McDonald SC

McDonald Sports Club, commonly known as McDonald SC, is a venerable community sports club from the city of Saurin in northern Candelaria. Throughout most of its history the club was synonymous with the professional football team of the same name, which played in the CMSC, though following the collapse of Candelariasian football it has since returned to its amateur focus.

During the six seasons spent in the CMSC1 during the ‘International Era’, the Flying Fish carved out an unwanted reputation as one of country’s less engaging sides thanks to their style of play, disquieting heritage and dispiriting grey kits, though they justly earned plaudits for a string of four solid mid-table finishes despite a lack of significant funds during the league’s closing years, under long-serving manager Mike Alvintzi.

Early history
The club was formed on McDonald Road in the small northern Candelarian city of Saurin in 1927, by the amalgamation of three local youth clubs under the stewardship of the Saurin Temperance Club, an entity with strong links to the Candelarian Union of Fascists. Such associations had long since vanished before the close of the Second World War, but McDonald SC are to this day mocked by opposition supporters with Nazi salutes and ‘humorous’ songs – a habit long encouraged by fans of McDonald’s direct rivals at the various clubs directly preceding the modern, semi-professional, Saurin I.A., which were originally formed by the rival, left-leaning, Saurin Temperance Society.

The football team rapidly became the centre-point of the club, and were soon among the dominant forces of the Northern Amateur League but, away from the north-east, this part of the country was hardly a hotbed of the sport and there was seldom any serious discussion of embracing professionalism – indeed, many football players continued to represent McDonald SC in rugby, cricket and various athletics events for some years, and charity matches involving modern players remain a notable part of club life despite the risk of injury.

Finally, in the early 1960s, the club applied to entry into the NFBL and rapidly became a true success story, with legendary manager John Elder taking this unfashionable side and its bog of a pitch into the first division. In the 1969 season they finished fourth – by now bedecked in garish colours, wall-to-wall sponsorship and cheerleaders, but still bucking the league’s general trend by playing attractive football without massive funding, and with a small but genuinely partisan crowd.

Into the CMSC1
They were as a result able to survive the financial meltdowns affecting so many other professional sides in the post-NFBL era, but opted to return to their amateur roots none the less, not becoming a fully professional side again until CMSC XIII, having worked their way once more through the cat’s cradle of regional and lower divisions and into the second tier. This proved to be their natural position, with the Dons the very epitome of mid-table mediocrity until the arrival of young coach Mike Alvintzi in XXV. Bringing through local youth – something that many former McDonald managers had neglected in favour of recycling top-flight rejects – and fostering a larger fanbase by embracing the growing university population of Saurin; Alvintzi steadily developed the club – and took advantage of the CMSC1’s move from a sixteen to an eighteen-team division to gain a first promotion in the modern era.

Their initial CMSC1 tenure was brief, picking up a relatively high tally of forty points but still relegated by goal difference on the final day. This period did see forward Richard Arnold become the first McDonald player to play in C&M colours, at the Di Bradini Cup, prior to his move to Yafor 2, but XXIX seemed set to be a brief aberration in their history of lower league football – until, in XXII and with Alvintzi still at the helm, a truly venerable side of mostly over-thirties stunned the CMSC2 by winning the division at a canter and returning to the top-flight.

The club also became known internationally for their SBCC performances, making the last sixteen in SBBC3 and semi-finals of SBCC4, where they were defeated by Gamboa FC. The Flying Fish’s ground was one of the smallest in the Candelariasian top-flight, but remained a vast improvement on their previous homes. It also hosted CMSC1 football during XXI, with KT Hotspur playing home matches there during the second half of the season.

No-one knows why they’re nicknamed the Flying Fish, incidentally. It’s not a problem that exercises anyone especially.

Once more however, their top-flight stay was brief – McDonald winning just six games and being relegated bottom of the table with twenty-two points. Despite this, Alvintzi signed a new, long-term contract days after their final defeat, with the board seemingly accepting the club’s immediate future as one of constant yo-yoing between the top two divisions.

Alvintzi’s final years
Back in the CMSC2, the Dons reached the semi-finals at both SBCC7 and SBCC8 – a record that, at one point, saw the club ranked as high as thirty-fourth in the world, and fourth overall among Candelariasian clubs, prior to the removal of the SBCC from consideration in regards to the TQCC coefficients.

