(FM24) Born & Bred ‘The Regionnaire Challenge’ – Part 1

Welcome back! We are now on Part 1 of ‘Born & Bred’ FM24 blog series. If you’re completely new to ‘The Regionnaire Challenge‘, then here is a link to the prologue.

Before I dive into my first few months in the Garden Walk hotseat, lets have a quick recap of the restrictions that have been opposed upon me as manager of the Peacocks.

• In a nutshell…Take the reins of a club of your choice and implement the regional/local squad and transfer policy, meaning I can only sign players that were born/raised within that region where the club is located. So, all players have to be born and in the West Midlands of England. Basically the same as the well-known Athletic Club de Bilbao setup in Northern Spain where only players with Basque nationality are permitted to sign and play for the club.

Preseason…

We haven’t even kicked a ball in preseason yet and two of my central defenders are out injured for a number of weeks. Maybe, not signing players that might be prone to injuries for next season or throughout this upcoming campaign but this time I just needed to get players into the door at the Garden Walk.

I did however bring in another central defender, this time it was 20 year old Telford born Jack Sweeney on a free. He did start life out at Walsall youth set-up. He’s the second former Saddler player I have managed to bring in. That concludes signings and injuries for the time being as I now turn my attention to the preseason fixtures as we make it four wins out of four games.

The Sikh Hunters were hunted by the Peacocks as we came back from behind to secure our first win of preseason. We then, blew the Dynamos of Cannock away in a 4-0 victory before Nuneaton born forward Devon King scored the first hat-trick as we melted the chocolate man in the 3-1 win. The final game ended in a 6-0 win with six different scorers. 

September ’23…

Goals galore as we start of the league season with four wins out of four including some massive win’s. But, it doesn’t mean that the Peacocks are top of the table though. Bromyard Town who also won four games in a row are on top by a two goal difference as it’s still early days but with only one place to play for then all them goals will have to count later on it the season.

Two Birmingham born players that led the charts in goals scored and assists in the month of September. Shilo Waldo has scored six goals in three appearances and Jayden Allamby-John (former Saddlers youth player) has got three goals and four assists in four appearances.

October ’23…

Only two games were played in this month and both finishing with the Peacocks hitting both clubs for six without reply. Solihull born Charlie Manners got the first hat-trick of the league season in the win over Saltley Stallions.

In the other 6-0 win over the Sikh Hunters, Birmingham born Jayden Allamby-John got four assists in this match and now has nine assists in the league. Shilo Waldo got himself a brace in that victory and is the clubs top goal scorer with eight goals.

However, we remain in second place in the league on goal difference behind Bromyard Town by three goals.

November ’23…

The Peacocks continued their good run of form and notched up nine straight wins and now have moved into 1st place in the West Midlands (Regional) League Division One. What a mouth full saying that every single time, lol. We saw another hat-trick this month by Solihull born Charlie Manners in the 7-2 victory over Dudley Sports who are probably the second closest side to me as they play on the college grounds in Dudley. It was in the script but Tipton Town were the first side in this series to score first in the league but we finally found our scoring boots and won 3-1 before ending the month with a 4-0 win against rock bottom side Wyrley United. Birmingham born Jayden Allamby-John getting three assists in that match and now his tally is at 14 assists in nine appearances. Charlie Manners and Shilo Waldo both have 11 goals each.

West Midlands (Regional) League Division One…

It’s still early days but we have managed to move above Bromyard Town but only by goal difference with both sides looking at that single promotion place into the next league.

Final Words…

All updates on this series will be posted on here, also on the Sports Interactive Community page & in the FM Library Discord channel…

In the meantime, please feel free to leave a comment with any feedback, questions and don’t forget to subscribe and hit the like button. All previous FM blogs can be found here and you can follow me over on X here.