Saturday 29th April 2023 :: Salisbury City v Bathampton FC :: Southern Premier League South
Live updates brought to you by BBC Hampshire
79′ Salisbury City 0-0 Bathampton FC – It has been end-to-end action here at the Raymond McEnhill Stadium in Salisbury but the scores remain level. With just under 10 minutes to play on the final day of the season, Bathampton know that a point will not be enough. They need to find a late winner to seal their promotion to the Vanarama National League South.
85′ Salisbury City 0-0 Bathampton FC – SO CLOSE! Player Manager, Adam Stamps thought he had scored. His shot from 30 yards rattles the post and is cleared by the Salisbury defence. A huge moment comes and goes for the away side. 5 minutes of normal time to play.
88′ Salisbury City 0-0 Bathampton FC – Yellow card. Salisbury defender Tom Bragg goes into the book as he sythes down Adam Stamps on the edge of the box. A real chance here for Bathampton from the dead ball situation.
88′ Salisbury City 0-1 Bathampton FC – GOAL! You could not write it. Bathampton lead and it is that man, Adam Stamps. His drilled free-kick bursts through the Salisbury City wall and into the bottom corner of the net. Bathampton lead and are just minutes away from promotion to the Vanarama South.
90+3′ Salisbury City 0-1 Bathampton FC – Red card. Salisbury City’s Dan Fitchett finds himself clear through on goal but he is cynically brought down outside the box by Bathampton’s James Cook. Cook rightly receives his marching orders. Surely the resulting free-kick will be the last action of this game.
90+3′ Salisbury City 0-1 Bathampton FC – Fitchett’s free-kick ends up in the Salisbury car park and the referee blows for full time. Bathampton FC are promoted. Adam Stamps has led his team to the Vanarama South for the first time in the club’s history.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Bathampton FC are delighted to announce that following Adam’s retirement at the end of the current season he has signed a deal to remain as the club’s manager going into the 2023/2024 season. The club thanks Adam for his services as a player over the past 10 years. What a journey it has been.
*Before reading any further, please note that Bathampton FC is a fictional club created for Football Manager 2024*
Who are Bathampton FC?
Bathampton FC were formed in 2013 by current player manager, Adam Stamps. Or should I say manager now, following his retirement from playing at the end of the previous season. Stamps returned from university in 2013 and decided to form a club with his friends in the local sunday league.
The club is based in the city of Bath, England and was first entered into the Chippenham and District Sunday League. As some may know, the city of Bath has been represented in football terms by Bath City, who play on the opposite side of the city. Bath City have never made it higher than the Vanarama National League during their history but have always had steady support. Roll forward to 2023 and Bath City now have competition as Bathampton join them in the Vanarama National League South and a local rivalry is born.
It has been quite the meteoric rise for Bathampton FC who have navigated the county leagues and regional divisions since 2013 to reach the dizzy heights of conference football. The club has gone from a sunday league team to a community-owned club in just 10 seasons.
A club that started by playing on a council owned pitch by the canal have gone from the lows of having their goal posts destroyed and pitch vandalised to owning their own stadium after purchasing the pitch they started out on. The question on everyone’s mind is has the club gone as far as it can, for a sunday league club?
Welcome to The Meadows, the proud home of Bathampton FC with a capacity of 5000.
Who is Adam Stamps?
Adam was always a gifted footballer at local level. He moved to Nottingham to go to university in 2009 where he studied economics in his quest to become an investment banker. Three years came and went and Adam found himself back in Bath with a job lined up in Bristol.
Football was only meant to be a social thing and so the club was formed, to play Sunday league in the local area. The lads clubbed together to buy the essentials, nets, balls, corner flags and training equipment. Adam’s employer kindly sponsored the club in the first season and purchased the kits for the club. The club was ready to go and Adam assumed his role of player/manager for the 2013/2014 season.
Adam’s playing career saw him amass over 150 appearances for the club, mainly deploying himself as a central midfielder and occasionally as a right back. Throughout the past 10 years, Adam has also assumed the role of manager and has navigated the club through the highs and the lows. At the end of the 2022/2023 season, following the club’s promotion to the Vanarama National League South, Stamps hung up his playing boots to focus his energy on managing the club going forward.
Adam Stamps will be our manager throughout the save and we will try and cement his status as a club legend. Let’s hope we don’t get sacked!
The Objectives
This is by no means a novel save idea, nor are the objectives out of the ordinary. The focus is on growing the club and the local community. As such, I have outlined 6 objectives that I would like to concentrate on throughout the lifespan of the save:
- Domestic Success – the ultimate aim of the save is to take the club all the way to the Premier League. No further explanation needed on this one.
- European Glory – we want to win a European trophy, in whatever form that may take.
The first two are very much the main focus of the save and will be the ultimate objectives for us during our time at Bathampton. Adam has got the club to the Vanarama National League South, so why can’t he keep that going?
I have also identified four ‘areas of interest’, shall we say. Becoming the best club in Bath should be a fairly straightforward affair but there is a rivalry and that will play out throughout the save. We also want to try and help the local footballing community where possible. Bath and the surrounding area is filled with good teams and it would be great to try and create some growth in the West Country by pumping some money into smaller clubs and loaning players where possible. I am very aware that this element will only really become acheiveable if we are able to establish ourself as a big club and have the money and players to do this.
Bathampton is a community owned club and has been built on sustainability. We will not look to stand in the way of players leaving should the transfer present a healthy profit for the club. This isn’t to say that we will simply allow players to leave when they want to, because sometimes it might not be right for the club to do that. Ultimately, the club needs to generate money to move up throughout the footballing pyramid. Finally, we will try and look to produce a world-class youth development system at the club, to rival clubs in England. Not only would this be a great narrative for the club, but it would also allow us to bring through first team players organically.
On that note, shall we get stuck into the first season? Yeah, I thought so too. In the next blog post, we will go through the 2023/24 pre-season update and kick off the season.
Moving forward I plan to upload three blog posts per season. One capturing the summer window, pre-season and the first month of the season. The second goes from the second month of the season to the end of January. The final post will review the second half of the season and complete an end of season review.
Thank you for reading and see you when the full version of FM24 has been released!
You can find me over on twitter – @ItalStallFM – or over on the FM Library Discord channel.
*Credit to @KorkyBlues for the thumbnail and stadium graphic.
*Credit to @CarrileroFM for the logo and kits.
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