Championship Manager 93 - Taking the Spireites to new heights! - Part 3

After securing back to back promotions, moving from Division Three to Division One in the space of only two seasons, I decided to relax my threshold on spending slightly and not be afraid to splurge on the budget! I brought in current Scotland Under 21 Centre Back; Derek Allen from Charlton for £100k but on £1080 per week making him our highest paid player, and Midfielder Gary Porter from Watford for £200k for £900 per week. I managed to dispose of some of the fringe players with Morris, Rodgers, and Turnbull all departing before the end of pre-season and Dave Lancaster, a good player in our first season but ultimately not up to scratch in the higher leagues, retiring from football during the pre-season update. Wesley Ratcliffe, a new Left Back joining us from the youth ranks rounded out the squad additions.

Both John Ashdijian, ultimately a disappointing signing, and Sean Dyche would also depart early on in the season, together with Steve Norris, Trevor Hebberd, and Greg Fee, as it became apparent they weren't up to standard for the First Division inside a handful of games, and Mick Leonard would also later depart after wanting first team football. With Hebbard and Norris both gone, I gave more game time to 20 year old Mark Jones after a few impressive performances covering injuries and absences, and brought in Oxford United Jon Narbett for £300k to bolster the midfield and attack. For the first time since starting the game I would get to compete in the now defunct Anglo-Italian cup (at time of writing!), a dual nation football tournament featuring Division One and Serie B teams. We had been paired with Oldham Athletic and Wolverhampton Wanderers in the initial group stage.

However before I get slightly ahead of myself we had to first contend with Oldham as our first opponents in the Division One league campaign! And we soundly defeated them 2-0 to chalk up a win on the opening game of the season. We were then held 0-0 at Brentford before a humbling 3-1 defeat at home to recently relegated Tottenham who were just a different class altogether. We didn't let it bother us too much though, picking up wins at Barnsley, Crystal Palace, Ipswich, Leicester and a great win over last years League Cup Champions Derby County to make it 6 wins from our first 8 games and plant us at the top of the First Division Table.

Meanwhile we kicked off our League Cup campaign with 1-1 draw away, and 4-0 win at home against Barnsley across two legs to progress to the next round tie against fellow First Division Charlton where we were held to a 2-2 draw by the end of Extra Time, but progressed after besting Charlton 3-2 on penalties. We beat Tranmere, Bolton, Portsmouth, Bristol City, Bristol Rovers and Wolves to make 11 league game wins in a row since the Spurs defeat before being held to another 2-2 draw with Charlton again the league. The team form didn't dip there though as we picked up a win against former Premier League Aston Villa, a great win against fellow promotees Cambridge, and a brilliant 4-1 win over 2nd placed Peterborough to cement our position in 1st place, 17 points clear at the top.

Meanwhile we opened up our Anglo-Italian Cup account with a great 4-1 win at home to Oldham, followed by a 2-2 draw in the competition with Wolves but with a win and draw being enough to progress to the next round, where we we're scheduled to face off against Bologna, Cosenza and Pisa. I was a bit disappointed I wouldn't get to play my favourite Italian team from an alternative CM universe; AC Cesena. But maybe another time! We picked up wins against all 3 of the Italian opposition, followed by a close 3-2 win over Verona to make it to our first cup competition Semi Final!

Back in the league though and our unbeaten streak continued with wins against West Ham, Oldham, Brentford and Tottenham, with draws against Barnsley and Crystal Palace to make it 20 games unbeaten going into the final third of the season. We soundly beat Premier League Middlesborough 3-0 to dispatch them from the FA Cup early on, a result my Board reported back as "Excellent" and in the League Cup we got passed Brentford 2-1 and dispatched another Premier League side from a cup competition with a 2-0 win at home over Southampton.

Look at tiny Darlington though claiming the Premier League scalps! Despite being fairly mediocre in the league, they appeared to be having a generational cup run! So it was such a shame when we easily beat them 3-1 at home and err... were completely outplayed by them at home, going on to lose 2-1... a result my Board described as: Atrocious... but with the scoreline being 4-3 on aggregate we progressed to our first Cup Final and was drawn against last year's Premier League champions; Queens Park Rangers!

