the final minute. As veteran left-back Danny Rafferty whipped a deep cross into our box, Sean completely missed what should’ve been a simple interception. That in turn allowed Rabbi Matondo to tuck the cross away and clinch a 2-1 win for Hull. Oy vey!
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs MANCHESTER UNITED UNDER-23S (EFL Trophy, North Round 3)
Then we whimpered out of the Pointless Trophy to Manchester United’s Under-23s (plus 32-year-old Serbia defender Ljubomir Fejsa). We actually started off pretty well against the Red Devils, but Jack Clarke‘s third-minute finish from Mir’s through-ball was disallowed by our good friend the offside flag.
After spurning more chances in the opening hour, I changed up our attack by bringing on Kaikai… and a certain 16-year-old striker named Nathan Beard. Barely a minute into his second senior appearance, Beard sent the home spectators – all 700-or-so of them – wild by pouncing on Mir’s looping header and finishing from close range.
That should’ve put us through to the Quarter Finals, but United had other ideas. On 82 minutes, England Under-20s striker Kieran Ryan chested Andy Garrett’s left-wing cross past Adarabioyo and drove it into the net. Penalties loomed, though not before Red Devils midfielder Charlie McCann fired wide a late chance to win the game for them within the 90 minutes.
I was soon wishing McCann had put us out of our misery straight away, because what followed was possibly THE worst penalty shoot-out I could remember. Kaikai, Mir and Beard all had their spot-kicks saved by Joel Pereira, whose United team-mates converted all theirs. Game over.
I thought losing a shoot-out 3-0 after three kicks apiece would be the ultimate humiliation. However, there was to be worse to come.
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs OXFORD UNITED (League One, Match 29)
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a confession to make. I have not quit out on a bad result in a Football Manager game since 2013… until now. This was the match that tipped me over the edge.
Oxford arrived at New Meadow sitting 17th in the league, having lost eight out of 11 matches in charge under their new manager Stuart Pearce. By the end of proceedings, though, I would take on his ‘Psycho’ nickname.
Shrewsbury were 1-0 up after about 20 minutes, with Colkett scoring an excellent 30-yarder assisted by Morris. Though Oxford attacked us hard, we continued to hold firm until about 10 minutes from time. Then it turned into a virtual carbon copy of the Hull game.
Firstly, a poor clearance from McLoughlin – him again – found Oxford captain Shandon Baptiste, who proceeded to hammer the ball home from distance. Then came the killer blow, as the U’s pushed forward again before Rob Hall put them 2-1 up in the 90th minute.
I’m quite emotional when it comes to Football Manager – perhaps too much so, as a couple of now-defunct computer mice would attest to. And as you probably know, I even smashed my computer keyboard against a desk during a defeat to Charlton last season. (Thankfully, it’s still in working order today.)
None of that compares to what I did next.
Alt + F4. Enter. My first FM ‘rage-quit’ in about six years. I had a massive rush of blood to the head, and I regretted it immediately.
I used to be a serial reloader in my younger years, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. This had the obvious side-effect of making any post-reload victory hollow and tainting any subsequent achievements in the save.
It wasn’t until FM13 that I took a new, more mature approach to the game. I brushed up on my tactics (you really should have seen the monstrosities I used on FM11) and vowed to accept any results that came my way – win, lose or draw. It really has made me a better FMer, and a better person.
Since then, I’ve had the most fulfilling experiences of my 20 years playing Championship Manager or Football Manager. On FM13, I took Dagenham & Redbridge up from the Conference and won the Champions League with them 19 seasons later. On FM17, I won the World Cup with England, despite having to come through three consecutive penalty shoot-outs before beating France in the Final.
I wanted to have similar success on FM19 as well. I hugely enjoyed my four-year career with Fiorentina, even though we didn’t win a single trophy. I had high hopes for Shrewsbury as well, with dreams of leading them to major success just like I had with the Daggers. But as soon as I quit out of the Oxford defeat, I knew deep inside that my interest in the save had hit rock-bottom.
To be honest, the signs have been there for a while. It’s no exaggeration to say that the last three months or so have been the most turbulent of my adult life. Not only have I grieved the loss of my grandad, but I’ve also had health issues which have convinced me to make major changes to my lifestyle. Since January, I have also often struggled with anxiety and mood swings, so much so that I once thought I was about to have a nervous breakdown.
