Play to the Whistle- A Caribbean Story Inspired by Football Manager (PART ONE: The Caribbean Cops League- A Perfect Prequel!)

Play to the Whistle

A Caribbean Story Inspired by Football Manager

PART ONE: The Caribbean Cops League- A Perfect Prequel!

So back in March when football- and the whole country- came to a halt due to lock down, everybody all of a sudden found themselves in need of stuff to do and although I've been very fortunate to have worked through the months, I have indeed missed travelling around to different places to see the beautiful game. As well as missing the rest of the season, I was gutted to see a trip to Skopje for the CONIFA World Cup cancelled too. However, in a time where literally thousands of people are dying or seeing loved ones taken by COVID-19, I count myself lucky to have remained safe, busy and with a little bit of extra time on my hands to do some of the hobbies that I normally get little time for... such as creating a Podcast based on a fictional football league in the Caribbean which is led by results on a Football Manager season!

One of my passions outside of football is script-writing and although I've written a few short and full-length plays over the years, I generally haven't got spare time to fit it in alongside a job, groundhopping and my voluntary role with CONIFA. Christ knows how people with kids get on! To make the most of my situation during lock down, back in April I set up a Football Manager draft with three Bristol Rovers fans and to try and make it even and somewhat random we decided to set a number of rules on the draft so that nobody would have a huge advantage. The rules in place were that all players chosen would be worth a maximum of £10k and that they would all be based in the Caribbean. Simple enough, but the results were still pretty funny.

Yohann "Park the" Bus was a personal favourite from the draft

As well as having to basically select the squad blind, there was also an element of selecting the players that stand out most out of curiosity. For example Tom, who was managing FC Saint Paulsi, selected a 43-year old English goalkeeper and a guy from Bonaire called Tom Tomburg. Can't imagine why.

Playing with Gay and Jolly on my wings, I managed to overcome the other three to win our fictional league with a game to spare and ended three points above Tiger King FC- and with that, my Jamrock Juniors team lifted the Caribbean Cops League trophy!

A great and well-fought mini season

Despite the initial success of the CCL, a second league made in Asia with much higher player value ratings didn't quite capture the imagination of the four of us and two-thirds of the way through the Tea & Justice Premier League we agreed that we didn't all have the time to be free at the same time to play the league anymore and so I went back to the normality of my Millwall campaign. Somehow though, it just wasn't the same and maybe it was the lock down delirium getting to me but I just had to get back out to the imaginary Caribbean world I'd created and so I began to think about starting up my own fictional league.

Once you've tasted Caribbean success, there is nothing else

I must clarify at this stage that I have been a long time follower of the Jamaican Premier League and Caribbean football for years, so my passion and want to play more island action (probably) isn't out of insanity caused by being inside more than usual. Anyway, back to the origin... so after reading up about several attempts by the CFU to create a professional Caribbean Football League over the years, including a short lived thing in the early nineties which featured the likes of Georgetown Cobras from Guyana and the Wadadli Deers of Antigua and Barbuda, I got thinking that COVID-19's impact on smaller nations may, in real life, cause many clubs to close down completely and therefore this would be a perfect time for a new pro body to come into place. If the CFU couldn't do it, I thought I may be the right person to give it a go and so I created the Caribbean Mega League on Football Manager Draft Mode to get the ball rolling.

All badges designed by me... in case you understandably thought they were real teams!

So with the rules set, the twelve teams created and the game good to go, it was time for me to sit and pick twelve sets of twenty-two players (which took hours!) in preparation for the twenty-two game campaign. I would continue to take control of Jamrock Juniors, but the main story behind "Play to the Whistle" of course comes from a team "managed" by Tom Meadowcroft. In part two of this blog trilogy, I will be showing you a bit more about how the opening weeks of the game pan out, how that shaped the idea for the scripts in the Podcast and of course some of the other stuff that has gone into this all-encapsulating Caribbean Mega League- but in the meantime you can catch up with the series so far on my Spotify or Soundcloud channel.

And if you do get a chance to listen, please let me know what you thought and feel free to check out my website too for more content, including a chance to even become a supported of one of the CML teams! Additionally, I also have an Instagram account that you can follow to see all of my latest groundhopping archive pics and badge designs from all of my fictional clubs.