2022-23 Marigold United FC Season

#### 2022-23 Competitive History

Even if you aren’t familiar with the football world you have likely heard of Wrexham AFC. The club was purchased by Hollywood and TV stars Ryan Renyolds and Rob Mcelhenny and they have become extremely successful in the league they are currently playing in.  The team also have a successful docuseries in which the rise of Wrexham is documented and that’s when the idea hit me for a brand new series on the channel.

After seeing this success, the PloopAChoop Inc llc business consortium decided that they too would purchase a football club in the same league as Wrexham. Much like how Wrexham is one of just a few Welsh clubs playing in England, we purchased the first ever Irish team in the English leagues with our new team: Marigold United FC. This was done through funneling all of the other PloopAChoop businesses into the team and now with a brand new stadium, training facilities, and some money behind us, we want to challenge the English Football pyramid and become the first Irish based club to win the premier league. All of the information I am about to read can be found on the newly created Marigold United Wiki whose link is in the description below.

## Founded

Marigold United Football Club (MUFC) is an Irish football club based out of Swords, Ireland. The team are the first professional association football team in swords since the unfortunate closure of Swords Rovers in 2015. MUFC competes in the English Vanarama National League. It is managed by Dillit Plooperson of PloopAChoop fame. MUFC is a supporter-owned team while Nabi Plooperson owns 49%. They are new to the league as of the 2022-23 season. MUFC is the first Irish team to play in the English Football Leagues.

After seeing the rapid success of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney's purchase of Wrexham AFC, the PloopATroops suggested that the Ploop Inc. pool together its resources from its various "legitimate" business ventures in order to purchase a football team. The club was officially founded after a long day at RawDawg Farms as volunteer troops and PloopAChoop Dillit shared a grog.

Our plane departs the airport and we are on our way to Dublin International. While on the plan, I decided to go over some of the players on our squad.

### Players

Once the training ground was finished, the team posted flyers all over Swords to help draw attention from the club. At first there was only one applicant ,club captain Patrick J Finn, a 39 year old on again off again football player whose dream was always to compete. But after the ball got rolling there were more and more players attending the tryouts for the squad, especially from the various immigrant communities of Ireland. These players include Hikari Elisara an ex Yakuza informant who escaped Japan after igniting a war between the Tojo Family  and Omi Alliance in Kamorocho. And Desmond Obi Olewale who escaped genocide in his home of West Papua and fled to his mother’s homeland of Ireland. Soon a small group of founding players formed around the city including defense tank Patrick Smith who was homeless and wounded when trying out for the club, Ryan Backpackinson who has always had a dream of representing his native Mexico on the world’s stage, Maui Mcnutter who showed promise early in his career at the Motherwell academy, Rudy McRooderson.png whose deli dreams never quite took off, and KIBIT Broogan who wants to turn his dream of belonging to a team into a reality as the starting keeper.

These players were all created by members of our community and I want to say thank you to all of you for forming this initial generation of talent at Marigold United. I’ve always kept little storylines in my head when I played sports games or shared them with my best friend who did the same. Starting this journey with a small group of followers who want to watch our club as if it were real makes me incredibly happy and inspired to make this content.

## Late Preseason

The last finishing touches of getting our team up and running weren’t finished until the very last minute. As such we only had two friendlies before the start of the regular season, the first of which was against Leicester City’s U21 team. The media believed this to be an easy win for the young academy side and the odds seemed stacked against us due to how new, underdeveloped, and undermanned our squad is. That was until RB Maui McNutter placed in a decisive shot into the bottom left corner of the net. The doubters would call this a fluke goal for our little Irish unit but they would be silenced when NAME Hefferman responded by scoring a goal of his own to put us up 2-0. This was a big boost to the confidence and morale of the squad which was carried into our next and final friendly against Chester which was another victory with us at 2-1.

### Vanarama National

With the season just around the corner and taking a look at our squad we are in desperate need of some options. We have some cash to splash and our first target and signing was Aidy White. With the ability to cover both the left and right fullback positions we gain a versatile substitute that can help us when we need some energy at the back.

