I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with the Scottish Highlands — maybe it’s the endless hills, the sense of isolation, or perhaps it’s just the sheer madness of running a football club hundreds of miles from anywhere. Those long journeys to away games, the hardy handful of fans who make the trip, and the eternal optimism of men in woolly hats watching a team that’s probably just drawn 0–0 again… there’s something beautifully tragic about it.

NEW from @NTR9798: After much success with his Portuguese Wolves, Nick is back to resurrect an old favourite thanks to Andrew, but where is he headed next?

Welcome back everyone. We’re taking a break from the action of the blog league to take a look at what tactics are being employed by each of the teams and have a closer look at some of the key performers in each team. AIK – Matt Matt has probably pulled a decent side from the hat, but not a lot of depth on the face of what we have seen so far.

Hello and greetings from Germany. After my Leeds adventure I’ve now turned my attention to my Blog Squad Secret Santa shirt, where the excellent Mr Ross Bell sent me a FC Koln away shirt. I mean, isn’t that amazing. Reminds me of Cameroon for some reason, but anyway, FC Koln – or simply Cologne as they are known in the game, didn’t have the best of seasons in 1997/98.

Hello everybody, it's Dave here just borrowing Dean's post. Today marks 28 years since the release of CM9798, no doubt a day you all have circled on the calendar. We have of course celebrated this game every year for at least the last 10, who knows how many more I've lost track of when we started this. What I do know though is that I have a great set of writers here who started out as fellow nerds I know on the internet to being good friends who I'm lucky to have stumbled across one day.

Bonjola and welcome back to Gijon for one final episode. We're going to finish season 8 today and then put this save in the freezer. I've enjoyed it very much but it has ran it's course, especially if we achieve our aims today. As a reminder, that is for Gijon to win the Champions League and the B Team (henceforth, The Bees) to win the Cup Winners Cup.

Bonjola and welcome back to Gijon for the 22nd and likely penultimate time. Season 8 is upon us and it will be a season like no other. Why you ask? Well, Gijon have won the league several times now and retained the Champions League, so that's less important. The B Team won the Copa del Rey, which means they're in the Cup Winners Cup.

Bonjola and welcome to February 2004. Sporting Gijon have been reeling Real Madrid in, and the once 10 point gap is down to 4. More importantly, the dream of the Bees winning the Copa Del Rey is alive and well, can they make it happen and take us one season closer to world domination?

Bonjola! Welcome back to Gijon, where Real Madrid have awoken and once again we have our work cut out to retain our La Liga crown. In this episode we'll also have our first attempts at winning the World Club Cup and the European Super Cup, and if that doesn't get your pulse racing then we'll continue our mission to get the B Team into Europe and complete world domination.

Bonjola and welcome back to Gijon for season 7. Sporting Gijon are now the European Champions, a surprisingly one sided final against Juventus securing our place in history. Our La Liga title defence was somewhat more problematic but we got away with it really, losing 8 games on the way to a narrow success. Now we need to get the B Team good enough to win the Copa del Rey.

Bonjola! Welcome back to Gijon, where the once worst team in La Liga history are now relative giants. The current La Liga champions are being made to work hard in their attempts to retain the title alongside trying to win the Champions League for the first time. Let's get to it as we reach the finale of season 6.

Bonjola! Here we go again then, Gijon looking to retain their La Liga crown whilst competing in the Champions League and to a much lesser extent, the Copa del Rey. Here's where we pick up:

Bonjola! Six weeks have come and gone and it's time to get back to civilisation. I haven't even loaded the game since we last spoke, but I have seen two kids through the summer holidays, which summarises how my life has changed over the past 10 years since starting this blog. Anyway, this save. Sporting Gijon were rubbish in 1997 but 5 seasons later we are champions of Spain.

Guten Bonjola and welcome back to Spain for the final update of season 5, and in fact our final for a few weeks. Father duties are calling and I don't have the time or energy to play 3 or 4 nights a week at the moment. See you in September. Meanwhile, Gijon are top of the pile with a 5 point lead, with Barcelona lurking with a game in hand.

Guten bonjola and welcome back to the always-a-little-too-long middle section of the season. It is season 5 here in Gijon, Spain, and we're playing Champions League football for the first time. Can we capitalise on a decent start? Our one blot came against Atletico, with Real fading away a little. Let's football.

Bonjola once more and welcome back to Gijon for a new season. Season 5 promises much as we take our first steps into Europe's Elite with those famous Champions League nights, provided we can see off hopefully a minnow in the qualifiers. More on that later. A reminder though of how we got here...

Bonjola mes amigos and welcome back to Spain, or Gijon to be more precise. It's part 3 of season 4 which means we've got loads of games to get through. There's a very real possibility of us qualifying for the Champions League and, whisper it quietly, we're only 2 points off the top. Real Madrid's insistence on simply turning up for games and keeping the ball for 90 minutes has proven to be a shoddy experiment.

Bonjola and welcome back to Gijon, where we're just into the last swathes of Autumn in season 4. Or, late October, if you're not bound by the four seasons. The Summer rebuild didn't really materialise, mainly because all of those players who wanted out and were running out of contract were all mouth and no trousers. They stayed, we topped up with some regens and we prepared to go again.

Guten Bonjola and welcome back to Gijon, where the third season didn't really see the progress we craved. 5th place is fine, it's a bit like when Stu's father-in-law to be is describing him in the Hangover and basically says he's a crap type of rice. 5th, UEFA Cup runners up and another crack at the same trophy is all fine, but we're 30 points off the big two.

Welcome to the final episode of this series, the Turf Roar boys are still fighting on three fronts, we lead the Premier League by seven points and are still in both the FA Cup and Champions League. Our first match of the episode sees us travel to London to face Crystal Palace. They have his royal highness Edwin Turkington in goal.

Guten Bonjola and welcome back to Gijon, where we are still in two cups and occupy the all important "best of the rest" spot in the table. It's the run in, which is a hefty 17 league games plus however far we get in the cups, so let's get to it.

Bom Dia! and welcome to the final episode with Nick and his Portuguese Wolves, who are struggling in the league, but can still win the League Cup and Champions League for a second time. Will they end this story in style? For the last time, here’s Nick… You wouldn’t believe we started the season brilliantly and were 2nd after 12 games, but things have gone horribly wrong since.

During the first third of my final season with the Clarets we had made a positive start on all fronts. We were top of the league with 28 points from a possible 36 and joint top of Champions League Group E, with seven points from a possible nine. The first match of episode two is a Clarets Clash, in the League Cup 3rd round.

Hallo, hej, hello! Welcome back. Last time out Zak and his Malmo side had managed to break into the top 2 positions. Which has been quite the shock given Malmo were probably not one of the pre-draw favourites. But they have proved reliable and consistent so far. First up, thankfully, it’s the league.