Firhill for Thrills: The Frazjag McLambie Story - Part 2

Firhill for Thrills: The Frazjag McLambie Story - Part 1

Fraz Plays FM19 pt2

In the last post I decided on the three projects I'm interested in doing and sent out a Twitter poll to let Gods of the internet decide which one to do.  

While I'm waiting for the answer, I thought I'd scope out the teams a bit to see what they're like.

“That’s great. Tell him he’s Pele and get him back on.”

John Lambie on being told striker Colin McGlashan was involved in a clash of heads with an opponent.

I've had experience of managing the Jags before in FM as back in the early Champ Man days I managed to take them from the depths of league 1 to dominating the Prem with five titles on the trot and a Champions League final appearance to boot.  

So that was then, what about now?  

Struggling in the Championship badly relegation last season so the goal for this project is to forget about their struggles and get them back in the big league at the first time of asking.

Managerial Style

I'll be basing myself on the Jags legend that is John Lambie, who was known for his eccentricity, cigar smoking and fondness for pigeons.  

Squad

Keepers

Shit, one keeper.  It's Cammy Bell who, to be fair, is a decent stopper but I'm going to have to find a good back up to keep him on his toes.  

Defenders 

thin on the ground, I'll have to find a few if we want to achieve anything.  Midfield - Not too shabby, Blair Spittal, Gary Harkins, Miles Storey and Prince Buaben are the pick of the bunch here.  

Attackers 

I could have a ready made Chick Charnley 'maverick' in Souleymane Coulibaly already.  If I can get him to replicate his old Killie form then he's going to tear up the Championship.  If not, I'll be expecting good things from Scott McDonald and Kris Doolan.

Transfer thoughts are that there's major surgery required at the back but quite a bit of promise in the middle and up front.  

"He was an absolute fucking bampot” 

- Dave Bowman describing Jim McLean

It's hard to believe it these days but United were THE team (along with an Aberdeen team with Fergie at the helm) when I was growing up.  There's been some tremendous teams in Scottish football but United's of the early-mid 80's takes some beating. 

So that was then, what about now?  

Unable to recover from relegation a few years' back.  My task in this project will be to get them back where they belong!

Managerial Style

It has to be on Wee Jum.  Press conferences will be frosty, players will be getting fined aplenty for indiscipline and new signings will be getting locked into five year deals and bumped straight to the reserves for the slightest sign of backchat.

Squad

Keepers

Crapola, one again!  No idea what Benj Siegrist is like so on that basis alone, he's gonna have to fight for his place right from the off.  United have a history of some class goalies so can I find the next Hamish McAlpine or Seb Diekstra?  

Defenders 

Jeez, that's a depressing array of 'who?'  We've got Mark Reynolds on load from Aberdeen so fingers and toes crossed they don't want him back in January!  

Midfield 

Morgaro Gomis is a player but right from the off, the real talents of the side, Fraser Fyvie and Peter Pawlett are both injured which while an accurate reflection of the real world, is a worrying sign of things to come for the season.  

Attackers 

Currently features Nicky Clark and the injured Osman Sow which should do a good job but if Sow can't keep away from the treatment table, Cammy Smith is going to have to get his finger out and realise the promise Aberdeen once thought he had.

Transfer thoughts are I don't think there's going to be the finances for the major overhaul of the squad that's required.

"I'm a rolling thunder, a pouring rain"  

-Hell's Bells (AC/DC)

They first caught my attention years ago with their flag and punk attitude.  At first I thought they were a weird footballing version of the LA Raiders but I then got to know what they were all about and realised I'd got them all wrong.  

A true community club that abide by a set of principles which dictates how the club is run and is all about the society of the city of which they are a part of.  

A club that puts the fans first and is very aware of the political world of which it's part of.

But to be honest, they had me with the thought of the team running out to Hell's Bells.

Managerial Style

I don't have any knowledge of the managerial history of the club so I've a bit of a blank canvass here.  I'll adopt the progressive culture of the club and be good to the players but as for style of play?  It'll have to be a hipster Klopp-esque approach, I think.  