We go into our first game against Eastleigh with heads held high. Preseason looked amazing and with if we can harness some of that creativity to start the season off strong. Kick off is a go and Eastleigh are looking dangerous. At just 5 minutes in Eastleigh score a goal against our defense which looks uncharacteristically shaky. New signing Aidy White has caused Maui McNutter to shift to the CB role and he does not look comfortable despite reporting that he could cover this assignment. Two minutes later and disaster strikes as Eastliegh but another goal in past our defense. The day just keeps getting worse as we continue to miss opportunities while Eastleigh capitalizes two more times on our defense not being able to cope with their offensive capability.

Our next game coming up is against Scunthorpe and after a week of training the boys are raring to go as we play our first home fixture.

The second half starts off with a bang as Obi Olewale slots one past the keeper with an impressive daniel larusso impression  before Our Goldies strike again with the young Keena finding the back of the net and proving that short kings can still dominate in the air. 7 minutes later and the young Irishman found the back of the net again with a beautiful run past the back line. Then to round out the scoring for the evening Alex O’sullivan cuts in from the wing to receive a beautiful pass from Hikari Elisara to put the final nail in Scunthorpe’s coffin.

This Home Victory led to a series of good form and an unbeaten run with Keena continuing his scoring streak. September starts with a bang as The Goldies bulldoze their way past Halifax and Solihull. The past weeks had built our confidence and we went into the game against league leaders Notts County with the belief that we were the better team. The fans filled Raw Dawg Park and kick off began. Nearly through the first half when disaster strikes and Rueben Rodrigues starts a well timed give and go that sees the Magpies go up 1-0. 7 minutes later and Macaluay Langstaff scores a second goal that would see our team completely deflate. This defeat led to the team coming together and making a vow to remain focused, all under the lead of Patrick Finn. Finn had been struggling with a battle of his own. His goals were few and far between because as much as he loved the ability to play the game he loved, his legs just wouldn't carry him the way they used to. Tackles hurt harder, wear and tear lasted longer, and he couldn't shake the impending feeling that his boots would soon be hung up for good.

But as any captain would, Finn put his concerns to the side and rallied the boys up which led to massive results against Torquay, Wokin, And Dag and Red where even the captain himself found the back of the net. The stage was set for the first ever derby match with Wrexham which the fans dubbed The Invader Derby because of our two clubs and their foreign roots.

The new rivalry is immediately set ablaze when a crunching tackle from Heffernan sends Arsenal loanee Jack Henry Francis off the field on a stretcher. Heffernan is not punished for the tackle and in fact goes on to pile the misery on for Wrexham with two goals in 8 minutes. We tie off the game by answering Wrexham's only goal with a third of our own to close out the first ever Invader Derby.

 With an Irish front three of Alex O'Sullivan, Will Teehan and the Spearhead in Dane Keena, The Goldies started to let the league know who they were.  Dane Keena had made a statement with multiple matches in which he scored multiple goals, lighting the league on fire at just 16 years of age. The English papers called him a flash in the pan, the Irish called him the Slayer of the English. As his head coach, I say that he has that special something. He might appear just above average on paper, but Keena’s ability to be in the right place at the right time has made him into a breaker of back lines and a scoring threat.

Going into the January transfer window we were shining bright, some bruises no doubt, but we were miles ahead of where the press believed we would be. And then, we lost midfield star Conor Heffernan. Peterborough put a bid in and Conor would not stay with us. He departed, leaving a massive hole in our midfield. Heffernan had been integral in both sides of the ball, often putting his body on the line and making key passes that led to goals. With only a few days left in the transfer window we make the move to Barnet’s Loan Flannagan to our side via loan to take the place of the enforcer we lost in Heffernan. Kian would struggle to find his footing in the early days of his loan move, but through the belief in him placed by our staff he is able to get an impressive 19 goal involvements and 5 man of the matches during his loan stint. Other January signings Jordan Bowery and rival Wrexham’s  Reece Hall-Johnson helped solidify the striker and right back positions respectively.

