It’s been some time coming, but at last, welcome to a brand new Football Manager 2021 blog story on Fuller FM!
In my previous FM series, I’ve taken over a fallen European giant or a mediocre third-division team, with the aim of leading them to new glories. These stories have typically ended in spectacular failure, whether it’s throwing a league title away at Fiorentina, getting relegated through the play-offs at Lyn 1896, or losing a cup final in stoppage time with Sporting CP.
This save will be different, in that I am not tying myself to one club. Instead, I will embark on a journeyman career, where I start off as an unemployed manager looking to build their reputation. This journey will last several seasons and take me across Europe. Who knows where I’ll end up?
In this prologue, I will lay out the rules I’ve imposed on myself. I’ll then introduce the manager I’ll be playing as before finding out which club they will be starting their career at.
INTRODUCTION
Before we meet the new manager, I want to explain how the save works.
I have loaded the 21.3.0 Update database, along with some custom mods that add extra realism and depth to the game world. These include sortitoutsi’s Licensing and Real Name fixes, as well as majesticeternity’s Realistic Injuries and Media Overhaul files.
I’ve loaded 80 leagues from 34 European nations, with every country having at least the top two divisions loaded. Two new leagues in Portugal and Spain will be added for the 2021/2022 season, as those countries are restructuring their league pyramids. Around 122,500 players have been loaded in the database.
The start date for this save is 27 July 2020 – the day after the 2019/2020 Premier League season finally ended. As always, I have disabled the first transfer window, so there won’t be many transfers made until the new year.
In terms of my managerial career, I will lay down some ground rules:
1: I will start my career in the British Isles, but NOT in England. My first job will be in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland (though the Republic won’t become playable until early 2021).
2: I must complete one full season at a club before I can resign or look for another job. By a ‘full season’, I mean managing a team in all competitive matches (friendlies don’t count). Obviously, my club can still sack me before I complete a full season, but that won’t happen. Hopefully.
3: After completing one full season at my first club, I will be free to move anywhere in Europe – EXCEPT England. I cannot accept any job offers in England until I have won a top-flight league championship elsewhere.
4: I can manage a maximum of TWO clubs in the same nation throughout my career. National teams don’t count towards this limit.
5: I can manage a national team and a club team simultaneously, but ONLY if it is realistic for me to hold down both jobs. In other words, I won’t manage a national team that’s on the other side of Europe to my club team.
And while this isn’t strictly a rule as such, I will try to bring at least one staff member and one player from my old team to my new club after moving jobs. Stability and continuity are important to me, even in a journeyman career.
Now I’ve got that out of the way, it’s time to introduce you to the new manager…
THE DEADMAN
Hello there, folks! My name is Shama Deadman, and I am from Guernsey – a Channel Island off the coast of Normandy. For those of you who are interested, Guernsey is a British Crown dependency and isn’t officially part of the United Kingdom.
Both my parents were Londoners of African-Caribbean heritage who moved to Guernsey in the 1980s. My father scarpered off shortly after my 2nd birthday (apparently returning to London), so my mother basically brought me up by herself.
Like many young boys, I became obsessed with football at a young age. I was a Southampton fan, and my idol was Matt Le Tissier – a fellow Guernsey lad who moved to Britain as a teenager, then went on to score 209 goals for the Saints and win eight England caps.
In truth, I was never going to be Guernsey’s next football superstar. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t tackle, I couldn’t control the ball, and I was as prolific from penalties as an average Englishman. What I was good at, though, was being instinctively at the right place at the right time. I was a poacher, and tap-ins were my bread and butter.
After scoring regulary for my school team, I played in Guernsey’s senior league aged 13, and made one appearance for the Guernsey island team (nicknamed the Donkeys) aged 15. It was during that match against Jersey that I was spotted by a scout from Southampton.
A couple of weeks later, I was offered a scholarship at the Southampton academy. Mama had her doubts, but after some persuasion, she agreed to let me take it up. We would up sticks to Hampshire after I finished my school studies.
For the next two years, I trained in the Southampton academy with some of Britain’s hottest young talents. I was part of the Under-18s team that reached the FA Youth Cup Final in 2005, along with Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Adam Lallana, and – of course – Kyle Critchell.
