Season 2- 2012/2013 IFA Championship

Again in my season expectations were to avoid relegation. With my wage budget increased from £210 to £1,400 this meant I had more freedom in the transfer market, however not as much as the teams I was competing with had to spend. With no transfer budget it was going to be another season relying on free transfers. In June I spent time going through recently relegated and top 4 teams in the division and approached players to sign for me in July.

All of my signings proved to be essential to my team this year bar one. Gleen Dougherty, a 36 year old with a lot of experience, I checked his history, my scout felt he was 4 star ability. I felt his experience could be crucial at points in the season I signed him without looking at his attributes. Needless to say it was a big mistake I believe over the season he played 2 games, fortunately enough he is retiring at the end of the season!
Nathan Morley-Hillen was outstanding in between the posts for CCFC this season, so good infact I couldn't persuade him to stay on and he agreed a move to Monaghan Utd in the summer.
My player of the season had to be James Brannif, signed from Carrick on a free, he was a rock at the centre of our defence. And at the other end put his head on everything. Although he only finished with 4 goals he could have had double figures.
But when you have a striker banging them in for fun, for the 2nd year in a row it was going to be difficult for Brannif to get fans player of the year.

League
An excellent start to the season saw us unbeaten heading into November, however at Christmas things took a turn for the worse and we couldn't buy a win this saw us drop to mid-table. Although a change in formation back to our 4-5-1 of the first season, saw us climb back up to within 4 points of 2nd. But it just wasn't to be and our failure to turn 0-0's into 1-0 victories meant we fell short. Once I knew we were not going to be promoted and were also safe from relegation i decided to change my tactics up and experiment, realistically planning for next season. Overall this lead to us finishing 8th mostly due to 3 defeats in our last 3 games.

The Cups
We had a number of good results in the cup this year. This saw us reach the semi final of the Steel & Sons cup before losing out to Bangor.
The Co. Antrim Shield was our best run reaching the final before losing 3-0 to Donegal Celtic.

A promising start to division 1, however just received my budgets for the next season, which sees my wage budget cut from £1,400 to £900! Could be an interesting summer.