Attack with pace and flair and win promotion in style.

Squad

Keepers

Hey, hey they've got three keepers!  There's bound to be a decent first choicer there.  

Defence

Healthy numbers for every position along the back four, very promising.  Midfield - we're covered for the wings but there's an alarming lack of central and attacking midfielders.  

Attack 

Just the two out and out strikers but there's a few midfielders who can also play up front so not too bad.

Transfer thoughts are that it doesn't look as though much is required.  It obviously depends on the quality of player in the squad but assuming they're not all haddies, it looks as though I could be able to just spend the budget on a couple of quality midfielders.

And there we have it.  Once the decision of who I'm going to be taking control of has been made, I'll have a more in depth look at the squad and the club.  I'm genuinely swithering between all three at the moment but hand on heart, my very first thought was Thistle so I have to put them in first place.  However, it's not my choice so if you want to change my mind, get voting!

Fraz Plays FM19

It Begins

I've just gone and bought the latest version of the best spreadsheet ever, 

Football Manager 19

Football Manager 2019 is a football management simulation video game developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega which was released worldwide in 2018 for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Nintendo Switch. Wikipedia

I've been playing a version of this game since it was first coded and even before that, the grandaddy of them all, 

Kevin Tom's Football Manager

Normally, I'll play as my favourite team and try to achieve world domination for as long as I can but I'm thinking that it'd be good to change things about and manage a random team for a year.  

Then probably because of this podcast 

I decided to to add to the challenge and blog about it.  In an engaging, entertaining and just a bit o' fun kinda way.

Shit

So the first challenge is to decide what kind of challenge I want?  And what team? 

I could procrastinate until the end of time about that but in order for a quick start I've gone with the first three gut options.

The John Lambie

Task

Win promotion to the Scottish Premiership

Requirements

Chick Charnley 'maverick' type

Firhill for thrills

The Wee Jim 

Task

Win promotion to the Scottish Premiership

Requirements

Dour media persona

Use local lads

The St Pauli 

Task

Win promotion to the Bundesliga

Why?

St. Pauli opens its home matches with "Hells Bells" by AC/DC, and after every home goal "Song 2" by Blur is played.

The former club president Corny Littmann, long active in German theatre and head of the Schmidt Theater on the Reeperbahn, is openly gay.

St. Pauli have made pre-season appearances at Wacken Open Air, a heavy metal festival, several times.

The club hosted the 2006 FIFI Wild Cup, a tournament made up of unrecognised national football teams like Greenland, Tibet and Zanzibar. They participated as the "Republic of St. Pauli".

Jockey Full of Bourbon (Tom Waits) - Live Acoustic Cover

Dammit and blast your eyes!!!

Despite my schoolboy error of leaving the lyric/chord sheets for all the acoustic songs I wanted to try at home, a fairly productive rehearsal was had in the end.  I dedicated the first part of the rehearsal to the set and although I did have the lyrics to hand, I tried to run through all of the songs without looking at them and it went rather well.

There were stumbles and if the gig were tomorrow then there's still no way I could do it without at least cheat sheets BUT that said, I don't think I'm that far away from having the lyrics memorised (and if you know how bad my memory is, you know how much of a statement that actually is!).

I'm feeling quite confident about the set now although if the set list is confirmed as being 45 mins, it's looking likely that I'll need to add another song.  So far I've got "Crazy Horses" by The Osmonds as a standby but seeing as the crowd is going to be made up mostly of office workers at around the 20-40 year old age bracket, another 80's electro-pop tune to go with "Two Tribes" would likely go down better as a set closer.

Something to think about and discuss with the band once we're all together, I think.

My safety net

The main takeaways for the set this week are:

• The first and last verses in Punch & Judy need worked on.  
• Still need to remember to start History Repeating in a higher register.

Other than that, it's just a case of getting confident about singing without the lyric sheets.  If I can nail that before I get together with the band I'll be a VERY happy bunny indeed.



For the second part of the rehearsal I dedicated to learning acoustic songs.

