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Past to Present
A tale of my Football Manager Journey
My name is Dan. I'm a 32 year old football fanatic and Football Manager Devotee. I am not the best story teller, I didn't study journalism and never ever envisage winning a literature based award, however this is the briefly summarised story of my FM journey.
I am not one of these people that have played every version of every year of Football Manager. My playing experiences have been shaped and determined by events that are happening in my real life – or so I believe.
FM isn’t an ‘alternative reality’ for me; it is part of everyday life and somewhere I can go when I am happy and content in reality.
My journey into ‘Football Management’ starts way before Football Manager, or ‘Champ’ Manager as it was
originally…
2 Player Soccer Squad
I was first introduced to a game by an old friend of mine in around 1992/’93 called ‘2 Player Soccer Squad’ for the Commodore 64. A text based game, not using real team names or players but it did have the option of editing data, which meant that most of the time that we had to play on it after school - before I had to go home for my tea - was spent deleting fictional detail and replacing with real life information. I was usually Rotherham and my mate Paul was usually Sheff Wednesday. We used to sit down patiently waiting with our respective football programmes waiting until the other had finished so we could get editing… When we did get around to playing games, it was so addictive. Many a time did I borrow my mates Commodore and sit up until gone past midnight simulating games and editing names to the latest signing that had been made by a specific club at that time.
If you ever get the opportunity to play this game you would probably think that it is a right load of old rubbish, however believe me that back in the day, when you are introduced to something like this and you have somewhat of an addictive personality, this was (to use an old adjective) just like offering cocaine to a cocaine addict! I will always look back with great fondness on this game.
Now, as I sit here writing this, reminiscing and thinking about playing 2 Player Soccer Squad, it dawns on me that this game wasn’t actually my first flurry into Football Management…
The first game I ever played was a PBM (Play By Mail) called Apex Games PBM, or something of that nature. This game is the catalyst for my football management addiction! I can’t remember which magazine this would have been advertised in, although most definitely either Shoot or Match... or both. It was a game based on the premise where by you paid £1.50 every two weeks in exchange for the company in question ‘simulating’ a match against someone else in the country/world, inputting your transfer activity and updating the league standings over a season.
Apex Games PBM or whatever (as I shall now and forever call it) involved you making up your team name, your players name, your stadium name and then playing out a season against others. One memory I do have is writing a letter to someone in somewhere like Kettering, and asking for a friendly, to be played at my stadium – The Yorkshire Terrier (The name of the local pub). I received a letter back a few weeks later accepting the challenge – the game was played something like a month after the request (what I wouldn't have given for email back then)… Can’t remember the score I just remember the different coloured paper the text came back on. Yellow was for squad information, pink for league tables etc. This was the first taste I had of sleepless nights before the post was due that contained by game worlds ‘pack’, this (as above) was the catalyst for my ‘addition’ or ‘obsession’ and this one of the reasons why today I play Football Manager
The world of Play by Mail
After my experiences of both an original PBM (or original to me anyway) and a computer based Football Management game, I took about a year or two out, substituting what would be my addiction/obsession while I went through puberty. A roller-coaster of being unpopular and popular, having girlfriends, playing actual real football (and sometimes cricket and golf), putting up with parents’ divorce, moving house etc etc etc got in the way until I met a couple of friends who introduced me back into the world of PBM…
Pure Fantasy Football - www.purefantasyfootball.com/ based out of Chesterfield is still going strong. You can play on line these days but back then it was all Royal Mail based. Same idea as APEX but with a couple of fundamental differences… Real team’s and real players….!
I believe the first team I ever managed was in a separate world to my two friends. Real Sociedad was the club I had been assigned in my starter pack. The starter pack included the things you would expect, squad details, match reports etc, however this game produced other managers contact details - including phone numbers. I will always remember the first time another manager rang me: “is that Danny”… “Yep” I replied in my newly broken voice… “My name is Scott and I manage Southend United.. “F off Bucky ( I thought it was one of my friends ringing)”, after which point I slammed the phone down. Two minutes later the phone rang again, as to which the lad on the other end (Southend United manager) began to explain and all became apparent. Can’t remember anything about the transfers that we did or anything else about the phone call however I will never forget that story.
After a while I moved over into my friends worlds, managing teams such as Bury and Middlesbrough and spent a few summers enjoying the ups and downs of the virtual football management experience and the ‘banter’ it created with old and new friends, before defecting and trying out games such as KJC Games Extra Time - (both the manager and Chairman versions) - www.kjcgames.com/extra/etf.htm and more recently IOTP (In off The Post) -http://www.iotp.net/
PBM based games will always hold a heavy place in my heart but as time goes on you find new challenges, interests and in my case a whole new f’in experience in Football Management….. Enter Championship Manager!!
