It’s the summer of 2025, the midway point of the decade. France has won both Euro 2020 and 2024 and believe it or not, England actually won the World Cup in 2022 – against Nigeria! Wild scenes in Qatar.
In the Premier League, Liverpool won four straight titles before conceding to Manchester City in the 2023-24 season. This was largely thanks to the addition of 204 million pound transfer, Kylian Mbappé from PSG. It wasn’t easy though. They clinched on the last day with 100 points, 1 more than their cross-town rivals, Manchester United, who had secured their third straight second-place finish. However, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took his team to the top in the recently finished 2024-25 season, 95 points to Man City’s 92. This was due to the additions of João Félix from Athletico Madrid and strikers Lautaro Martínez from Inter and Fiete Arp, who is currently playing in real life with Bayern Munich but in-game was sold to Bayer Leverkusen before being bought by Man United.
The Champions League was a similar story. The competition belonged to Liverpool early on, who won three straight from 2020-21 to 2022-23 before also conceding to Mbappé’s Manchester City in 2024. But Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané, and Alisson led the Reds back to Champions League glory the following season, their fourth victory in five years and fifth in seven years. A dominant dynasty and one I don’t expect will be replicated on this save or come to pass in real life.
Back to Kingstonian
Well, maybe I can get Kingstonian close to Liverpool’s feats one day. But wow, that seems like such a ways off! Here we are in the sixth season, still in League 2, with no new stadium, a limited payroll and maybe just over 1,000 people in the stands each game. The income from our FA Cup third round game at Tottenham two seasons ago gave us just enough to survive the move to professionalism. But that money was running out. We need a cup run or a promotion to avoid heading into debt again.
I would also like to say now it has been ridiculous spending five seasons being rejected by the Board for proposed upgrades to youth facilities, junior coaching, youth recruitment, and all the things I need to build from within on a shoestring budget. Oh well, time to once again scour the transfer markets for the bargain deal and . . . wait, transfer embargo?
Yes, during the start of the transfer window, Kingstonian is on an embargo as a potential takeover is about to take place. Richard Taylor, a businessman, wants in – maybe he’ll have the money to take us far! But a few days later, I get an email stating that he is instead threatening to fire me! Ummm, I haven’t done anything wrong so how could the game let this happen? After presssing continue frantically a few times, I was informed the embargo was lifted and the takeover had failed. Whew!
Okay, let’s get back to work. First, we’re going to rewind and review our team’s evolution thus far, starting with the defense and our planned starters in bold.
| GK | DR | DC | DC | DL | |
| 2020-21 | Bradley-Hurst 6.8 | Vaughan 6.88 | Mensah 6.94 | Cook 6.92 | Hannam 6.83 |
| 2021-22 | Bradley-Hurst 6.79 | Vaughan 6.82 | Laing 6.88 | Sraha 6.96 | Hannam 6.66 |
| 2022-23 | Bradley-Hurst 6.82 | Ruffles 7.04 | Jones 7.05 | Sraha 7.06 | Hernandez 7.0 |
| 2023-24 | Howes 6.8 | Ruffles 7.16 | Jones 6.99 | Bridge 7.03 | Preston 7.22 |
| 2024-25 | Rees 6.89 | Ruffles 7.0 | Jones 6.97 | Bridge 7.17 | Preston 7.03 |
The back four has been together for two seasons, one a promotion year and the latest a year of consolidation. Dylan Ruffles, Ciaren Jones, and Danny Preston struggled slightly more against higher competition but Mungo Bridge thrived. So if there were going to be drastic changes, it would likely be the central defender spot next to Bridge.
Enter Liam McCorkell, on loan from Aston Villa, with 14 strength and tackling ratings, and aggression at 19. Slotted next to Bridge’s 20 aggression and our central defense will be pushing and shoving attackers all over the pitch. I can’t wait.
I also added Leon Davies, another pacey wingback to give Preston and Ruffles a breather.
| DM | DM | M R | AM C | M L | |
| 2020-21 | Bramble 6.89 | Dronfield 7.32 | Murphy 6.97 | – | Saraiva 7.38 |
| 2021-22 | Bramble 7.0 | Dronfield 7.23 | Corbett 6.93 | – | Saraiva 7.03 |
| 2022-23 | Defise 6.9 | Dronfield 7.11 | Morris 7.26 | – | Saraiva 7.18 |
| 2023-24 | Burke 7.13 | Dronfield 7.01 | Morris 7.10 | – | Bettache 7.03 |
| 2024-25 | Burke 7.12 | Dinsmore 7.21 | Markandy 6.96 | Birch 6.75 | Matthews 6.84 |
You can clearly see what Kingstonian’s primary concern is – the midfield. And even though Dominic Birch is a valuable youth intake product, I need cover for that position and a better player. Andrea Falzon from Blackburn agrees to join us and he has some great attributes.
