Gary Club & North Ferriby United: The Greatest Football Manager Save Of All Time
We’ve all done it. We all know someone that’s done it, and some of us have even watched people do it. It’s one of the most thrilling things in the world when it works, but nothing is more disappointing like when it doesn’t. You may be wondering what on earth I’m talking about, but when I say ‘It’ I mean we’ve all taken someone from non-league football to the Champions League on Football Manager.
It’s a right of passage. You’ve never really played the game unless you’ve built a legacy at a club you’ve hardly heard of and hardly know anything about. For some, it’s something simple like taking Tranmere Rovers to the Europa League or even bringing Leeds back to their past glories, but nothing beats the thrill of taking a team from the Conference (or Conference North/South) and creating a dynasty. During the last two years of our university course, six of us did just that with a team from just outside Hull…
I must preface this story with the fact that we all did do work in the back on these Business lectures where most of this save was played! We all came out of it with rather good grades, so if anything this helped us more than we realised, but enough of that, let’s get into the story of the best save any of us have played.
It all originally started with myself and Ben Croft, as it was my iPad where we started this on. At first, it was meant to be with Hemel Hempstead, a team in the Vanarama National League south because they were quite close to us in London and had a good setup, but we decided that this was too straightforward. We wanted a club who had no money, low rated training facilities and next to no youth academy, and that’s when we found North Ferriby. At the time, the club were riding high at the top of the Conference North and looked destined for promotion into the National League, one step away from the Football League itself. By this time, we had a few more people on the ‘management team’ in Finn Savage, Conor Martin, Callum Wright and Tom Tyler who were invested in the ’10-year-plan’ as Croft flippantly put it when we started. But here we go, here’s the story of our journey with North Ferriby.
We created a name for our manager with inspiration from Customs House, the government website. There was a company that flashed up on screen called “Gary Club House” so that’s the name we went with. I wish there was a fancier explanation or some cryptic meaning, but there really isn’t…
Nevertheless, we created Gary Club and looked for a club with the worst rated facilities in the National League and lowest attended ground, and that’s where we found North Ferriby. Of course, we had to take over, we couldn’t waste an opportunity like this. We had the chance to completely change a club, and what better man to do it than Gary Club.
If we wanted to carry out a 10-year-plan, we had to have roles. I was the ‘Chairman’, looking after the transfers and basically everything that wasn’t playing the actual matches. Croft, Finn and Cal essentially looked after the playing side and Conor & Tyler were there for support, so became the “supporters group”. But let’s start the first few seasons.
We needed a big name signing, to pretty much get ourselves up for the task. I searched the free agency market high and low for any bargains and no one wanted to join us. We had no pulling power, but one veteran decided to take the Ferriby challenge. David Dunn. Yes, the Blackburn Rovers legend decided to end his storied career with The Villagers and his experience was actually vital to our team. He was the only player in the entire squad that had a green stat, and I think even that was aggression, such was the standard in our team.
So how did we finish in our first year? Could David Dunn lead us to promotion into the Football League at the first time of trying? Well, no. In fact, it was the textbook definition of “solid season”. 46 games played, 12 wins, 17 draws, 17 losses, 55 goals scored, 57 goals conceded and 53 points. At least we finished 17th, which was better than we expected although it did provided us with the perfect springboard for the next season. David Dunn retired, much to our disappointment but the wages he left behind allowed us to sign two players that would be so vital to our next campaign.
George Honeyman cost us nothing from Sunderland, and Ibrahim Obayomi cost us £20K from Maritimo from Portugal. It may seem like pennies to many of you, but when that was essentially our entire budget it was a transfer that had to work. Did it work? Absolutely, because thanks to a combined effort of 40 goals from Honeyman and Obayomi, WE WON PROMOTION!! Outside the FA offices in Wembley Stadium, we absolutely battered Barrow 5–0 with the two heroes on the scoresheet. It was only fitting to gain our first promotion in the Home of English football, but it was also incredible to reach the Third Round of the FA Cup in that season too, a trait of ours of upsetting the big clubs in cup competitions.

