soundian

Ah, Molefays won't help you there. You need a single light source, the light from multiple sources will create multiple silhouettes very close together which will blur the edges . You'd probably need a means to focus the light as well to preserve sharp edges, but if you're going to soften it up anyway that might not be an issue. I would borrow a par can and experiment. If you need to focus then look at small spotlights, they will have focus capability. Even a projector might be worth experimenting with if you can borrow one.

Molefays (AKA Blinders)

Two gallons is 9 litres (imperial) or 7 litres (US gallons). You've got to hand it to Sky, when it comes to news they only give you the facts.

No one from Ranger's side seems to be challenging their guilt, only the punishment. Guilty as charged then, take your punishment and dry your eyes, Ally.

Can you not add in the lower league before you get sacked. Delboy tells me you can add leagues in FM12. Mind you, you're screwed if it isn't a playable league.

That's a challenge that we can all try. How far can you take Queen's Park! Sounds like a great leveller where the tactics and training will come to the fore. The higher you can get them before topping out, the better manager you are. No arguments.

To be fair though, the right to retain a player isn't the same as the player having to stay. They could decide to let the player leave.

Is there not still a rule in place that means they can't be poached until April 30th?

I have always advocated lengthy bans for cheats where it can be conclusively proved they have dived/fallen over rather than any contact being made. I'd like a "to the power of two" system. First offence, two game ban, second offence, 4, 3rd, 8, 4th 16.... That'll stop the cheating bastards. Who will buy a player who has a 16 game ban, and likely to get a 32 game when the next time they trip over a blade of grass. I'd like to emphasise the word conclusively. If there is a piece of video that shows there is fresh air between the defending player and the Oscar Nominee then yes, hit them hard. Any doubt, let the ref's decision stand.

Hear hear!

Just finished my first season in the EPL, finishing a respectable 12th. Aston Villa took the title but they had a lead of about 9 points at one stage and only finished 2 ahead of Man City. Man Utd and Newcastle took the other Champs league places, Chelsea, Arsenal and QPR take the Europa league places. My favourite part is the other end. Derby were the meat in a relegation sandwich, with both the Thieving Scouse Gits as the bread. Despite my bogey teams being absolute mince all season, I only took 4 points out of twelve. I also got knocked out of the FA cup by TSG#2. Finances are great. Despite spending £18M in the transfer market I've still got £26M in the bank. I hope they're commissioning someone to design my statue with all that extra loot.

Guys, this is the football manger thread. Take real life elsewhere!!

I hate being 2-0 up at half time. If I say I'm pleased that practically guarantees an opposition goal within 10 minutes of the second half. Then it's brown trouser time til the end of the match. I reckon it might have something to do with the opposition team talk as well, 2-0 down is the perfect time for a "I want to see more from you", which generally players will react well to. I don't really have a fixed sub system, but after 60 minutes any underachievers are in severe danger of getting subbed. I give them the first 15 minutes to see what effect (if any) the HT team talk had, then hook them if there hasn't been a significant improvement and I have decent cover for that position on the bench. I'll normally keep one sub back just in case of injuries. I normally won't use the third sub unless I'm under pressure then I'll throw them on purely to break up the flow of play sometime in the last 5 minutes. If everyone is playing well and I'm controlling the game fringe/young players can expect a run out sometime in the last 20 minutes. In my current game, first season in the EPL, I'm currently 7 points above Liverpool after 25 matches. Unfortunately I'm not dreaming of European glory nights at Dorchester Stadium yet, Liverpool are 18th . Even better from my perspective is that Everton are bottom. My hatred of them both stems from one particular season with the Mighty Barnet back in FM07. I lost the League Cup and Champions League finals to Everton. (Yeah, I know, Champions League-Everton?? It was after about 15 seasons though):mad: I lost the FA cup final to Liverpool. I lost the league to Liverpool by 2 points,after leading pretty much all season, because Everton beat me in the second last game of the season. Thieving Scouse Gits!

I'm still on FM09 where cheap scouts roam free. The point is to use the scouts to separate the wheat from the chaff initially. You don't really need anyone great for that job, you're going to be double/triple checking their opinions on the players they flag up as worth a look.