XXXV saw the club confirm a third tilt at the CMSC1 – still under Alvintzi and hanging on to a number of former top-flight performers, as well as a group of talented youngsters. Teenage striker Ryan Sheppard would prove the star of their campaign, along with former C&M under-21 player Luke Williams out wide, and helped the Dons finish third in the division for the sixth time in ten seasons – and, on this occasion, the club was able to translate that position into a play-off victory on penalties over Riverton Olympic.

Once more, few experts were prepared to predict McDonald’s top-flight survival, despite a trio of new signings from Jesselton and the undoubted ability of striker Sheppard, among others. Though the Dons looked a better outfit than on previous CMSC1 excursions however, they sat consistently in the bottom three throughout the Apertura.

As anticipated, their slim hopes would rely on Sheppard and his pacey strike partner Nashroy Andryan. As their connection developed, backed by quality deliveries from Luke Williams and Siraj Munir from the flanks, McDonald’s defensive frailties became increasingly less important and the team found themselves in the unaccustomed position as the neutral’s choice for a highly entertaining – and, as the Clausura went on, increasingly effective – brand of football. The team would ultimately stun even themselves – and Alvintzi – by finishing six points clear of the drop in twelfth, with Sheppard’s big-money departure confirmed soon after.

Chris McGovern took the considerable risk of investing this money in players, bringing youngster Ruben García into the midfield and signing two players from Albrecht FC – left-back Sam Doswell and, in a particularly noteworthy coup, veteran striker Wanderley. A second twelfth-place finish would ultimately follow, leaving the Dons increasingly an advert for mid-table stability and putting Alvintzi in the frame for a big move elsewhere.

Changes ahead of XXXVIII saw the late loss of left-back Sam Doswell to newly minted Ironside-Talinger but the addition of an experienced new right side in the form of former C&M international Matthew Logan and the Taeshanese Tyler Kenroe. Alongside the emergence of dynamic teenager Daria Lodge, the new arrivals proved sufficient to keep McDonald in their increasingly accustomed mid-table comfort, and a shot at further, this time domestic, cup glory was less expectedly provided by the CMS Cup. It was a battle, away draws at KT Hotspur and El din Marbles convirted into replay victories, before a hugely satisfying 2-1 victory over Ironside despite Sheppard’s late consolation screamer. Weeks after, in Caires, Alvintzi’s men and women achieved a huge shock by coming from behind to beat Albrecht Turkish by the same scoreline; Wanderley rolling back the years both to head in the equaliser and set up the speedy Supporters’ Player of the Season Andryan for a famous winner.

The final itself was an anti-climax, a 4-0 drubbing by a Port of Clotaire side smarting from their narrow loss of the league title, and the match at a half-full Solidarity Stadium would largely be remembered for the circumstances of its hasty rearrangement away from the Tristar Songstress Stadium down the road due to a general strike by, not to put too fine a point on it, the pitch. Those were strange days. Not as strange as most of the subsequent ones, granted. But never the less.

The following season, XXXIX, McDonald flew completely under the radar once more and finished tenth, experienced Sterogan striker Jaival Subudhi proving the difference following his sideways move from rivals Mayo Valley. Their success went almost entirely unremarked upon outside the local media in Saurin, and even there during the final few weeks of the season following the Beatrice event.

Weeks after the close of the season, and the commencement of Candelariasian professional football’s indefinite hiatus, the team’s beloved coach of some twenty-five years, Mike Alvintzi, took his own life. At the time it went broadly unobserved by the wider community, but a memorial shared by the coach and his daughter Lyra Alvintzi, the Olympic 50m swimming specialist, now has pride of place outside the all-purpose sports facility converted from the old Oakley Park Self-Catering Holiday Arena.

Notable CMSC1 International Era players
Goalkeepers
 * Sanizam Andu
 * Martin Petit
 * Vern Touati

Defenders
 * Aaron Davies
 * Tom de Courteney Welch
 * Sam Doswell
 * Ciaran Drakos
 * Terronis Kalatan
 * Caner Karahan
 * Fintan Shannon
 * Matt Thompson
 * Marion White

Midfielders
 * Sascha Connah
 * Dearlove Gantser
 * Rubén García
 * Blagojce Makedonski
 * Siraj Munir
 * William Rose
 * Luke Williams
 * John Yeoman

Forwards
 * Nashroy Andryan
 * Richard Arnold
 * Caio Casagrande
 * Jordan Marshall
 * Ryan Sheppard
 * Flag of Ex-Nation.png Jaival Subudhi
 * Samuka Szatmári
 * Wanderley
 * Pando Wasilew