Community » Hattrick Press

Wembley Bound

Written by dappy

An interview with the aging manager of Devon Chairboys just before their latest cup exit

Your team, devon chairboys, is facing Thought Police's Unfortuanate Victory in the cup R11 (quarter-finals) on Tuesday. You are beginning to develop something of a good track record in the cup having made R8,R9 and R11over the previous seasons. Is this a conscious decision and has it had an effect on your league progression (this is your 7th season in 111.9).

No not really. To be honest I have struggled to survive in 111.9 and have needed to win relegation play-offs in five of the last six seasons. In the other glorious season, when I stormed to the title, I was denied auto-promotion on goal difference by one solitary goal by a team that then went bot a couple of days later! This season I suffered an unexpected defeat in my opening league game and given my pathetically poor management in the previous season (leading to a low league position), I put my focus on the cup knowing that I would get home games fairly early.

If you have a favourite tune of 2014, please provide a link to youtube for us to listen but an old-timers classic tune would be just as good

A little mention I think here for the wonderful "Mad Dog Mccrea". Every non-rainy bank holiday Sunday, a Plymouth tradition is for 1000+ Plymothians, from aged 8 to 80, to gather for a six hour Dogathon by the Court steps, gradually getting drunker and sillier but with never a hint of trouble. A great band who deserve to be better known nationally.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoW-yksKobo)

You took over your team on 1/6/2006 in Div V11 (when England still had one) and have never dropped all the way down the leagues for a re-build. In a boom and bust based resource management game, what's been your strategy to maintain a consistency within your team evolution

I never had the patience for a rebuild to be honest and I have a principle in life to try to make the best of what you have got at any one time. I have always thought 12 month+ rebuilds are a bit like cheating anyway.... What strategy have I had? Oh I don't know, try to win every game, train and sell on some decent players. When I find a bit of money in the bank, spend it and have some fun!

Much the same philosophy as I have in real life, really.

If a fan wanted to buy you a pint , which pub would it be easiest to find you in and what's your poison.

One of two really. Kitty's in Plymouth has a decent band on every Friday or Saturday (http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/04/4e/89/0a/st-patrick-s-day-2013.jpg). Live music should be encouraged and supported in this electronic age

Then my local pub, the Rock at Yelverton (http://www.urban75.org/photos/devon/images/princetown-plymouth-10.jpg), is about a mile walk across the moor to reach. I have discerned three interesting facts from my visits to this establishment.
1) it can very very dark walking back across the moor on a moonless night
2) gorse bushes have a malicious sense of humour and like nothing better than trying to hide in your path in the dark
3) It can be very hard to extract yourself from lying face down the middle of a gorse bush in daylight and sober. In pitch black and err not so sober, it is very very difficult indeed. By the way gorse bushes are also very prickly.

(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-E28f8y_NxAE/UpX_7vp_lNI/AAAAAAAARfw/GBhwfr5eyeU/s1600/IMGP1584.JPG)

Favourite tipple? Lets give a mention to Jail Ale, brewed in the shadow of the famous Dartmoor prison at Princetown.

(https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4053/4567684724_65e06c3daa_z.jpg)

Last season the England community voted in Darth Hansen to be our National team manager. Do you follow the National team at all and either way , what do you make of our R2 exit

I don't follow it much to be honest, although I am having a go at U20 competition "bengo" at present. The way things are going for England, any manager getting one of our football teams beyond round 1 ain't doing too bad....

What skill are you training at the moment

My training programme is a bit of a mess. I have been training playmaking but need to review this once this cup run is finished. (So on Wednesday then!)

You currently do not pay for supporter, what would the devs have to do in order to make it worth your while to fork out for it

Probably the best approach for them would be to hunt down and murder the wife, who regards all our spare cash as "new dress tokens". A fearsome woman not to be messed with.

According to our internet research , Chairboys are Wycombe Wanderers
but Wycombe isn't in Devon. We've also heard that some of your opponents refer to you as the devon choirboys. Is this because of all the complaints from neighbours overlooking your training ground, who have to put up with all the singing.

Don't take too much notice of that opponent's abuse. He is, poor lad, a Newcastle supporter and I think the 50+ years of hurt waiting for a trophy has finally tipped him over the edge. He is even deluded enough to think that Alan Shearer occasionally makes an interesting point whilst droning on on MOTD.

As for my singing, to paraphrase Eric Morecambe, I sing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order.

My team is indeed named in homage to the mighty WWFC, which was my home town before moving to Devon quite a few years back. The club is struggling a bit at the moment with no money and but for a magnificent wonderful day of unexpected results at Torquay in May would have dropped out of the league and very likely suffered the same fate at best as Hereford or Salisbury. On a serious note here, over 100,000 people each week watch lower division teams, yet many of those teams are right on the edge of financial disaster. There is surely something wrong with the system when the 3000 or so regular supporters of Hereford effectively lose their team and the community suffers for debts which were approximately equivalent to Wayne Rooney's monthly salary.

Please tell us how/where you met your other half and how she feels about your hattrick addiction

I actually met her at work which is a bit dull. More interesting was that she was with someone else at the time and by the time I had weaned her off, I had accepted a job overseas. So we had two weeks together, then nine months being 3000 miles apart, communicating by letter and the occasional phone call (no Skype or even much email in those days). Then she came over to Bermuda to see me for three weeks and while she was over we got engaged drinking Dark N Stormy cocktails on the terrace overlooking the Atlantic. Two weeks ago, on the very day that my intrepid team were fighting through the cup on penalties, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in Florence. All together now.... aaaahhhh.

She is supremely contemptuous about my Hattrick addiction.

What was your favourite movie of 2013/14

I'm not a great movie buff to be honest. So here are a couple of clips from that amazing film "Amazing escape in Torquay" filmed in May 2014 (with apologies to any Bristol Rovers supporters)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6EZZfZ394w)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsdPkbLL2-Q)

If you look very closely you can see me at 1.52 of the first video next to the guy with the brown coat sort of behind the red "b" on the hoardings

And that's it folks, hope you got something out of the read.