The tale of a young Aussie backpacker manager in Wales
As the curtain fell on my first ever season of managing a football club, I receive a call from the chairman in his office. “Well, this is it” I thought glumly to myself. Alas, when I walked into his office he was all smiles and offered me a 1-year extension. I was thrilled. However the expectation was that we would do better and finish in the top half of the season.
So as I trundled back to my sparsly furnished 30 pound a night room above a pub in the town center I thought about what players we needed to bring in. We definitely needed to strengthen the defence, tighten up the midfield and see if we could bolster the forward line.
The first thing I set about doing was seeing if we could retain Ben Wilson. On loan from Cardiff City U23s, a 5 star goalkeeper. I was duly informed the dreaded words of “We would prefer Wilson play with higher quality players”.
No matter how much I pleaded with their youth director, he was standing firm. So that left me with just Lee Idzi, a decent enough keeper, but I wanted someone better. We never did bolster our GK stocks, and Lee Idzi had a decent season between the posts, keeping errors to a minimum.
It was then I discovered my ageing 35 year old journeman striker Daniel Nardiello became so injury prone it would make Michael Zullo blush. I definitely needed a new forward to back up Mark Jones, and I had just the player in mind.
I did however bring in a couple great players.
Max Smallcombe 
(CM - Free) 18 years old unnatched having last played for Exeter in League 2. 3.75 stars with a potential ability of 4.5. Tons more pros than cons, his only major one being an inability to dribble anywhere other down his chin. But I could fix that.
Alfie Madden 
(RB - Free) 19 years old coming from Truro. My scout came to me a sweaty wreck yet again saying he was worth every penny. I am starting to get concerned at my scouts sweatiness every time he comes to me…
The head of youth development signed a couple players who won’t make it out of my reserves short of COVID ripping through the team.
I tried to sign James Demetriou. An excellent young Aussie playing for Barry Town who had just been relegated to the Cymu Leagues. He had knocked in an impressive 24 goals in 31 games and taken out the golden boot in a team that had finished dead last. He told me that he had no interest in signing for Carmarthen Town, as he did not believe the club was at the level he wanted to play for. Maaaate, you’re now playing 2nd division Welsh Football. I don’t think Man City are gonna bexhitting you up anytime soon. Anyway, I left him languishing in the second division, and bided my time…
The season started off bang average. We scraped past Pennybont in the MG League cup in Extra Time 3-2, and after 2 games of the season we had lost 1-2 to Bangor City, but did earn a 1-1 draw against TNS, before they bundled us out of the league cup 2-1 the following week.
Well, my expletive laced lashing of them post game must have hit a nerve, because we then went on an 8-game undefeated streak in the league, drawing twice, before being brought back down to earth yet again with a 0-3 thumping against TNS. We lost a week later 0-1 against Bangor City, before facing them 3 days later in the FA Cup where the team rallied and scored an extra time winner to go through 0-1.
My average striker Mark Jones, who belted 21 goals last season was just causing chaos with opposition defences and was sitting pretty on 15 goals from 19 league games. Our run had seen us slide up the table, and we were in a ding-dong battle for 2nd with Bangor City. TNS were just doing TNS things, and leading the comp by 8 points.
I reached out to James Demitriou again, whose Barry Town were struggling in the second division but he had put away 9 in 15 for them. This time he entertained my offer, but then demanded a salary of $1.7k a week. Mustering up my best The Castle impersonation I told him he was dreaming. I stood up and walked away, leaving him sitting at the table in the little greasy spoon we’d arranged to meet at, looking bewildered. But I knew I had him, he’d come around for the greater good.
Dressing room morale was sky high and we entered the January transfer window 2 points off 1st. We then went on another impressive 10 game undefeated streak to finish the regular season in 2nd, before the league splits into 2 (championship and relegation groups). But then disaster struck. 3 games before the split of the season in a 1-1 draw against Connah’s Quay, Mark Jones our impressive striker came off injured. It looked innocuous, but a heavy tackle saw him go out for the remainder of the season with an undefined hip injury. We sent him off to a specialist who said it’d be 4-6 months. I was fuming. In the post game interview I accused their manager of having their team play dirty and deliberately injure my player. This caused a war of words back and forth between their manager and I, and to this day we’re still not on speaking terms.
The following game, our aging striker Daniel Nardiello looked to pick up where Marky Jones left off, scoring a double against our arch-nemesis Aberystwyth Town in a 3-1 win, however would hobble off a few minutes before the end of the game with a torn hamstring.
This left me with Liam Thomas to lead the line. A AM (RLC)/FW, a talented but young lad who I used off the bench more often than not as a bit of speed against tiring backlines.
I approached James Demitriou again, in the same greasy spoon as before. I was trying my hardest not to look desperate but with the transfer window deadline quickly approaching and nobody in English leagues wanting to throw us a lifeline I was running out of options, time, and patience. However my impressive negotiating tactic of leaving him hanging seemed to have worked. Over a a fully English breakfast, served by a lovely lass who called everybody ‘luv’, he agreed to a 1 year contract that I whittled down to $150 a week. Barry Town wouldn’t agree to a completely free transfer, but I haggled them down to a transfer fee of $15. Yes, thats right, $15. I had a transfer budget of $0. The breakfast cost more, but I had my man.
My head of youth development signed a smattering of random players, all one and two star quality, but they won’t see the light of day outside of the reserves.
We performed brilliantly in the Championship pase of the season, with 4 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses, including a 4-1 hammering of TNS. However they would knock us out of the FA Cup in the quarter final 4-2.
Going into the last game of the season against Cardiff Met Uni, we were second on 58 points. Bangor City had fallen off a cliff, and Llandudno had pushed up to third on 55 points. TNS were first on 60 points. If we won, and TNS lost, we’d be Champions. If we drew we’d secure 2nd. If we lost, we’d still secure 2nd, courtesy of a 12 goal difference between us and Llandudno.
Emotions were high. I told lads in the dressing room to do it for the fans outside. Do it for Lee Fowler and Daniel Nardiello who had both announced their retirements days apart just a few weeks earlier. No matter the result, it’d been an excellent season and I was proud of them.
We drew 1-1. Finishing 2nd on the ladder. Carmarthan Towns highest ever finish in Welsh Football. We had defied the odds and to add to the incredible scenes, QUALIFIED FOR THE EUROPA LEAGUE!!! CARMARTHAN TOWN ARE GOING TO EUROPE!!!
The scenes in the dressing room were jubilant, however it wasn’t to be all smiles and champagne spraying. Mark Jones had finally made it back to the bench for the last few games of the season, but was no where near fully fit. I had him play in the reserves to garner some match fitness, but this apparebtly had pissed him off because literally 2 weeks after being declared fit to play 45 minutes, 2 weeks out from the end of the season, he came to me complaining of lack of game time. Alarmingly, his stats had dropped dramatically. At his peak he was a 3.5 star player, but returning from injury he had dropped to a half star. He finishing attribute was now a 2, and the rest of his stats weren’t much better. I told him to pull his head in, and he aggressively told me he wanted to leave the club. Fine by me, I replied. I have James Demitriou. And alas, much to the disappointment of the fans (including some who took to social media to vent their displeasure) he was released from the club without fanfare.
But it wouldn’t be the last we heard from him.
All in all, a terrific second season. We finished second, qualified for Europa, and to cap it all off I won manager of the year.
- 24yo CM ( 1 cap) signed on a free from Airbus UK (Yes, thats a real club). Came highly rated from our only scout whose scouting ability was 3/20)