My strategy (considering I'm still on FM09) for signing players for nowt: 1. Create a filter on the player search screen that targets players who are out-of-contract or who's contract has expired. 2. Get two decent scouts. 3. Go back to the player search screen and get a scout report for every player on the list (some may be out of your scouting range, you can also filter those out). You need to select these manually and assign them to one or other of your scouts. 4. Re-scout anyone who comes in high, preferably with the scout who didn't originally scout him. 5. If they're still up there, and your AssMan (who has good scouting abilities I hope) likes the look of them, go for it. I normally have two other filters for bosmans: Expiring_All and Expiring -(minus)the_country_I'm_in. Once I've got all the freebies looked over, I move on to the Expiring -the_country..., which gives me everyone available 6 months before their contract is up (Scandinavians etc who's season finishes late year rather than summer) That takes me up to January. Then I move on to scout all the players who's contract is expiring, which is mostly those in the country I'm in. Scouts are like doctors, never be afraid to ask for a second opinion because they're not right all the time. I find that it's very rare that two scouts will get it wrong enough to matter and (in FM09 anyway) your AssMan will chip in with his evaluation on the contract screen for freebies.

24-25 CCC 1st What a nail-biting finish to the season. I went into the last game in 2nd place (to Leeds on GD) but needed to win because Leyton Orient were snapping at my heels. I lost an early goal and never looked likely to score. Although still in second place Hull were now level on points and only goals scored was keeping me above them, and if Leyton took the lead I'd be heading for the play-offs as well. Even after throwing a half-time strop that would make SAF look like a pacifist, my team still looked lacklustre up front. I stuck a few guys on after 65 minutes to freshen things up, still no sign of a goal. Then Leyton take the lead, I drop to third. Leeds are winning as well so it's unlikely a draw will save me. Out of nowhere, 79 minutes, POW, 20 yarder, back of the net. 3 minutes later, my DC comes up with one of his rare headed goals. 2-1 and looking good for second. There was another twist in the tale, Leeds lost a late goal and only drew 1-1. The league was mine. Stunned! So here I am at the start of my intended 2 week FM-fest finding that I've already ticked off my main objective, get the team into the EPL. I think I'll take a few days off to get the juices flowing again before tackling the biggest challenge in my 16 seasons with Dorchester. I've still not spent any transfer money, got £10 mill in the bank and I'm only spending about 52K on wages at the moment. All my decent players are contracted for at least another year, apart from a couple who are knocking on a bit. Al in all, I don't think I could be in a better position going into the EPL for the first (hopefully only) time. I can concentrate on adding quality to the squad rather than scrabbling around trying to fill positions and I should have bags of money to entice the quality to my club.

23-24 CCC 8th The finances have sorted themselves out with the new stadium coming online. My wage budget was nearly doubled and I got £2.9 mill in transfer money. I've still not spent any money on transfers but I think I may have to add a little bit of quality to the squad to get us into contention for the play-offs. I was only 6 points off but GD is massive and, if I'm honest, I got a lot of lucky wins/draws last season. West Brom have now joined my hate-list for scoring in the 93rd minute.

I've just found out the start of my new job has been put back two weeks. That's two weeks with nothing to do except play football manager and occasionally venture out in to real-life to get some supplies. Back of the net!

So why do we call teams from Milano AC and Inter Milan? There's no dodgy accents there to get in the way. I think it's probably just convention, how we're used to seeing/hearing the teams names. If you notice, there is a trend towards pronouncing Barcelona as Barthelona and not (as most people in this country still pronounce it) Barselona. Maybe in twenty years we'll all be saying it Barthelona.

Eh? The city we call Naples is called Napoli by the Italians. How is that different?

That's the reason I said I probably played there first.

Feelings are mutual

Maybe I'm showing my age here, but no it isn't. I probably subjected the unwitting citizens of Aberdeen to my first public display of bass ineptitude at the long-running Drift Inn Saturday afternoon jam sessions.

22-23 CCC 16th Time for a period of reconstruction as a lot of my players wan to to go to bigger clubs and their morale is affecting the others. I got my wage budget cut again this season so hopefully the new stadium coming online will sort out the finances for next season. Still got £4 mill in the bank so I'm not "penniless" as the game keeps calling me. Cool fact: My total transfer spend this game is still £0.

I've finished another season with Dorchester. A quick season, I just wanted it over with because there is a finance bug. Hopefully it will sort itself out when my new stadium comes online next month. Finished 16th. Had a great first half but my "penniless" tag and clubs unsettling my big players after the Jan transfer window opened screwed me over. Had to sell a few guys for peanuts just to stabilse morale. When I first posted my game synopsis I never realised that I have not spent a penny in transfer fees. A season later I am still a transfer fee virgin. That gives me a little side-challenge: How long can I go without actually paying for someone? I had my wage budget cut again last season, from 33K to 30K. Thankfully they gave me £1.1M transfer budget, which I converted into wages. Still working on less than 40K pw wages (this is the championship, some players earn that a week). Bring on the new stadium.