I also added a slightly slower version of Falzon over on the wing as a backup to Matthews: Nyan Mesuria from India and another loanee, this time from Dulwich Hamlet. The hope is that our good form and a promotion give him and Falzon enough incentive to move here permanently.
Finally, our strikers:
| ST | ST | |
| 2020-21 | Asante 7.27, 27 goals | J. Andrews 7.12, 11 goals |
| 2021-22 | Asante 7.27, 29 goals | J. Reid 7.28, 20 goals |
| 2022-23 | Asante 7.25, 18 goals | Pressley 7.31, 22 goals |
| 2023-24 | Matthews 7.31, 22 goals | Pressley 7.15, 26 goals |
| 2024-25 | Cantú 6.92, 22 goals | Pressley 6.9, 12 goals |
Unfortunately, Aaron Pressley was poached by a Scottish Premiership team, Livingstone, and left for about £100,000, our largest transfer out to date. I might have been inclined to ask for more but his poor form and my lack of commitment to a long-term and expensive deal had made him upset. This was better than losing him for nothing at the end of the season, especially if he wasn’t going to be in my first-team plans. With that cash, I could’ve paid for a higher-level striker but I decided to stick with Enzo Cantú for another season. That said, I noticed a striker named Curtis McGuire available on a free (yay, not a loanee!) at the start of preseason. McGuire had 17 acceleration and 16 agility and pace! Sure, he only had 10 finishing . . . but still, the dude is fast! I picked him up with hopes that he could outrun the defenders and poach a few goals here and there.
Season Results
If we ignore the cup games, we were undefeated through two months to start the league campaign. Absolutely splendid. Notable aspects of this run include a strong start by Dilan Markanday, who I’ve not mentioned much in these recaps. A former Salford player, Markanday has some good speed but he’s very inconsistent. He started strong here with eight goals, but his form would fall way off the pace through the rest of the season, scoring only four goals from October on. This is something he did last season too, and well, I’ve said enough about him already and his disappearing act – let’s just move on!
Our goals were fairly well distributed among the players, which may be why our form was so good. McGuire had 5, Matthews 4, Cantú 4, Bridge 3, and Burke 3. Falzon, Birch, Mesuria, and Davies also added a goal. It seemed like the team always found someone to deliver when others were off.
After a tough draw against Doncaster, giving up goals in the 88th and 91st minute, we stumbled in the cup competition and got our first league loss against Colchester, this time thanks to giving up 89th and 91st minute goals! I figured this was the start of another tough run for the team but I was wrong. The Colchester result proved to be the only loss in our first five months of league play. Just a tremendous start to the season for the boys and I was proud of how the new pieces were gelling with the old.
Speaking of, Birch in particular felt “new” as he was developing quite nicely. In the second round of the FA Cup, we played fellow League Two members, Bromley. Birch absolutely eviscerated them, scoring five goals in the game. Maybe this increase in goal-scoring would lead to a bigger role for Birch?
Funnily enough, Birch did not score the rest of the season. So much for that “new” feeling. A frustrating set of fixtures followed and our newbies faltered – a lot. While we asked a lot of questions of our opponents in every game (except the FA Cup game against our second-ever Premier League opponent, Watford), our opponents answered time and time again. We were losing points as well as our substantial lead on the rest of the league. And then, to add more fuel to the concerning fire developing, Roco Rees, our star goalkeeper, went down with a one-and-a-half-month injury after the Exeter City match. Could we get back on track?
I was absolutely livid after losing to Grimsby Town. Our season was falling away from underneath our feet! I brought back the double defensive midfielder 4-2-2-2 tactic for the game against Wrexham. I had to do something to change our form! Well, it didn’t work. We drew 0-0 in a tepid match. I returned to the 4231 against MK Dons and drew again 1-1. I then held a team meeting and asked the players to pull themselves together to end this run. Another draw followed, this time against Doncaster. At a loss for ideas, I just let the 4231 continue unchanged and didn’t touch the tactics or shout at the boys during the entire game (I had been shouting quite a bit in the games before this). And well, the team snapped themselves out of the rut, winning against Oldham and Cheltenham. These wins ended a scary string of 7 draws, three losses, and one win.
The biggest problem though? We had lost our claim to the top spot in the league. Sitting six points ahead in first place was none other than AFC Wimbledon. The club that failed to provide ample notice to us so we could try to purchase of Kingsmeadow or find a buyer willing to still rent it to us. The club that ensured we were cast out of home and set to drift and flounder in obscurity. We HAD to win this title over them and we had 10 matches to take it. The first match on that list? Of course. Away at Wimbledon.
The Kings of London 