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Football Manager ZX Spectrum





Dr Q

Well-known member
Jul 29, 2004
1,787
Ilkley
Ahh, thems were the days.
Summer holidays spent with an extended game of Football Manager round one of our houses, followed by a real game of footie or tennis in the afternoon. Happy days.

Used to irk me on the goal/goal attempt replays that the goals were about 10x the height of the players.
 


brakespear

Doctor Worm
Feb 24, 2009
12,326
Sleeping on the roof
Can't access the site due to IE8 at work but Football Manager came out on just about every platform available at the time, along with the ads with Kevin Toms cheesy grinning face on. I had it on the Acorn Electron and it was OK - Soccer Supremo was better though :thumbsup:
 


John Byrnes Mullet

Global Circumnavigator
Oct 4, 2004
1,187
Brighton
There were better versions than Football Manager. I far more enjoyed The Boss and United and also there was another Football Manager game which was far superior but as old age creeps in I cannot remember what is was called. Also enjoyed Formula 1 Manager. Very simple programs but fantastic fun.
 


willow147

Active member
Mar 16, 2011
954
Romney Marsh, Kent
I used to love this game, it was only at the weekend that I was telling my son about it.

It's still up to date in some respects, I had a quick play, choose Brighton and proceeded to lose 3:1 at home to Blackpool.
 




W.C.

New member
Oct 31, 2011
4,927
Wow. I was expecting a youtube video or something.

Having said that, it really hasn't aged well (beyond 1990)

I used to love the fact it had his face plastered over every copy. Why? No other games used to have their maker's faces on them?
Very very geekily I went to some game show in London. I guess about 1986/7. I remember walking past one lonely looking stand, done up like a goal, with some guy slumped in a chair looking bored. For some weird reason I thought I knew him, until I realised, from those grinning mug shots, it was none other than Kevin Toms himself, trying to plug a latest version.
 


Tony Le Mesmer

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
1,341
South Wales
There were better versions than Football Manager. I far more enjoyed The Boss and United and also there was another Football Manager game which was far superior but as old age creeps in I cannot remember what is was called. Also enjoyed Formula 1 Manager. Very simple programs but fantastic fun.

The Boss was the boss of Spectrum Football Manager games
 


Publius Ovidius

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
45,919
at home
I was completed rubbish at that too!

Anyone remember the dungeons and dragons type game that was based on no graphics, but you has to type in walk, turn right/left throw spears etc

I learned programming on the ZX and this was one of the games that allowed you to put in your own code...on cassette tape!
 






Igzilla

Well-known member
Sep 27, 2012
1,641
Worthing
I used to love this game, it was only at the weekend that I was telling my son about it.

It's still up to date in some respects, I had a quick play, choose Brighton and proceeded to lose 3:1 at home to Blackpool.

Indeed, the parallels to today are quite unnerving...

fm.jpg
 








Scoffers

Well-known member
Jan 13, 2004
6,842
Burgess Hill
Many an hour wasted playing that game. I was just as rubbish at that then as I am at FM2014 :)
 






Carrot Cruncher

NHS Slave
Helpful Moderator
Jul 30, 2003
5,052
Southampton, United Kingdom
That or The Double were the best management games for me.

I also remember Tracksuit Manager which was based around being an International Manager.

YES!

The Double was the shiz back in the day and the closest anything got to a proper club management sim until FM got 'proper'. Due to the memory constraints on the Spectrum, you only had the top 3 divisions. It was based on the 87-88 season, so we were in the 3rd. It used to autoselect you a team in the bottom - I never got Brighton no matter how many times I reloaded it, used to always get Fulham or Gillingham. The thing that sticks in my mind is the bit where you had to predict the crowd for the police. You would always predict about 5500 and as a result, leave it and forget you were playing Brighton or Sunderland and the crowd would be about 9000, it would kick off and the FA would fine you about 10 grand.

Memories!
 


Dick Swiveller

Well-known member
Sep 9, 2011
9,142
Can't access the site due to IE8 at work but Football Manager came out on just about every platform available at the time, along with the ads with Kevin Toms cheesy grinning face on. I had it on the Acorn Electron and it was OK - Soccer Supremo was better though :thumbsup:
I met the great man himself the other week. Sadly he no longer has the beard. Anyone remember his foray away from football, Software Star? You had to develop your own games and choose when to release them. Basically no skill required but I remember playing it a lot.

http://blog.kevintoms.com/category/software-star/
 








big nuts

Well-known member
Jan 15, 2011
4,859
Hove
YES!

The Double was the shiz back in the day and the closest anything got to a proper club management sim until FM got 'proper'. Due to the memory constraints on the Spectrum, you only had the top 3 divisions. It was based on the 87-88 season, so we were in the 3rd. It used to autoselect you a team in the bottom - I never got Brighton no matter how many times I reloaded it, used to always get Fulham or Gillingham. The thing that sticks in my mind is the bit where you had to predict the crowd for the police. You would always predict about 5500 and as a result, leave it and forget you were playing Brighton or Sunderland and the crowd would be about 9000, it would kick off and the FA would fine you about 10 grand.

Memories!

I remember only once or twice getting Brighton from the start it was nearly alway Gillingham and you could scout players who were transfer listed. The game wouldn't say anything derigatory about the players but there was some faint praise for the shit one's

Howard Kendall was on the front cover and yes if you forgot to add your crowd predictor or underestimate it, it would kick off and you would get an hefty fine.
 


KJP

Well-known member
Mar 2, 2011
2,407
Goring-by-Sea
I had a great Atari one which you started as any team but always started division 4, it let you do one transfer a week, which would basically be a random player shows up and you can swap him with a current player I think
 



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