While my team-mates enjoyed bigger and better things with Real Madrid, Arsenal, Liverpool and Dorchester Town, I was not so lucky. I was released by Southampton in 2006, just before my 18th birthday, and spent the next five years bouncing through various Sunday League teams.
Then, in 2011, it was announced that a new football team from Guernsey was entering England’s football league system. I returned home for a trial at Guernsey FC, whose club secretary was Mark Le Tissier (Matt’s brother). The trial was a success, and I was signed up to play in the Combined Counties Football League Division 1 – at the 10th level of English football.
Over the next nine years, I lived the part-time football dream with the Green Lions, who won back-to-back promotions in their first two seasons before stabilising in the 8th tier. I even got to play alongside my idol ‘Le God’, who briefly came out of retirement in 2013 before leaving football behind to become a full-time conspiracy theorist.
I scored 149 goals for Guernsey FC between 2011 and 2020, though most of those goals came in those glorious first three years. By 2019/2020, I was just a bit-part player, overtaken in the pecking order by younger, better forwards. When the season was abandoned due to the coronavirus pandemic, I thought long and hard about the future.
I was nearly 32 years old, the goals had dried up, my physique was on the decline, and the pandemic had forced Guernsey FC to take a year-long hiatus for 2020/2021. It seemed the right time to hang up my boots, but I wasn’t finished with football. Not by a long shot. Not even by one of my usual 50-yard long shots that hits the corner flag.
For a long time now, I’ve wanted to go into football management. I don’t have any formal coaching qualifications yet, but I make up for that with a huge passion for the game and a burning desire to learn. I also dress the part, with my snazzy green jacket (as a tribute to my old club) and an even snazzier pair of purple shoes (don’t ask me why; I just like the colour!).
So, as the world slowly recovers from the pandemic, I’ve decided to take a huge leap of faith. I’m leaving Guernsey behind as I throw everything into a new career – as a football manager.
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
With clubs across the British Isles starting their preparations for a new season, I kicked off my job hunt. I scoured high and low for any interesting openings… by which I mean reading desperate tweets from washed-up former Premier League managers.
Morton were looking for a new manager, but I didn’t apply for that job. I wasn’t ready to take up such a big challenge in the Scottish Championship, especially not one at a club that was apparently in a financial mess. [Sorry, Samo.]
There was, though, one vacancy in the Welsh second division that did interest me. A week after I put in my application, the club chairman asked to interview me over Zoom. After checking that I didn’t have any cat filters turned on (and that I didn’t have any cats in my office), I was ready for questioning. Immediately, the chairman expressed his biggest concern:
I smiled and said, “I also have a slight lack of experience in getting teams relegated! I’m a new manager who can bring new ideas to the table. If you take a chance on me, I’m sure you won’t regret it.”
That quickly broke the ice, and the rest of the interview went rather smoothly. The chairman explained that his club had a five-year plan to get into the Cymru Premier, while focussing on developing local players and maintaining strong links with the community.
As a first job in management, this seemed like a good fit for me. The club appeared to on pretty solid financial ground for a semi-professional outfit, and the team looked good on paper, having finished 4th in the Cymru South last season. While promotion to the top flight was a long-term goal, I wasn’t expected to get results immediately, so I would have time to build my own team while learning on the job.
I was excited about this potential challenge, and the chairman seemed to believe that I was the right person to take it on. Three days after the interview, he phoned me up and offered me the job:
£170 per week for one season? It’s not very much – this is a part-time job, after all – but I’ll take it. Hopefully, I’ll prove my worth in this first season to earn an extension and a pay rise. But if the worst comes to the worst, I might phone Morton up and ask if they still have an opening!
Anyway… Cambrian & Clydach, here I come!
And there we have it! Shama is off to south Wales to begin his managerial career!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little introduction to my new FM21 blog series. If it has whetted your appetite, you can hit the little ‘Follow’ button below, which will notify you whenever a new post goes live on this blog. You can also follow me on Twitter @Fuller_FM.
“Journey of a Deadman” will officially begin next Monday with Part 1, in which we will meet the Cambrian & Clydach squad and get ready for the first season. I am aiming to post one or two story updates per week – on Mondays and Fridays, at 6:00pm UK time.
Thank you for reading!
Fuller FM 
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