The unorthodox approach of King Leonidas wasn’t for everyone, but it had certainly endeared The Spartans FC to the Scottish football neutrals. Leonidas’ relentless focus on players with high aggression, bravery, composure, concentration, determination, positioning, stamina, strength and work rate in a bid to build a Spartan Army had seen the club rise from League 2 to the Premiership in nine years.
Many commenters and naysayers claimed that “no team had ever been this unprepared for life in the top tier.” But Leonidas had an unabating belief in the ability, commitment and spirit of his Spartan warriors to make the critics eat their words.
The promotion forced the Spartans board to turn the club professional, which initially plunged them £500k in the red. But that gradually improved over the summer and a new record sale of £205k as Kenny Wilson joined Falkirk took them back into the black. The professional shift also saw Leonidas’ coaching and scouting teams double while he was allowed new luxuries like a set piece coach, a head performance analyst, a sports science team and reserves and U18s staff.
A major rebuild began by releasing 12 players who weren’t good enough, including striker Aaron Reid, who’d scored 112 goals in 5 seasons at the club, and record appearances holder Gramae McGinley. Up until this point, Leonidas had only spent £5k on players. But that changed as he paid Dundee United a record £50k for striker Kieran Carmichael and £17.5k for midfielder Dean Souttar, who he’d been tracking for a few years. He took an uncharacteristic gamble on a bit of Spanish flair by signing winger Fernando Aguado, who was joined by more freebies in left-footed centre back Kevin Bradley, wingers MacKenzie Bonnar and Ruari Forshaw, who was going to retrain as a left back, and midfielder Tim McGeouch. And Leonidas continued his approach of bringing back former academy prospects as model citizen striker Stevie McGowan returned 5 years after joining Aberdeen for £150k.
Leonidas decided to stick to his guns and retain the 4-4-2 approach that fired them to success last season. Although he might not take a positive mentality every week.
Stepping Up To The Impossible
It was safe to say the bookies didn’t think Spartans had any chance of staying up, giving them 700/1 title odds compared to the next longest of Motherwell and Dundee at 50/1. Celtic have won the last 3 titles and them and Rangers have still won every title since Aberdeen in 1985. Celtic are favourites at 4/9 followed by Rangers (6/1), Hearts (14/1) and St. Mirren and Hibernian (33/1). Spartans also have by far the smallest stadium in the league with the 3,500-capacity Ainslie Park Stadium dwarfed even by the next-smallest St. Mirren’s 10,000-capacity ground.
Spartans faced a massive test in their first-ever Premiership match as they welcomed holders Celtic to Ainslie Park Stadium. The opening clash saw them go up against true world-class footballers for the first time, with Celtic’s side containing Darwin Nuñez, Brahim Diaz and Gabriel Moscardo with Charles De Ketelaere on the bench. The visitors started brightly, forcing Mason Munn into 2 good saves in the first 6 minutes and took the lead with a ludicrous penalty decision. But Spartans hung in there and should have levelled as Carmichael missed a one-on-one. Celtic had the better game and eventually got another but Leonidas was more than happy with his team’s efforts.
Their first away day in the Premiership took them to Airdrieonians. They got a dream start as McGowan tucked home a penalty inside 3 minutes, Munn then saved a penalty and they looked to be hanging on until the hosts struck in the 86th minute. However, this Spartans team doesn’t give up. Deep into injury time, striker Morty Tuppen played a delicious ball around the corner for Aguado to slam home his first goal for the club and nick their first Premiership points.
A first home point followed as Tuppen earned a 1-1 with Dundee but they lost 2-0 at Motherwell, nicked a 1-1 at home to Hearts then only lost 1-0 at Rangers. And a special moment for McGowan saw him score 10 minutes into the home game against his former club Aberdeen then Spartans held on for a crucial 1-0 victory.