It also set multiple new traditions amongst our team as well. We always seemed to gain promotions at various football grounds which I’ll delve into a bit more later on, but it also set the new precedent of our best players being poached by bigger clubs due to the big club release clause. Gillingham took Ibrahim Obayomi from us for just over £50K and there was nothing we could have done about it, but we had to keep going. “We go again” essentially became our slogan, despite the fact it implies we’ve failed…
Until the very end of this save, no one managed to score more goals in a single league season for us than Obayomi did, with his 27 strikes. Considering the talent we would go on to have and the achievements we created, it’s incredible to me that no one got more than 27 league goals. But when you see our record our first season in the Football League, there’s no hiding that we missed the big man up top. 46 games played, nine losses, 17 wins and 20 draws… that is the text book definition of mid table solidity. With a goal difference of +10, out of the EFL Cup in the first round, the Checkatrade in the second and the FA Cup in the third round (our yearly tradition of getting to the stage to play Premier League teams but never actually playing them) and you’ve got yourself a good debut season.
But with the mid table solidity, there were some negatives to speak of. New Brazilian signing Rodrigo Branco, signed for £1K from Welsh side Bangor, couldn’t quite replace Obayomi, and neither could record signing James Akitunde. For some reason, we felt it was needed to spend about 80% of our budget on him, and I think we sold him a season later, he was that bad.
But the worst signing of the entire summer, probably the entire save, was Bradley Johnson on a free transfer. His wage demands meant our finances were destroyed, but we felt that if he had the same effect that David Dunn had back in the inaugural season then it would have been money well spent. It wasn’t, and he was awful. We tried to sell him at every window, even tried to loan him out, but he pulled a Winston Bogarde and just sat out his contract. More on this in three years…
The next season, our second in League Two and one where we wanted to stay away from the drop zone, didn’t exactly go as planned. An improvement on last season’s 10th placed finish by reaching 8th, but while the improvement of two places didn’t seem like much, the signings of two very young German’s added a different edge to our side, and these two teenagers would end up staying with Ferriby until their retirements. Goalkeeper and future club captain Arne Kruse, a 16 year old from Wolfsburg decided that the Bundesliga wasn’t worth his time, but a small village outside of Hull was, and he was joined by young Hamburg forward Leander Wrobel. The cost of the pair? Nothing and with wages under £500 each, it turned out to be a blessing from heaven.
We missed out on the League Two play offs on the final day of the season when we needed to pick up a win to secure a place, but faltered at the last hurdle. We had once again exceeded expectations, but all of us knew that despite what the save expected of us and our squad, promotion was a serious option the next season.
With Arne Kruse in goal, Howard Beverland, Wes Baines, Howard Beverland and Marcus Burdisso at the back, a dominant — yet tough — midfield duo of Connor Oliver and John “Sully” Sullivan and Branco and Wrobel in the final third, we knew we had the beginning of a really strong side. We just needed a creative midfielder to fit in the midfield. And to be perfectly honest, we found the most perfect player and my favourite signing of the entire save. Nicolai Kjaer was signed on loan that summer from Danish outfit Hobro IK, and I can only imagine that this was what it was like when Lazio saw Michael Laudrup at Brondby, or when Ajax found Christian Eriksen in Denmark as a youngster. There was no coincidence that when Kjaer joined, the club gained promotion from League Two to League One and Wrobel scored the second most goals he would ever score in a season with 15. Despite the impact of Kjaer, we only scored 52 goals in the league that season, six less than the previous season but the defence improved massively (Croft will take credit for that one) going from 40 goals conceded to just 21.
Like I said before, the introduction of Kjaer was so important but seeing as he was only on loan, we had to find a way to bring him in permanently. I’d like to apologise to James Akitunde for breaking his North Ferriby transfer record, but at £65K, Kjaer was a steal. His signing, plus the free transfer of French right back Roderic Fontaine from Angers was massive, and it paid dividends to our transfer strategy. We couldn’t really afford anyone at a club that anyone had heard of (thanks Bradley Johnson) so we had to scour Scandinavia, Ireland and Wales for talent. Every now and again a player like Fontaine would catch our eye and we’d be lucky enough to get them in on a free or a loan, which is pretty much how we managed to build the team in a way.
With Kjaer becoming a permanent signing, a new right back and a settled team equaled back-to-back promotions! A tiny side note, myself and Finn saw over the end of this season at the Emirates Stadium. We were there for uni covering Arsenal U23’s vs Manchester United U23’s and managed to win our final seven games to win the league (Croft decided to go to Chelsea vs Middlesborough, but deep down he knows a half empty Emirates would’ve been the place to be in London that night.)
