Welcome back to the Hometown Hero save as we attempt to find glory with my hometown club of Maidenhead United.
If you want to start this save from the beginning of the journey, you can do so here.
Save Rules & Aims
Aims
To become a professional football team for the first time in the club's history - COMPLETED
Become a League Club - COMPLETED
Win some major silverware.
Rules
Only Sign English Players
This may sound like an easier save rule, however I like the idea of limiting the scope of our signings.
Promote 3 Players a season from the youth intake into the first team squad.
This will focus the save upon developing the local lads to become the future of the club.
Fill the backroom staff with former players and legends along the way.
This will add a different twist when trying to improve the clubs standing. Developing staff as well as players.
January 2025
Quick transfer update
I decided that we needed a little back up in defence and was offered the opportunity to sign someone who will add some real quality.
Former Chelsea youth product Charlie Wiggett joins us from Newcastle for 22k. Really excited to have him on board and hope he can make an immediate impact.
Now let's get back to the action in January.
It's a brilliant start of the month as we go three games without conceding, no coincidence that Charlie Wiggett was thrusted straight into the starting 11.
A really solid month on and off the field.
February 2025
February rolls around as we start to think about the business end of the season. We are still well in the promotion chase, possibly automatic promotion also. We are going to need to keep this momentum up.
Its a similar story to January as we start well but suffer a couple of defeats later on in the month.
We are looking so much better at the back after the recent new recruit. People at the club are starting to believe that we could really start to upset the odds.
March 2025
March signals that it is time for the Youth Intake. If I am honest, I am not expecting anything special for a while until we can really upgrade the youth system.
As expected, these were the only 5 players with actual star ratings. Really poor intake, and a blip during what has been such a positive season so far.
We decided not to after any youth players contracts this year.
Back to the action as we face a busy March.
An unbeaten month was much needed with this really cementing our place with the top teams in this league.
April & May 2025
Moving into the last 5 games of the season we had ALMOST secured our place in the playoffs.
It's one hell of an achievement to even be mentioned in that position let alone to be within 3 points of the automatic places.
So, to the action and we really need to win 2 of the next 5 and if not hope results go our way. A huge moment for the save. Its going to be nervy.
To keep our fate in our own hands we needed to win more than 1 game than we did. As you can see we only managed one win in a disappointing month. This has left us sweating on other teams results
Lets check on how the others got on.......
MAIDENHEAD MAKE THE PLAYOFFS!
An incredible achievement from this group of players. Weve defied all the odds to firstly survive and then secure a playoff spot. Unbelievable.
Final League Table
This shows just how close we were to missing out on the playoffs. We've been let off once.
It is now sudden death.
League 2 Playoff Semi Finals.
Finishing in the last playoff space we knew we were lucky to be here but also knew we would have a much tougher task as we would be drawn away from home in the return leg against the 4th placed team in the league.
So the draw....
With 1 draw and 1 heavy defeat against Bolton in the regular season did not fill me with much confidence. But we are a different team these days……
WELL WELL WELL.!
We have come away from a 2 leg semi-final against a relative giant of League football with a commanding victory.
League 2 Play Off Final
So here we are, another playoff final. Our second of the journey so far.
This, like the National League playoff final is very unexpected. We really have no right to be here but we are going to give it one hell of a go to win.
So here we go, a place in League 1 is just 90 minutes away....
WHATS THAT?
WE HAVE ONLY GONE AND DONE IT.
Top scorer Cleary with the coolest head in Wembley to slot home a 91st penalty and win it!
Little old Maidenhead are going to League 1!!!!!!
I will leave you with the Season Review on what has be an INCREDIBLE season.
Thanks Again for reading and I hope you enjoyed it this seasons as much as I have!
Join us again soon when, ridiculously, we tackle the third tier of English Football!
Cheers
Panda
If you want to check out our other FM22 Save The Darmstadt Dream why not start from the beginning right here?
Or our most recent series, Growing up in Guernsey which you can start from the beginning here
