Interview with Si_Nichols
Interview with Si_Nichols whose team (All Bluebirds Are Blue) is now the lowest ranked side remaining in the English Cup going into R11 (the semi-finals)
Last week in the quarter final, you faced Prem side Super Frankie's XI (569109364). They edged possession, creating 9 chances to your side's 4. Conversion of those chances was the key, and given the relative attack vs defence sectors, you must be pretty happy with the match engine right now?
I was ecstatic with the ME until this Sunday's league match where a crushing 6-1 defeat despite comfortably winning all defence sectors from the off has dented my TC ahead of the semi. In the quarter final v Frankies I was a tad unlucky to give up so many chances but very lucky overall to come through the tie especially after going two down. I have had my fair share of cupsets in the past mind you so I reckon I was due a good run.
You took charge of Bluebirds on 15/08/2006. After just 9 seasons, you promoted into III.8, and this is your 23rd season spent consecutively above Div IV. You are also in your 8th season in Div II, having won your first Div II title the season before last (unable to win the playoff to promote to the Prem (541665969) ). How have you managed to maintain such a constant threat without ever embracing the boom and bust approach for building resources and then burning them?
I decided I wanted to play this way many seasons ago, retaining competitiveness whilst also building players/squads, with a focus on homegrown. My side has also been 100% English for all this time and I don't have a primary skill above titanic on any player which keeps wages down and makes it possible to invest funds in the team. At one stage I was also investing in excellent coaches. It's tough to do (though getting easier) and I know its not a strategy ever likely to take me to the very pinnacle but I haven't done too badly and it's a bit of a two fingers up to the boom/bust cycle approach. Most importantly, it has been fun.
You are a Barrow A.F.C. supporter. Barrow are currently 11th in the Vananarama National League. Can you see the team ever returning to League football and would you agree that this your "Love in the First LGV"?
I follow the real life Bluebirds wherever I can (in the last month alone I have been to Chester, Aldershot, Eastleigh, Kidderminster and Torquay). I organise the travel for a band of Southern exiles and over the years I have now visited over 170 different grounds. We were bought just under two years ago by a Barrovian who now lives in Texas who harbours ambitions for League football (we were kicked out the football league in 1972, before my first birthday).
Whilst it would be great to finally return I love watching football at this level so I am not as bothered as some if we don't succeed. My hattrick team is named after one of our terrace chants.
You can change your friends, partners & jobs but you can't change your football team
If you have a favourite tune from 2015/16, please provide a link to vimeo/utube/soundcloud for us to listen, but an older classic tune would be fine too.
I should be "down with the kids" and well up on recent music with an almost 18yo daughter though I'm not sure our tastes are aligned. I am a big 80's fan and also like REM, but I've chosen two tracks to have a listen to that sum up my music taste.
First is The Crimea's "White Russian Galaxy" whom I saw about 10 years ago when my sister's band supported them at the Carling Bar Academy in Islington (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPuW0nfB6iA).
The second is Teenage Fanclub's "Sparky's Dream" from the album Grand Prix (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9buNckusos0)
You get to play Matt- next, reigning Prem champions and currently 5pts off the top this term in third spot. They lost on Sunday, despite putting out a Divine m/f against Super Frankie's XI (565693088) Please tell us your thoughts about all this going into the game?
Matt & I have quite a lot of history, some good and some bad, but we seem to get along very well these days and he has been very successful in building the best team in HT England over recent seasons. I know I am an underdog but you never know with this game as my recent matches attest. It's my second semi-final (I narrowly lost to Gove's "Rah's Raiders" last time (301219756)) so at least I know that if I don't make the final, I will again have fallen to one of the best teams of the period. It is also worth pointing out that Matt has already won quite enough and his real life team (Palace) have just won their FA Cup semi this week, so really he should let me win
You took over your platinum 2nd team, Leighton Arrival (242600) on 06/05/13 What are your plans for this team, and why did you choose Scotland?
After letting it lapse for a week I decided to renew supporter today and was disappointed to see my second team had evaporated. I was planning to use them for training England U20 players, so if anyone knows a way of re-activating them then please let me know? I had chosen Scotland as I lived there as a kid from 9-15, so it was the only other country I felt I had an affinity with. Needless to say, I might not bother renewing supporter again.
Please tell us how/where you met your other half (or last conquest), and how he/she feels about your hattrick addiction?
Well, I am recently separated so this is a bit of a weird question to answer at the moment. I met my wife at work and she largely ignored my Hattrick tendencies. My daughter has a team but she's lost interest and is only logging in once a week or so to keep her current England U20 player going (he has turned into the star of current campaign). My most recent girlfriend I met through football - she just referred to Hattrick as major geekery and mocked me whenever I lost.
Please tell us the best clean joke you've read recently?
I have a Barrow footie mate who bizarrely is also a Palace season ticket holder. He comperes at pub quiz nights once or twice week and is always telling/sending me dreadful jokes. He is a stamp collector so when I saw this joke recently I thought I would get my own back:-
(https://twitter.com/vizcomic/status/707978908801617920). This definitely suns up my level of humour.
You have developed a very well specced team dominated by home-grown players, and used to chair a fed supporting this strategy. Did you ever envisage such a team taking you to the semi-finals and what key lessons have you learned about building a team such as yours that you can pass on to other managers, starting with your approach to selecting and promoting YA players?
I have always liked the player development in Hattrick and decided to see how far a HG dominated team could take me (a II title and cup semi-final is not too shabby though usually my starting XI averages 2-5 non-home-grown players these days). It has been great fun and has kept me interested in the game, especially as you start to develop attachments to these sorts of players far more. I wouldn't dream of selling any of my homegrowns so they will head to the HoF in the Bluebird dominated sky. In terms of selecting YA players, its all about specs. When looking for youths to keep and train don't get hung up on skills and perfect ages.
Finally, tell us three interesting facts/life events that most people won't know about you. This clearly won't help you or anyone in the future win a semi-final but anything that might embarass you would be good?
1. I am a qualified organoleptic supertaster (google it - its not as fancy as it sounds and I don't have to insure my tongue like this woman (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/dec/28/experience-my-tongue-worth-million-pounds)).
2. I once fell through the ice on a frozen canal on a snowy New Years Eve in Birmingham having drunkenly mistaken it for a road and tried to run across it. The lack of cars and a narrowboat on the kerb should perhaps have given it away.
3. As a student I completed a 3-legged fancy dress hitch-hike from Nottingham to Amsterdam via Dover/Ostend in 15 hours dressed as a rag doll with the girl tied to me as a toy soldier. The strange looks and lack of help we got from lorry drivers in Belgium were priceless and for that alone I almost feel compelled to vote Brexit!!!
2016-04-26 21:01:48,
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