Only eight losses, 21 goals conceded, a career high 17 goals for Wrobel and Kjaer delivered once again, hitting 20 goals and 13 assists. It was just a culmination of good work in the past few years, and set about to be the start of the new era of North Ferriby. No more were we planning to just stay up and see what happened, we planned on going for promotion. Our objective in League Two was to avoid relegation, as it was in League One and it stayed the same in the Championship. We couldn’t afford huge names or the very best, we just had to scour the world to see who we could find, who could bolster our squad without ruining our money even more than Bradley Johnson already had (I guess he’s the villain of this story).
Gregg Pack joined from Bury on loan for what would be the first of his three consecutive loan spells at the club, mainly because even though he was 18 years old, we couldn’t afford his transfer fee of £2M. Argentinian attacking midfielder Luis Pareja joined from Argentinos Juniors for £28K continuing our theme of spending nothing on complete unknowns, and that was largely it when it came to signings. Keeping a balanced squad is what we wanted, and that squad gave us a 6th place finish, but not managing to do the business in the playoffs.
Losing 16 games wasn’t good enough, despite the fact it was our third highest scoring season, we had to go again in the Championship. Second Round of the EFL Cup, Fourth Round of the FA Cup, it could only get better. And to say it got better after this season is an understatement…
For a team that had never spent over £1M in a single transfer window, and their record signing was £65k, to reach the Championship was incredible. If we had ended the save then, it would’ve still been a good story, but what we did from this point on makes this the greatest Football Manager save anyone could have hoped for. In the summer of 2023 (not quite as catchy as the Summer of ’69, but it’ll get there) North Ferriby broke their transfer record, signed a Colombian and brought in two European Champions. That’s right, Sergio Ramos and Eden Hazard decided to leave Real Madrid and Chelsea respectively to join the Gary Club revolution at North Ferriby. The two did actually make a positive impact and weren’t just signings like Bradley Johnson — speaking of which, his contract had finally expired, we released him the first chance we got — and his wages allowed us to bring in some much better players.

Alongside Ramos and Hazard, Fabian Arias joined for £12K from Envigado in Colombia, Mo Samir was a bargain at just £26K and could in six different positions ranging from right back to CAM and Tasos Panagioditis broke our transfer record at £100K, but it was worth it for his seven years of service. These new signings coupled with the promotion-ready squad we had meant that we felt extremely confident on promotion. Not only did we get promotion, but we absolutely romped the Championship, losing only nine times, conceding just 25 goals and were three points off of breaking the 100 point barrier. Finally, North Ferriby had reached the Premier League. It’s weird to read it as I write this, it sounded weird saying it when it happened, but we did it.
It was all about these next few seasons. Gary Club, a manager named after a random company, was about to cement his legacy and get a statue built outside the stadium which, I assume, is named after him. We still went for the freebies, we still looked for bargains, and we found two major ones when we pigged up Valerio Cerullo (we changed his name to Jason because Jason Cerullo fits into the Heartbeat theme and sounds like Jason Derulo. Creative bunch) and Francesco Ferrara from Perugia, and Antoine Griezmann to complete the big three of oldies in our squad. When it came to opening day, we had West Ham at home. At least we started the adventure at our place, and immediately we finished the weekend top of the league. Why? How? Because, thanks to Antoine Griezmann grabbing four goals, we battered them 7–0. Our first game, 7–0!

We finished fourth that season, lost in the final of the EFL Cup to Everton (that becomes a running theme, by the way) and reached the semi finals of the FA Cup. Six losses, 15 draws and 17 wins. Turn them draws into wins and you have something special. But what we failed to do was capitalise on the momentum.
We had Champions League football at Grange Lane and welcome the likes of AC Milan and Ajax to our ground, only to get knocked out in the quarter finals. We reached the same stage in the EFL Cup and only got to the fourth round of the FA Cup. Finishing fifth compounded what had become a disappointing season for us, which is astounding to think. A top five finish was deemed poor, but such was the standards that we had set for ourselves.
