Hello there, and I’m grateful you could join me for a new Football Manager blog series on Fuller FM. This adventure is going to be… quite different from my previous ones.

Over the last few months, I’ve been working on an FM database where the best English footballers represented counties instead of clubs. It’s like cricket in a way, except that the sport is much more exciting, and matches don’t grind on for five days.

I will be using Football Manager 2017 to see what would happen if the FA replaced the money-rich, import-heavy Premier League with a 48-team English Counties Championship. Teams can only use players who were born or raised in their respective counties, and any non-English players who don’t meet the eligibility criteria have been ‘sent home’.

Just to be clear, there are no political motives behind this project. It’s just a fantasy scenario that has interested me for a while now. Perhaps it might have piqued your interest as well…

In today’s opening post, I will explain this experiment and outline how the Counties Championship – and the knockout County Cup – will work.

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COUNTIES CHAMPIONSHIP

The Counties Championship features 48 teams, which are largely based on the 48 ceremonial counties of England.

The only ceremonial counties not represented are the tiny City of London (population: around 8,700) and Greater London (population: around 8.9million). England’s capital city is instead represented by North London and South London, which respectively cover those areas of Greater London that are north or south of the River Thames.

The teams are separated into four geographical divisions of 12 teams each:

North Division

Cheshire [CHE], County Durham [CD], Cumbria [CMB], East Yorkshire [EY], Greater Manchester [GM], Lancashire [LAN], Merseyside [MER], North Yorkshire [NY], Northumberland [NMB], South Yorkshire [SY], Tyne & Wear [TW], West Yorkshire [WY]

East Division

Bedfordshire [BED], Cambridgeshire [CAM], Derbyshire [DER], Essex [ESS], Hertfordshire [HRT], Leicestershire [LEI], Lincolnshire [LIN], Norfolk [NOR], Northamptonshire [NHT], Nottinghamshire [NOT], Rutland [RT], Suffolk [SUF]

South Division

Berkshire [BER], Buckinghamshire [BUC], East Sussex [ES], Hampshire [HAM], Isle of Wight [IW], Kent [KEN], North London [NL], Oxfordshire [OXF], South London [SL], Surrey [SUR], West Sussex [WS], Wiltshire [WIL]

West Division

Bristol [B], Cornwall [COR], Devon [DEV], Dorset [DOR], Gloucestershire [GLO], Herefordshire [HRE], Shropshire [SHR], Somerset [SOM], Staffordshire [STF], Warwickshire [WAR], West Midlands [WM], Worcestershire [WOR]

The regular season runs from 6 August 2016 to 15 April 2017. Each team will play four matches (two home, two away) against every other team in their division, for a total of 44 matches apiece. As standard, three points are awarded for a win and one for a draw.

Following the league phase, the top FOUR teams in each division will advance to the Playoffs, which start on 25 April. If two or more teams are tied on points, the following tie-breakers will be used in this order:

• Goal difference
• Goals scored
• Head-to-head records
• Drawing of lots

The 16 teams in the Playoffs are drawn into a fixed tournament bracket, as shown below:

All Round 1, Quarter Final and Semi Final matches will be played over two home-and-away legs. The lower-ranked team will host the first leg, and the higher-ranked team will host the second leg. If both teams in a Semi Final achieved the same league ranking, the hosts of each leg will be chosen at random.

If the aggregate scores are level at the end of the second leg, a 30-minute period of extra-time will be played, with a penalty shoot-out to follow if the scores are still level.

The Final will be played as a single match at Wembley Stadium on 27 May, with extra-time and a penalty shoot-out to be used if necessary. The winning team will be crowned as County Champions.

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COUNTY CUP

All 48 teams in the Counties Championship will also take part in the County Cup. This is a straight knockout competition with a random draw throughout. All cup ties are played over one leg, with extra-time and penalty shoot-outs to be used if necessary.

For all County Cup matches, teams must name at least EIGHT players under the age of 23 in their matchday squad, at least FOUR of which must be in the starting line-up.

32 teams will enter the competition in Round 1. The following 16 teams have been awarded byes to Round 2:

North Division: Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, West Yorkshire
East Division: Derbyshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Nottinghamshire
South Division: Hampshire, Kent, North London, South London
West Division: Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, West Midlands

Matches will generally be played on the following dates:

• Round 1: 16 August 2016
• Round 2: 20 September
• Round 3: 15 November
• Quarter Finals: 10 January 2017
• Semi Finals: 7 March

The Final will take place at Wembley Stadium on 3 June and will be the final match of the season. The winning team will be crowned as County Cup winners.

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SQUADS

The 48 teams have assembled squads consisting of 32 players each. Each squad includes three goalkeepers, and at least four full-backs, four centre-backs, six midfielders, three wingers and three strikers. Each squad also contains at least 10 players (including at least one goalkeeper) who are aged 23 or under as of 1 July 2016.

The compositions of these squads are FINAL. If a player leaves their team or suffers a long-term injury during the season, their team cannot sign a replacement.

