Season 4: 2020/2021 - Vanarama National League 16th
Our first season in the VNL was a success in my opinion, we were tasked with fighting relegation and that's what we did. We got off to a decent start and picked up a few early results using a 4-1-4-1 tactic but it gradually fizzled out and we dropped down the table. Throughout the middle of the season we couldn't buy a win which saw us yo-yo in and out of the relegation zone for a time thanks to the occasional draw. Towards the business end of the season we started to gain 3 points for a few matches and this helped us to finish 16th in what was a nervy end to our first year in the VNL.
Final standings for 2020/2021 season.
Season 5: 2021/2022 - Vanarama National League 6th
Our second season got off to an inconsistent start, struggling to string together any number of wins. I thought this was the season we were going to to go down because our inconsistency became consistent losing but towards the halfway mark in the football calendar we reversed our fortunes and started to win most of our matches, drawing occasionally and only losing a few. In our final 10 matches we won 7, drew 4 and lost 1. The form we found in the second half of the season left us sitting 6th. In the first round of the promotional playoff we beat Sutton 5-2 but in the semi final Shrewsbury beat us 3-1, leaving us in the VNL for a third season. We got knocked out of the FA Trophy Semi Final on penalties by Carlisle. They beat us in the first leg 2-1, we won the second leg 4-3 and this was what made it so sickening, we were 4-1 up nearing the end of the match and they just fired in 2 quick goals to push it to penalties. This is the last of our cup action as the next few seasons saw us crash out in the first round of all cup competitions.
Standings for Season 2021/2022
Season 6: 2022/2023 - Vanarama National League Champions
We kicked off our third season in good form winning 7 of our first 10 matches, drawing 2 and losing 1. The defeat was a heavy one, 5-1 to Bromley but Stevenage were on the end of a backlash in the following match where we won 6-1. We maintained good momentum throughout the season except for one pocket of games where we went of the boil losing 4 out of 5, but we got back on track. Unfortunately this bad patch gave the other teams a chance to catch up meaning it was only 3 points keeping us on top for the final 5 matches. Our second last match was particularly worrying because Carlisle had been in good form and were after charging to second place like a train. We had a vastly superior goal difference going into the final match of the season so I felt comfortable enough and it was just as well too because we lost 3-1 leaving both us and Carlisle on 90 points but our goal difference was the deciding factor in who moved to League 2 as VNL Champions.
We kicked off our third season in good form winning 7 of our first 10 matches, drawing 2 and losing 1. The defeat was a heavy one, 5-1 to Bromley but Stevenage were on the end of a backlash in the following match where we won 6-1. We maintained good momentum throughout the season except for one pocket of games where we went of the boil losing 4 out of 5, but we got back on track. Unfortunately this bad patch gave the other teams a chance to catch up meaning it was only 3 points keeping us on top for the final 5 matches. Our second last match was particularly worrying because Carlisle had been in good form and were after charging to second place like a train. We had a vastly superior goal difference going into the final match of the season so I felt comfortable enough and it was just as well too because we lost 3-1 leaving both us and Carlisle on 90 points but our goal difference was the deciding factor in who moved to League 2 as VNL Champions.
Standings for Season 2022/2023
Season 7: 2023/2024 - League 2 18th
Going into my 7th season I was a little undecided about whether I wanted to continue as manager at FC United because of how close things were at the end of the previous season. If we had won the league by a bigger margin there wouldn't have been any question , I would've felt we had what it took to stay out of the VNL. Anyway I stayed on even though I had a strong feeling we were going to be relegated and during the summer break the board announced that the club was turning professional. There wasn't a lot to report on for my first year in League 2, we had an inconsistent run, we didn't go on any great winning streaks but more importantly we didn't hit any long losing streaks and despite my relegation fears in the summer we finished 18th.
Standings for Season 2023/2024
Season 8: 2024/2025 - League 2 16th
This season saw us improve our final position by 2 places over the previous year but much the same as the 2023/2024 season it was a fairly mundane campaign. Again it was an inconsistent performance throughout. During this season we leaking some ridiculous goals so this was something I knew we had to address, I tied down a few players who were previously on loan with us and brought some of our academy players into the first team. I felt a bit happier to stay on as manager at this point due to the fact that we were showing signs of improvement and growing into the league plus the board had offered me a contract extension until the end of 2026.
Standings for Season 2024/2025
So that's it, the blog is back up to speed, I think I might post like this more often and accumulate a few seasons together rather than trying to dissect each individual season. Hopefully it won't be as long before the next one