Championship Manager
Now, I cannot remember the name of the first ever one I played. My step dad bought it me from HMV. It didn’t come in a box, but in a fold out little cardboard sleeve. You could only be Spanish, Italian and another nation teams - not English anyway. It may well have been some version of CM2, although a few weeks later I was ‘round at Buckys house and in walked his mum (RIP) with CM ‘97/’98. You may has well have written off the next 3 months of our lives.
I remember being Man Utd and him Liverpool. Signing players such as Ibrahima Bakayoko, Wilson Oruma, Marc Emmers (Free Transfer) and Viktor Onopko amongst others. I won everything, including the World Cup 3-0 with Germany.
One day, my mate brought the game around to my house. We played a few hours before he had to go home. I was gutted; as I didn’t have the game I had to go back to whatever it was that I had that my step dad had bought me from HMV, until… I closed my eyes and prayed, clicking on the start-up button in the hope it would load without the disk…. It did! That, quiet simply is one of the happiest moments of my life. Jumping up and down and dialling my mate’s phone number as quickly as I could to tell him that I too now had this game AND I hadn’t had to pay for it…. I think we saw less and less of each other that summer…!
After this my Champ Man history is a little sketchy. I was reunited with my estranged dad who was more into fishing than football. This really wasn't a very happy time for me and my love for the game (not football as it has always been prevalent and will always be one of my main passions in life), the love for these games dwindled into non-existence …. Then, a few years later, when I was at one of the happiest times in my life again - because I was getting regular sex and home cooked food - enter FM 2005.
Football Manager
FM 2005 simply put, this is one of THE greatest games EVER made. The detail between this game and those of times past was incredible. You can read other things that will go into what this game is/was like – I don’t need to go into that, however I'm pretty sure this game contributed to me getting less sex, less drunk and going to work… far less then I was doing before it came into my life.
Football Manager becomes part of who you are. The reason you think you know more than real managers. The reason we know more about players before they reach the main leagues of Europe.
It’s the reason why we enjoy the analysis of Gary Neville on a Monday Night and laugh at Andy Townsend. It’s the reason why I listen to Tim Vickery on The World Football Phone In and why I watch highlights of Irish football or a training session that Bayern Munich did 2 months ago.
Today, as I sit here writing this with my dog at my feet and my wife downstairs doing whatever it is she is doing, I am already thinking about getting back to my Juve side on FM15. I don’t know how long I’ll play FM for, probably forever….. However for me Football Manager isn't an alternative reality as the recent documentary suggests, it is part of my reality. I love it!!
Past to Present
A tale of my Football Manager Journey
My name is Dan. I'm a 32 year old football fanatic and Football Manager Devotee. I am not the best story teller, I didn't study journalism and never ever envisage winning a literature based award, however this is the briefly summarised story of my FM journey.
I am not one of these people that have played every version of every year of Football Manager. My playing experiences have been shaped and determined by events that are happening in my real life – or so I believe.
FM isn’t an ‘alternative reality’ for me; it is part of everyday life and somewhere I can go when I am happy and content in reality.
My journey into ‘Football Management’ starts way before Football Manager, or ‘Champ’ Manager as it was
originally…
2 Player Soccer Squad
I was first introduced to a game by an old friend of mine in around 1992/’93 called ‘2 Player Soccer Squad’ for the Commodore 64. A text based game, not using real team names or players but it did have the option of editing data, which meant that most of the time that we had to play on it after school - before I had to go home for my tea - was spent deleting fictional detail and replacing with real life information. I was usually Rotherham and my mate Paul was usually Sheff Wednesday. We used to sit down patiently waiting with our respective football programmes waiting until the other had finished so we could get editing… When we did get around to playing games, it was so addictive. Many a time did I borrow my mates Commodore and sit up until gone past midnight simulating games and editing names to the latest signing that had been made by a specific club at that time.
If you ever get the opportunity to play this game you would probably think that it is a right load of old rubbish, however believe me that back in the day, when you are introduced to something like this and you have somewhat of an addictive personality, this was (to use an old adjective) just like offering cocaine to a cocaine addict! I will always look back with great fondness on this game.
Now, as I sit here writing this, reminiscing and thinking about playing 2 Player Soccer Squad, it dawns on me that this game wasn’t actually my first flurry into Football Management…
The first game I ever played was a PBM (Play By Mail) called Apex Games PBM, or something of that nature. This game is the catalyst for my football management addiction! I can’t remember which magazine this would have been advertised in, although most definitely either Shoot or Match... or both. It was a game based on the premise where by you paid £1.50 every two weeks in exchange for the company in question ‘simulating’ a match against someone else in the country/world, inputting your transfer activity and updating the league standings over a season.