January starts rough with a heavy 0-4 defeat at Yeovil’s hands and a close 3-4 loss to Halifax. We also faced a humiliating second Derby with Wrexham as we were defeated 0-4 Left Back Maui Mcnutter had been a surefire starter for us all season, but the American Samoan international looked shaky and lost possession constantly. After giving him a harsh pep talk after his third bad game, Maui was called up for the American Samoan international team. In his absence the 42 year old Patrick Smith took his place and solidified our defense. Once again we stopped leaking goals and as such, Maui was benched in March. This led to a huge locker room fight in which Patrick Smith headbutted the young left back in the face. Patrick Smith was reprimanded with a 3 match suspension enforced by our staff. He lashed out and attempted to force a transfer move which was denied. The issues with Smith would continue as he hurled abuse at teammates and staff alike, with head coach Dillit Plooperson finally stepping in and pulling Smith into a meeting. Smith reportedly trashed Plooperson’s office and threatened the head coach. Plooperson’s response was swift and humbling. Smith, who was once shown interest from Bolton, Wigan, and even Stoke City was now wasting away in the U18 team where he was given no minutes and many of his teammates refused to speak with him. Smith retired two weeks later and returned to Australia.

In Smith’s absence, McNutter was given an opportunity once more, and the young left back showed that he took his benching seriously. McNutter became a stalwart defender, even offering to cover in the Center Back position where he and team star Rudy McRooderson became a brick wall pairing.

The Goldies ended the regular season in 2nd place, which allowed them to play in the playoff for the last promotion spot to Football League 2 alongside league champs Notts County. Who else to be in our way other than Wrexham AFC. One win to our name, one win to theirs. The winner moves on to the final. The Drama was real, the blood was boiling, and the stage was set.

We dominated possession of the ball, but our shots just were not landing. The first half ends and all is level. A quick half time talk to encourage the players and it must have worked. The Goldies looked far more aggressive in the second half. The light finally shone through when Ryan Packcomics sent a beautiful ball to Kian Flannagan who hit the post before rebounding and sending the ball into the back of the net. We are moving to the final!

The final versus Bromely is our opportunity to make good on the upsets we had handed to the press. A win here would send us into League 2, and the tension was in the air. Two days before the game, Patrick Finn enters Dillit Plooperson’s office and announces his retirement. When Dillit attempted to talk it out with him, Patrick said that through mentoring the young Keena and watching the boy score more than 30 goals this season, he felt like it was time to leave the ball to the next generation. Marigold United offered Patrick Finn the job of a scout, as he was eager to continue supporting the club in finding new players that inspired the future of the game. Finn then entered the locker room and handed his armband to Kibit Broggan, the young starting goalkeeper who had become a leader of the defense. He then made a thank you speech to his teammates where he said “Thank you for giving me the chance to lead us boyos, it was a fun time.”

The team rallied around the retirement of their capitan and went into the final with Bromely with extra fire in their eyes. The drama starts early after a penalty is awarded to The Goldies. Will Teehan easily finds the back of the net and puts us up 1-0. The game is close, with Bromely making a barrage of attempts on goal. Newly captained Kibit who the fans nickname Cabbage, makes it look easy as he denies their attempts on goal. The winning goal comes in the 50 minute when Maui Mcnutter makes a beautiful pass to Dan Kenna who slots in his 36th goal of the season to put us ahead. The final whistle blows, and Marigold United have made it to The Football League.

Shortly after the season, Ryan PackComics announces his retirement and becomes Marigold’s assistant coach, Championship clubs eye Rudy McRooderson Japanese international Hikari Elisara returns to Japan, and Marigold brings in a host of Premier League academy rejects. But for all of those stories, you will have to wait until next season.

 2. Packcomics 4. Smith 5. McRooderson.png 9. O'Sullivan 11. Hikari 13. Obi 14. Heffernan 16. Dunne 17. White 19. Ashe (c) 22. Murphy 23. Teehan 24. Keena 33. Finn 39. McNutter 79. Brogaan
Manager Dillit Plooperson