The Challenge

With the highly anticipated release of Football Manager 2010 a mere three days away, myself and my friend Phil have decided to undertake a challenge which, if it were to be completed, would make one of us a household name in the footballing world (at least within the game itself anyway). The challenge is to take control of a Blue Square Conference North or South side and guide them into the unknown, and ideally, all the way to the hallowed turf of the English Premier League. After much deliberation, we both agreed on a humble team from North Yorkshire who go by the name of Harrogate Town. For those who don't know much about 'The Sulphurites', their Wikipedia page can be found here.

There was a number of reasons why we chose Harrogate. Firstly, we recognised quite a few of their current players, namely Trevor Benjamin (ex-Leicester City striker and one-time Jamaican international), Curtis Woodhouse (ex-Hull City midfielder whom, after "falling out of love" with football in 2006, briefly turned his hand to boxing, at which he was rather successful) and Matt Bloomer (another ex-Hull City player, although he did only play a handful of games for them).

Secondly, they probably are the closest geographically to Hull, so we felt like we wouldn't be betraying our Northern roots (plus, Harrogate is a commutable distance away from Hull, meaning we could both still live at home...).

The third and final reason for our decision was purely the fact that we both thought that seeing Harrogate Town play the likes of AC Milan and Barcelona in a competitive fixture would be a) hilarious (no disrespect to Harrogate, of course) and b) very, very appetising. It's this hunger that makes us both believe we are the right man for the job.

I will be blogging my progress monthly (in game terms), and I believe Phil is also going to blog about his escapades as well, so I'll post his link next time, if and when he actually does one. So, here's to a long and hopefully successful managerial career in charge of the soon-to-be world beaters, Harrogate Town.

Edit: Phil has set up a blog, which can be found here.