Apex Games PBM or whatever (as I shall now and forever call it) involved you making up your team name, your players name, your stadium name and then playing out a season against others. One memory I do have is writing a letter to someone in somewhere like Kettering, and asking for a friendly, to be played at my stadium – The Yorkshire Terrier (The name of the local pub). I received a letter back a few weeks later accepting the challenge – the game was played something like a month after the request (what I wouldn't have given for email back then)… Can’t remember the score I just remember the different coloured paper the text came back on. Yellow was for squad information, pink for league tables etc. This was the first taste I had of sleepless nights before the post was due that contained by game worlds ‘pack’, this (as above) was the catalyst for my ‘addition’ or ‘obsession’ and this one of the reasons why today I play Football Manager
The world of Play by Mail
After my experiences of both an original PBM (or original to me anyway) and a computer based Football Management game, I took about a year or two out, substituting what would be my addiction/obsession while I went through puberty. A roller-coaster of being unpopular and popular, having girlfriends, playing actual real football (and sometimes cricket and golf), putting up with parents’ divorce, moving house etc etc etc got in the way until I met a couple of friends who introduced me back into the world of PBM…
Pure Fantasy Football - www.purefantasyfootball.com/ based out of Chesterfield is still going strong. You can play on line these days but back then it was all Royal Mail based. Same idea as APEX but with a couple of fundamental differences… Real team’s and real players….!
I believe the first team I ever managed was in a separate world to my two friends. Real Sociedad was the club I had been assigned in my starter pack. The starter pack included the things you would expect, squad details, match reports etc, however this game produced other managers contact details - including phone numbers. I will always remember the first time another manager rang me: “is that Danny”… “Yep” I replied in my newly broken voice… “My name is Scott and I manage Southend United.. “F off Bucky ( I thought it was one of my friends ringing)”, after which point I slammed the phone down. Two minutes later the phone rang again, as to which the lad on the other end (Southend United manager) began to explain and all became apparent. Can’t remember anything about the transfers that we did or anything else about the phone call however I will never forget that story.
After a while I moved over into my friends worlds, managing teams such as Bury and Middlesbrough and spent a few summers enjoying the ups and downs of the virtual football management experience and the ‘banter’ it created with old and new friends, before defecting and trying out games such as KJC Games Extra Time - (both the manager and Chairman versions) - www.kjcgames.com/extra/etf.htm and more recently IOTP (In off The Post) -http://www.iotp.net/
PBM based games will always hold a heavy place in my heart but as time goes on you find new challenges, interests and in my case a whole new f’in experience in Football Management….. Enter Championship Manager!!
Championship Manager
Now, I cannot remember the name of the first ever one I played. My step dad bought it me from HMV. It didn’t come in a box, but in a fold out little cardboard sleeve. You could only be Spanish, Italian and another nation teams - not English anyway. It may well have been some version of CM2, although a few weeks later I was ‘round at Buckys house and in walked his mum (RIP) with CM ‘97/’98. You may has well have written off the next 3 months of our lives.
I remember being Man Utd and him Liverpool. Signing players such as Ibrahima Bakayoko, Wilson Oruma, Marc Emmers (Free Transfer) and Viktor Onopko amongst others. I won everything, including the World Cup 3-0 with Germany.
One day, my mate brought the game around to my house. We played a few hours before he had to go home. I was gutted; as I didn’t have the game I had to go back to whatever it was that I had that my step dad had bought me from HMV, until… I closed my eyes and prayed, clicking on the start-up button in the hope it would load without the disk…. It did! That, quiet simply is one of the happiest moments of my life. Jumping up and down and dialling my mate’s phone number as quickly as I could to tell him that I too now had this game AND I hadn’t had to pay for it…. I think we saw less and less of each other that summer…!
After this my Champ Man history is a little sketchy. I was reunited with my estranged dad who was more into fishing than football. This really wasn't a very happy time for me and my love for the game (not football as it has always been prevalent and will always be one of my main passions in life), the love for these games dwindled into non-existence …. Then, a few years later, when I was at one of the happiest times in my life again - because I was getting regular sex and home cooked food - enter FM 2005.
Football Manager
FM 2005 simply put, this is one of THE greatest games EVER made. The detail between this game and those of times past was incredible. You can read other things that will go into what this game is/was like – I don’t need to go into that, however I'm pretty sure this game contributed to me getting less sex, less drunk and going to work… far less then I was doing before it came into my life.
Football Manager becomes part of who you are. The reason you think you know more than real managers. The reason we know more about players before they reach the main leagues of Europe.
It’s the reason why we enjoy the analysis of Gary Neville on a Monday Night and laugh at Andy Townsend. It’s the reason why I listen to Tim Vickery on The World Football Phone In and why I watch highlights of Irish football or a training session that Bayern Munich did 2 months ago.
Today, as I sit here writing this with my dog at my feet and my wife downstairs doing whatever it is she is doing, I am already thinking about getting back to my Juve side on FM15. I don’t know how long I’ll play FM for, probably forever….. However for me Football Manager isn't an alternative reality as the recent documentary suggests, it is part of my reality. I love it!!