What happened after this season? The set back year? We developed and in the proceeding three seasons, we never finished below second place. The 2026/27 season was littered with 1–0’s as we only suffered three losses in the Premier League. 22 goals conceded and 83 points, yet we had to make do with runners up. We knew we were close, we almost had a trophy with the EFL Cup but failed at the final hurdle again the Liverpool before Inter Milan dumped us out of the Europa League. The major acquisition this time was a Czech forward named Petr Zemen, who only cost us £2K but banged in 25 goals, with new young loan signing Juan Jose Morientes picking up 13 goals and 11 assists in a new look forward line that still contained Nicolai Kjaer.
(Fun fact, we actually broke the in game record for most bookings in a Premier League season with 73…)
Despite the fun we had and the story we had created, we still hadn’t won a major trophy yet. Could we turn good football and good accountancy into success? Would “Spursy” just become known as “Ferriby”? The 2027/28 season didn’t help our case, even if we only lost twice in the league. We finished 2nd again to a Man City side who won the league with 94 points, got Crofted by PSG in the semi final of the Champions League (Crofted is our term for being counter attacked. They scored with their only shot on target and we couldn’t break them down, home or away) and lost in the final of the EFL Cup (AGAIN) to Chelsea.
It was at this point where I not only started to doubt whether we could actually win anything, but I became desperate for something. Our course only had about a month or so left, and we weren’t able to come in as regularly as before, so FM time was limited. Our time to win anything was running out, so the 2028/29 season had to be the one. Our 10 year plan had become a 12 year plan, but the outlook never changed. We wanted that Premier League title…
And with 92 points on the board, we finally managed to do it. We started from the bottom and had finally reached the promise land, we had won the Premier League title. Everything just lined up perfectly for us, we actually won the EFL Cup in February against Arsenal and the FA Cup against Chelsea with a last minute winner from Morientes in what would turn out to be our final match for the club, and without a shadow of a doubt it was the best achievement any of us had had on any Football Manager game. We didn’t care about the Champions League, we just wanted that league title so the domestic treble was a bonus but a bonus for the work Gary Club had put in to North Ferriby.


We had taken over the team in the National League who had the lowest attendance, worst facilities and lowest budget and turned them into Premier League champions. Once we realised that this was the peak of our own personal mountain, Gary Club resigned as manager of North Ferriby and we vowed to never take another job, and just let the save run until the game forced us to retire.

Sean Dyche was the man to replace us and followed up our success by retaining the Premier League crown, and repeating the triumph a few years later, winning three Premier League’s out of a possible four from 2032 to 2036. Two more FA Cups followed, two more EFL Cup’s followed in the same years and two Europa League’s were added to the trophy cabinet.

Why this is the greatest Football Manager save is easy to see and it’s easy to explain but for us it became more than just a save (which should have become our motto, in hindsight). The save helped us get through university and actually made us better friends, with other people on our course becoming more than aware of who North Ferriby were, even wanting to watch us flick through pages of Brazilian loanees and little dots waddling around on a screen in Nando’s (this actually happened, and I have video evidence).
We always wanted to go to a game, and we picked the Woking match on Saturday, 12th November 2016. It’s a date that will always stick with me because it was the scrappiest game I have ever seen, and it was on BT Sport! If you listen carefully when Stephen Brogan scores Ferriby’s goal, you can hear Finn shout “What a goal” on the pitch side mic. Somehow Ferriby escaped with a point, but we left that game buzzing. Why? Because we had seen the Dutch lads who started a save, ironically, with Woking and went to a game. We went to the game, nearly got lost but had a great time of it.
We still keep up with Ferriby even during their tough times at the moment, but we will always remember the club. From something that started out as an innocent new save in the back of a dull business lecture where our lecturer told us he wanted to gas himself and pretty much went full Partridge, it developed into something that had a life of it’s own. Gary Club isn’t a real person, and I cant find any evidence of the company we took the name from, but everyone knows the name. People know North Ferriby, and we’re just glad we do too.
We created songs for fictional players, we travelled from all parts of London to see them play on a cold night in November when they were on television, we got a class of broadcasting students ranging from Manchester, Milton Keynes, Germany, Carolina and Ashford to understand who North Ferriby were. They may just be a village team from Hull, but we didn’t care at the start and we certainly don’t care now.

