Caires City

Caires City Football Club was a professional football club based in the city of Caires, Candelaria And Marquez. The team won two CMSC league titles, the eleventh Globe Cup and a CMS Cup during a remarkable period in Candelariasian football’s ‘International Era’.

The youngest and – by traditional fanbase – smallest of the three professional Caires clubs in the CMSC, Caires City was formed by a union between disenchanted Caires Sports supporters and former fans of the NFBL’s Caires Towers franchise who had yet to move on after that club’s dissolution. Basing themselves in the glitzy Rider Castle district newly vacated by Caires Sports, the new ‘Errant Knights’ were unable to attract significant funding for quite some time, and were widely mocked by Knights and Caires FC supporters. Their route to big time however was comparatively rapid thanks to the management skills of Andy Walker, and in XXI the team was able to leave their primitive temporary digs and move into their brightly-lit new home, the McNeil Bingo Arena (Storie Park), in time for their debut top-flight season. Funding was no longer hard to come by, with numerous bookmakers and other local entertainment outlets jumping on board.

Caires City soon proved an entertaining addition to the first division. In XXIV they were statistically the most defensive side in the league, scoring and conceding fewer than anyone else, and in XXV turned things around completely; sticking half the team up front and duly letting in more at the back than any other side, whilst scoring plenty through veteran C&M international Joel Grillo. A season later, the loss of star winger O’Sullivan Caras to Cafundéu’s Central United effectively sealed their doom, with the club failing to hold on to several other key players to boot. Walker was sacked, and youth team coach Elgin Dannat failed to keep them up.

The Errant Knights returned to the CMSC1 as CMSC2 champions, but Dannat was widely portrayed as an out-of-his-depth, corpulent, joke; and the team were many pundits’ favourites for the drop. Instead, Dannat cobbled together a true band of brothers. Misfit Kura-Pellandi target man Pep McGuire, Caras’ teenage Cafundelense makeweight Dionísio, Blouman full-back Henry Morrison – all joined a host of unloved Candelariasians who provided a major shock by taking the team up to fifth in the league, leapfrogging Caires Sports in the process. Greater things were to follow. In XXIX Dannat’s tactical acumen became clear for all to see, as he brushed aside a series of injuries and unfortunate suspensions and drag remarkable performances from journeyman pros and green teens alike. Albrecht Turkish were unstoppable, but the prowess of Albrecht FC reject Felix Currey in goal and the brilliance of Dionísio – soon to be hurriedly naturalised and spend the rest of his international career in blue and green – coupled with Dannat’s skill from the sidelines led City to second place, and the cash injection of a Champions’ Cup run.

The following season, club President Ivor Fisher backed Dannat to go for broke. Liventia captain Colin Marshall and Zwangzug defender Tara Lenski were eye-catching signings from overseas, but it was the arrival of veteran C&M star Cassa – José Felipe Cassumba Domingos – that was the real stunner. Few believed that he and Dionísio could possibly play together – but they were proven very wrong. The two wizards got on like a house on fire, and powered City to an implausible first title some thirteen points clear of nearest challengers Arrigo Portuguese. Augmented only by home-grown youngsters, it was widely assumed that Dannat couldn’t catch lightning in a bottle for a second – or, arguably, fourth – time in XXXI, and once again those assumptions were made short work of. Instead City completed the domestic double, and not a single fan could begrudge the big man in the dugout from taking up the C&M job thereafter.

New coach Hane Davies was given the nod to invest heavily to replace an ageing side and make his own mark, and City could now boast the captain of Ad’ihan, Anthony Jones, as well as his Liventian counterpart, C&M internationals Caleb Christmas and striker David Spooner – and Lawrence Amey. The tousle-haired midfielder was a hugely controversial signing, coming in from Caires Sports much to the disquiet of both sets of supporters. The Errant Knights remained strong, firmly inside the top four throughout, and the terrifying form of Spooner covered up any cracks in the backline. Going into the final matchday City topped the table, having spurned an opportunity to confirm their third straight title in the previous game. By chance, the final fixture saw them take on the Scorpions away from home and, in a fraught ninety minutes with Albrecht Turkish also competing for the ultimate prize, the destiny of the title changed hands three times before City looked to have rapped things up with a 2-1 victory. Well into extra time however, Christmas was to put through his own goal from a Kim Daeeui shot, allowing Turkish to leapfrog both clubs and claim a shock XXXII title.

In UICA competition, City reached the semi-finals of TQCC9, and lost only once in ninety minutes the following year – an extraordinary 7-0 thrashing by Ad’ihani champions Oldbridge City that set a new group stage record. Domestically, a modest decline followed, Davies’ job apparently saved with victory at Globe Cup 11 – before he was controversially sacked days later. Fans were placated by the arrival in the dugout of their beloved Dionísio, who guided the club back up to third and to the summit of the UICA coefficients.

A series of mid-table finishes followed, but the board’s faith in Dionísio remained undimmed and they would ultimately be rewarded. Gangly teenage striker Quentin Gorrie, brought in from City’s Weegian feeder club Rossiemannock Rose, emerged as an unlikely star in XXXVIII after once much-heralded Candelariasian forward Leo Williams succumbed to yet another injury on the opening weekend, while fellow youngster Harvey Wilkinson emerged as another fan favourite down the left. They finished fourth and, a year later, quietly moved up amongst a host of big-spending fellow north-east Candelarian sides and Albrecht FC to mount a serious title challenge, make the Globe Cup semi-finals, and ultimately finish third, four points off the lead. But with Candelariasian football suddenly all over bar the shouting, City limped on in the Champions Cup’ and even qualified for the knockout rounds – before an 8-2 defeat, 10-6 on aggregate, to Poikimitagiin. It would take nothing away from the Vephrese to acknowledge that the Errant Knights’ hearts weren’t really in it.

The club lived on, after a fashion, in the form of the Navon Knights-Errant, a new feeder team established in the Ad’ihani lower leagues, and which eventually contested the second tier of the Liventian-Ad’ihani Professional Football League. Its intentions were to bring through local and Candelariasian players that could staff a City squad after the return of the CMSC or a successor competition – but such a league had yet to come to pass, and both Errant Knights and Knights-Errant remain footnotes in sporting history.

Well alright, maybe City are a bit more than footnotes. They are to remain forever fourth in the UICA Sosimo Lissón Metric. That’s… got to be good, right? Right?

Notable CMSC1 International Era players
Goalkeepers Defenders
 * Russ Becker
 * Felix Currey
 * Shane Avdeev
 * Shayaz Azam
 * Caleb Christmas
 * Tuomas Hindenberg
 * Massimo Iampietro
 * Walter Jordan
 * Tara Lenski
 * James Masters
 * Henry Morrison
 * Shawn O’Connell
 * Austin Neal
 * George Rosenthal
 * Alex San
 * William Shepherd

Midfielders
 * Agostinho
 * Lawrence Amey
 * O’Sullivan Caras
 * José Felipe Cassumba Domingos
 * Rodrigo Cozzi
 * Michael de Vet
 * Adlai Dobson
 * Dionísio
 * Salvador González
 * Nic Lloyd
 * Anthony Jones
 * Colin Marshall
 * Patrick Zoric
 * Harvey Wilkinson

Forwards
 * Joel Grillo
 * Quentin Gorrie
 * Pep McGuire
 * Luke Lewis
 * David Spooner
 * Samuel Taha
 * Leo Williams