They weren't flying quite as high as last season though, sitting in 7th place, but I expected it to be a tough game in any event. Q.P.R were a quality team. We had sadly been ejected from the FA Cup in a poor 2-1 loss to West Ham in the 4th Round, but in the Anglo-Italian Cup had gotten the best of Brentford across two legs to make it 3-1 on aggregate and fix up a tie against Italian side Lecce in the final!

So just in case you aren't keeping score that's 2 cup finals to play for in the closing stage of the season! Back in the league we picked up wins at home to Ipswich and Leicester to go 22 games unbeaten before a poor defeat away at Tranmere brought that streak to an end. We bounced back with wins at Bolton, and then a win at Portsmouth that guaranteed us promotion to the Premier League next season!

I also hadn't realised it as I'd been so focused on balancing the cup competitions with the league games but after picking up wins in our next two games, we mathematically became champions of the First Division! With 5 games left to play Peterborough had no hope of catching us after we went 25 points clear of 2nd following a great 5-1 win at Bristol City and we had just won back to back to back league titles on our ascent to the Premier League! There was then also the small matter of League Cup final to contend with...

In what was a fairly straightforward game really... we easily bested Queens Park Rangers 3-0 thanks to 2 goals from Paul Lemon (who hadn't been quite so prolific this season truth be told) and a goal from Steve Williams to pick up the first trophy of my Chesterfield tenure! But hopefully not our last! With the Anglo-Italian cup final still yet to come and only 2 league games in between, we suffered a 2-1 loss away at Charlton however the team was far from optimal condition against a fully fit Charlton side. But we responded with a 2-1 win at home to Aston Villa though before our second trip to Wembley for the Anglo-Italian cup final!

Well, sadly, this time it wasn't meant to be as we were inferior compared to the Southern Italian team who easily beat us 2-1. Disappointing as we wouldn't get to compete in it next season now and it's a tournament I've never played in before - it was scrapped in real life in 1996 so doesn't feature in later games - so would have been nice to add it to the trophy cabinet... maybe another time! With only 3 league games yet to play but both promotion and 1st place now guaranteed, I rotated the squad as best I could with the meagre coverage that I had! But we smashed Cambridge 5-0 in our final league game at home to celebrate winning the league. Before a 1-0 win away at Peterborough and a 0-0 draw away at West Ham to close off the season 28 points clear of Peterborough in second with 30 wins from 38 games.

An incredible achievement really for a newly promoted team, especially when the step up in competition was like it was with Tottenham, West Ham, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Ipswich - all at some point former Premier League clubs, as well as Derby, Leicester, Oldham and Charlton - all established First Division clubs all competing in the same division. So for us as a former Division Two club to not only compete but to sweep the title in nothing short of emphatic fashion like we had, I was really happy with how things were going!

Gary Porter had proven to be a valuable signing, sitting on the right hand side of the three man central midfield, he was our best player all season ending the campaign with 7.84 average rating and 23 man of the match awards, the most of any other player in Division One and only 1 behind the most of any team across all leagues this season.

Dele Adebola was our top goalscorer with 33 goals in 55 games, 13 ahead of Scott Brightwell and Paul Lemon - both on 20 goals, Lemon from 56 and Brightwell from 45. But incredible form for a player still only 21 and I have confidence that he will still be able to do the business as we step up to the Premier League.

At the Annual Awards we once again swept all categories with me picking up Division One Manager of the Year, Gary Porter picking up Senior Player of the Year and Dele Adebola picking up Young Player of the year! So going into my fourth season I've accomplished the soft goal of this save and took The Spireites to Premier League football and honestly think we stand a good chance of competing. I think we are at least as good as if not better than a good handful of the Premier League mid table teams and although we suffered a defeat early on against Tottenham, who will be joining us back in the Premier League next season, I feel like the team has developed and the new signings I made have gelled across the course of the campaign and we are a better team now than when we kicked off the beginning of the season. I need to make a couple of key improvements and increase the squad depth as I currently only have 15 players... but as a Premier League team now, I hope the talent we can attract will improve in areas where we are slightly lacking and we could maybe push for a strong mid-table finish or... dare I say... go all the way and make it back to back to back to back... four backs...! League champions. Watch this space!