Strummin' Time

I spent quite a bit of time running through "What a Good Boy" by Barenaked Ladies but focused mostly on getting the vocals sorted to the expense of working on the arrangement for the acoustic guitar.  Still, it was time well spent as I feel I'm quite close to how I want the vocals to sound now.  Next week I'll focus more on the guitar side of things and hopefully, will have it finished by the end of the session.

I filmed all the takes, put them together in a mashup video and created a playlist on YouTube imaginatively called "Learning a Song".  I figured it's something I'd find quite interesting to watch so maybe others would as well.

My initial thought was to do it for just one song but seeing as I keep thinking of other tunes I'd like to play, I reckon I'll keep this going and see what happens.  I find it really useful to listen back to the takes as it's so much easier to not only identify mistakes but to also hear what changes in the arrangement I'd like to make too.

You can check it out and see how you think its going below:

I've also been busking a few other songs at the same time as working on "What a Good Boy" and I think the next one to properly work out will be "As Long As I Can See The Light" by Creedence Clearwater Revival.  It's not sounding too bad at the moment so I'm confident I can have that knocked into shape reasonably quickly.

Famous. Last. Words.

A Game of Two Halves

Well that was an interesting rehearsal.

The first 20 minutes were soul destroying.  I'm talking real proper awful terribleness that made me want to pack it all in and never play or listen to music ever again.

The rest of the time was probably the best rehearsal yet.  How weird is that!

Before it all kicked off

I thought it'd be a good idea to warm up by doing a few acoustic songs.  Big mistake.  A blues/soul band were in the room beside me running through their set (Mustang Sally, Knock On Wood, Tush, etc) and I could hear them quite clearly.  They were rather good but I clammed up completely and couldn't play or sing for toffee.

After running through a few songs and thinking I had maybe dreamt ever being able to play the guitar, I gave up and tried giving the set a go.  Best decision of the night by a country mile as I immediately felt far more comfortable (it's amazing how much confidence a bit of practise at something gives you).  I ran through the set in its entirety and I'm not struggling singing any of them now so they just need repeated practise to iron them out and get them memorised.  With that in mind, I can use the rest of the rehearsal time working on the guitar side of things.

It's clear to me that I work far better when I've got a project to focus on so I'm going to set myself a challenge.  I'm going to document the process I go through in learning a song.  From having to rely completely on the chord & lyric sheet all the way through to the finished article, fully arranged and memorised. Depending on the song, I might stray from the original arrangement ('cause I like making it sound my way) and to make it a bit more daunting for myself... I'm going to video it!



To start with, I've decided to give What a Good Boy by Barenaked Ladies a run through since I was talking about it in the last blog.

If I'm being pedantic, this is actually week two for this now as I played it for the first time in a very long time last week and it sounded... just as bad as you'd think that sounds - thankfully for my fragile ego, I don't have video of that session.

This week I had my first stab at putting in some variety and colour into my playing which basically meant throwing in some random picking alongside the strumming pattern.  It sounded better structure wise and has given me some ideas to try at the next rehearsal and my singing was also a lot better than last time - still not quite getting the high parts so there's a way to go before I'm happy but it was certainly better than I expected it to be at this stage.

You can see for yourself what I'm talking about below.

Anway, onto the set.  That's the main reason I'm rehearsing after all!  I won't run through the notes for every song like I've done previously as I'm fairly comfortable with what I'm doing for them now.  The main take aways were:

• I still need to watch the plosives for Punch & Judy, particularly at the very start
• I'm still singing too low a register when starting History Repeating 
• I still need to watch my phrasing on Two Tribes (but getting better)
• I'm having a rethink about editing War Pigs as my original plan of an early end point doesn't sound right. 

I felt like I wasn't fully paying as much attention to playing as I had been previously which is a shame as I think I was more comfortable singing but I made more mistakes than before.

That said, I was pleased with the tone and phrasing of each song so left feeling rather chuffed and a bit proud of myself as that was the happiest I've been with how my vocals sound and I'm starting to feel a little bit of confidence creeping in.

Pay attention dagnammit!

One technical point to remind myself of.  I've a feeling the vocals would sound better with a bit more more reverb behind them.

Righty oh, until next time.