All that has – rather unfortunately – coincided with the first few seasons of my Shrewsbury career. Though I still enjoy playing FM19 as an escape from my troubles, recent experiences on the game have often exasperated them. I can only watch my team squander two-goal leads and/or go from winning to losing late on so many times before it all gets too much.
It’s easy to forget that there are more important things in life than video games. If you find a video game so stressful that it’s adversely affecting your mental health, then it’s probably time to reassess things.
Anyway, for the sake of closure, I replayed the Oxford game immediately after my rage-quit, making no changes to my starting XI or tactics beforehand. I set the highlights mode to ‘Commentary Only’ and let the match play out, only intervening to make a couple of late substitutions.
Just like in the initial match, Colkett gave us the lead with an excellent strike from outside the area. However, Kaikai doubled it early in the second half, volleying in Angol’s lobbed ball across the box. Alex Gilliead then rounded off a 3-0 win late on, with Ryan Haynes assisting our right-winger from the left flank.
That result kept Shrewsbury in 4th place – four points adrift of the automatic promotion places. However, I got no joy out of the victory, because my actions about 15 minutes earlier meant that – in my mind – I didn’t deserve it at all. As such, I won’t consider that result to be canon, and I’m now in a tricky situation.
WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?
I know that many of you really enjoy reading this story, and I suspect you would be very disappointed if I was to end it so abruptly. If you are still willing to support this story after what’s happened, I will happily continue – with a couple of caveats.
Firstly, I must continue replaying that match until Oxford win, thus leaving us at effectively the same point we were at before the rage-quit. Also, if we fail to get promoted this season, I will only stick around for one more shot at promotion. If Shrewsbury are still in League One at the conclusion of the 2021/2022 season, I will end the story regardless.
Being a content creator, though, I like to pride myself on both integrity and honesty. I personally believe that quitting and reloading even ONE match crosses those red lines. If you – as my readers – generally agree with that sentiment, then surely there’s no way back, is there?
I have posted a poll on Twitter, asking whether you would still be okay with me managing Shrewsbury in light of what’s happened. The poll will close at around 9:00am BST on Monday 15 April, after which I will go with the majority opinion.
If you decide that I should NOT continue my Shrewsbury career, I will likely set up another Twitter poll and give you three options asking you about what I should do next. The three options would be:
1. Continue this career at another club
This option would see me leave Shrewsbury immediately to pursue a new challenge of my choosing elsewhere in the same universe. That could be at another EFL club, or I could broaden my horizons by moving to a different country. I hear the Czech Republic’s got nice weather at this time of year…
2. Return to my Fiorentina beta career
When I concluded my “Shades of Deep Purple” story with Fiorentina, I said that I would return to the save later this year for a spin-off story as England manager. The Three Lions were still reeling from missing out on the 2022 World Cup, and I would be tasked with restoring my national team to its former glory.
However, as you know, I quit Fiorentina with plenty of unfinished business. We’d just missed out on the 2021/2022 Serie A scudetto to Napoli, who’d also denied us victory in the Coppa Italia two seasons earlier. We also still had a point to prove in the Champions League, having lost six games on the trot during a miserable experience there. Maybe that story would’ve had a happier ending if I’d stayed a little longer.
Reading about The Wide Playmaker’s successes in his own Fiorentina career has made me feel a bit wistful. My Viola team had some fine young talents waiting to fulfil their potential, and part of me would like to develop them into major stars. If you feel the same way, I’d happily cancel the England experiment and return to Florence.
3. Start a new career
Alternatively, I could start afresh and pursue a completely different FM19 career. Though I’m primarily a one-club manager, I’ve always wanted to do a journeyman save, coaching clubs from across Europe as I build up my CV. Maybe this would be an ideal time to do that instead.
Of course, I could take a long-term break from FM19 – or even write it off altogether – if I feel that would be better for my overall well-being. I’ll see how I feel over the coming days.
I will now take a short break from blogging while you help me decide the future of this story. Thank you so much for reading, and I can only apologise if my actions have disappointed you in any way.
Fuller FM 
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