In terms of player eligibility, the following general rules apply:

1. A player automatically qualifies to represent a county if they were born there, even if they lived there for only a short time after birth.

2. A player can also qualify to represent a county if they grew up there – in other words, if they lived or were educated there for at least five years until the age of 16. (One player who qualifies via this rule is Raheem Sterling, who was born in Jamaica but was raised in North London from the age of 5.)

3. Player eligibility is mainly based on the borders of ceremonial counties. In order to promote competition and give more top-level English players the chance to play in the Counties Championship, the borders of historic counties may also be considered.

If a player from a ‘larger’ county was born and/or raised in a town or city that was traditionally part of a ‘smaller’ county, they are also eligible for that county. (One player who benefits from this rule is Andre Gray, who was born in Wolverhampton. As Wolverhampton was historically in Staffordshire, Gray can play for that county instead of the West Midlands, where he would have more competition for a starting place.)

Here is a list of ‘smaller’ counties who have gained players from ‘larger’ counties based on historic borders:

• Cheshire / Lancashire < from Greater Manchester
• Essex / Hertfordshire < from North London
• Kent / Surrey < from South London
• Northumberland < from Tyne & Wear
• Staffordshire / Warwickshire / Worcestershire < from West Midlands

Counties can have a maximum of FIVE players who only qualify to represent them via this rule.

4. As for players who qualify for multiple counties, I have decided which one they will represent based on several factors. These include residency, personal affinity towards a certain county, and competition for places.

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BACKROOM STAFF

All 48 teams will have a first-team manager, an assistant manager, a reserve-team manager and a club doctor on their backroom staff at a minimum. If available, they can also hire up to four coaches, one fitness coach, one goalkeeping coach and two physiotherapists.

Player eligibility rules also apply to staff, though counties can only hire a maximum of TWO staff members through the historic borders rule. As Rutland do not have any eligible coaches available to them, they have been allowed to appoint a manager and an assistant manager from neighbouring Leicestershire.

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EXPLANATION

For this experiment, I am using a renamed – and heavily-edited – version of the “English Ceremonial Counties League” database created by Tom (aka Vote4Number6 on the Sports Interactive forums). This was originally designed for FM15, though it still works on FM17. (You can download it here if you wish.)

There are two reasons why I’ve gone back to FM17. Firstly, I don’t have FM20. Secondly, I couldn’t get this database to work in the FM19 editor, which is a nightmare to use anyway.

Going back three years obviously means that some squads won’t be quite what you would expect if I was doing this project on FM20. Veterans like John Terry and Michael Carrick are still active, while Jadon Sancho and Phil Foden haven’t developed enough to be included. If you’re wondering why Mason Greenwood isn’t playing for West Yorkshire, he isn’t old enough to be in this game at all.

I spent about three months editing the database to my requirements and assembling the squads that would take part. It took a fair bit of online research to make sure that the squads were as accurate as possible, and that all players were actually eligible for their chosen teams. (Note to FM’s researchers: John Ruddy was born in St Ives in Cambridgeshire, NOT St Ives in Cornwall!)

Even after all that, four teams were still short of players. To complete the Cornwall, Isle of Wight and Northumberland squads, I had to refer back to previous FMs and re-add some retired players and/or add some youth players from FM19. The Isle of Wight’s player pool was so dry that I included a player who I managed on Championship Manager 4, and who played his only professional game for Portsmouth in 1999!

That just left Rutland, which has NO players in the FM17 database, and indeed hasn’t produced ANY footballers of note since before World War I – over a century ago. To fill their squad, I added some players based on newgens from my previous FM17 saves, and also from suggestions made by these lovely people on Twitter:

• @DirigoFM
• @bjoernsF
• @JT_Iron25
• @LocalGooner
• @SupernovaLier
• @SGonzalvus
• @BenChiaCars
• @ChrisPlatts8
• @FMCheapSeats
• @Colin_Middleton
• @FmEdmundo

Since starting the save game, I’ve noticed a few errors in the database. For example, midweek Cup matches are played at 3:00pm, and not in the evening. Also, the West division plays its midweek league fixtures on Wednesday instead of Tuesday (as everyone else does). These shouldn’t affect the game too much, mind, so I’ll let them slide.

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So that’s an introduction to the Counties Championship. Sounds intriguing, right?

If you’re hooked, you’ll be pleased to know that there’ll be a new post going live every day until Friday, previewing every team in each of the four divisions. I’m starting with the North division preview tomorrow, followed by the East on Wednesday, the South on Thursday, and finishing with the West division preview on Friday.

The action itself will begin next Monday (27 April) with a round-up of all the August results. From that point onwards, I’m hoping to get two new posts up each week, though I might knock this down to one per week later on.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the Counties Championship, please leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to answer it. Don’t forget that you can keep updated by hitting the ‘Follow Fuller FM’ button  and/or following me on Twitter @Fuller_FM.