Kilkenny City: Prepping to restore the Black Cats to League of Ireland status

With 2021 open for business, it’s time to get stuck into Football Manager 2021 beyond the point of research for this time out I’m going back to a save I attempted in FM19, restoring Kilkenny City to League of Ireland status.

I say ‘attempted’ as it lasted all of about eight league games before the computer packed in, everything else took over and Kilkenny were relegated back to the annals of Irish football folklore.

Not any more.

Unfortunately for Cabinteely, they’ll miss out on FM21 as Kilkenny have replaced them in the SSE Airtricity First Division.

Technically, it would have been Sporting Fingal who picked up Kilkenny’s spot in the league back in 2008. They did well in fairness in their three seasons in the League of Ireland – two in the First Division before winning promotion to the Premier League. Hell, they even qualified for the Europa League back in 2010 and 2011 before Ireland’s property collapse ultimately lead to the club’s demise.

Cabinteely would come later, joining the league in 2015 so it’s last in first out to make way for Kilkenny City.

How to swap a club into a league in Football Manager

Getting Kilkenny back in the game is fairly straight forward once you’re confident enough with the Football Manager 2021 database editor.

• Open the editor
• Search by name under Database > Clubs for Kilkenny
• Untick ‘extinct’ from the club’s general settings
• Search by name under Database > Competitions for Irish First Division
• Highlight the team you want to swap out, click swap at the bottom of the screen
• Search for the club you want, select the club, click OK
• Save your database changes

It can be as simple as that.

There’s nothing else I’ve changed about Kilkenny other than the fact I’ve brought the club’s crest in and unveiled some new jerseys for the season ahead.

This coming Friday, we kick things off and make a return to Buckley Park to try and improve the fortunes of a club lost from the League of Ireland since 2008.