That proved the high point in a tricky start as they lost 3-1 at St. Mirren and 3-0 at home to Ross County before McGowan nicked a point at St. Johnstone and a 3-1 defeat at Hibernian dropped them into the bottom 2. And things began to look really bleak as they suffered a club record 7-0 home humiliation by 9th-place Airdrieonians then went to Celtic Park and got battered 7-1.
Those heavy defeats plunged Spartans to the bottom of the table for the first time, making a trip to 11th-place Dundee massive. And their massive lack of quality compared to the rest of the league showed as Dundee bossed the game with 16 shots to 8 and eased to a 3-1 win. Leonidas tried to take a more pragmatic approach but that didn’t work either as they got thumped 4-1 at home by Motherwell.
He was resigned to the fact that Spartans were doomed to relegation, so reverted to the 4-4-2 and they got pumped 4-0 at Hearts to set new club records of 6 successive defeats and 9 games without a win. Both those records extended at home to Rangers, in which they performed much better but the visitors broke their hearts to nick a 2-1 win late on. That teed up a huge game in mid-December as Spartans visited 11th-place Aberdeen – lose this, and they were effectively already relegated. And they did, and they were, as Aberdeen strolled to a 4-0 victory.
Doomed To Relegation
The Aberdeen defeat left Spartans 8 points adrift of safety after 18 games, having conceded 49 goals. That left them facing record low points (19, Dundee United, 2031/32) and goals conceded (81, Queen’s Park, 2030/31) tallies during this save. The only good news was that the Premiership’s all-time records of fewest points (4, Dundee, 1898/99) and most goals (137, Leith, 1931/32) had already been surpassed and looked well out of reach.
Spartans finally snapped their dreadful run as winger Kyule Orru’s first 2 goals of the season led a 3-1 win over St. Mirren, which slashed their deficit to 5 points. But they were back to familiar ways with consecutive 4-2 losses at Ross County and at home to St. Johnstone then a 3-0 defeat at home to Hibernian on Boxing Day. And all of a sudden, they were 8 points from safety going into 2033.
Leonidas made moves to strengthen the side in January, bringing in striker Ryan Kennedy on a free from Linfield and two loanee full backs Fin Ironside from Aberdeen and Moses Hyde from Motherwell.
However, any optimism from those signings was immediately broken by Spartans entertaining 11th-place Dundee and losing 1-0, which left them 14 points from safety. And they didn’t muster any sort of a challenge, going on to break the club record for consecutive defeats again as well as a new club record of 6 games without scoring.
That saw the Spartans board lose a little patience with Leonidas, call him in for a meeting, and eventually agree to discard this season and look ahead to returning to the Premiership next season. But a 4-0 defeat at St. Johnstone saw Spartans set a new Premiership record of 12 consecutive defeats, and the board forgot all about their previous promise. This time, there was no winning chairman Corey Woolfolk over as he seemingly had his mind set on sacking Leonidas. And on 2 April 2033, Spartans sacked King Leonidas.
Woolfolk had proven himself an absolute buffon, who was nothing other than spiteful and bitter for sacking the man who had transformed The Spartans FC. But the Spartans adventure was officially over.
Spartans sacked King Leonidas after 3,561 days and 458 games in charge. He departed with a 44% win ratio, winning 205, drawing 90 and losing 163 of his matches, scoring 790 goals and conceding 751. He led Spartans to 4 promotions and 1 relegation, with another relegation pending in 2033.
Spartans only managed to get 2 more points after sacking Leonidas, which meant they failed to win any of their final 19 league games of the season.
Leonidas couldn’t help but feel his players had let him down, given Morty Tuppen led the way with goals followed by McGowan (6) and Carmichael (5), while no player got more than 4 assists.
That brings this Spartans save to a rather premature end, but it’s certainly been fun leading the club out of League 2 up to the top of Scottish football. But not to worry, we’ll have a brand new series kicking off this time next week as we launch a new FM Experiment!
Football Manager Addict 
Leave a comment