Football Manager Stole My Life...

[Munkfish]

Was he a St. Mirren player at the time?

I am still proud of signing a very young Argentinian striker who was plying his trade in Brazil. I regularly scout the u21s of the South American countries, but rarelys ecure the signing, as work permits never seem to come in for those players - certainly not for smaller clubs anyway. However, at teh time I'd progressed to managing Liverpool, and did indeed secure the services of a then unknown Carlos Tevez. #proud

Yes he was, he was valued at 60k but they wanted 120k, I got them down to 100k and destroyed my wage budget for him. I had to sell 3 players to cover the transfer spend.

what is the game like now Brighton have the Amex? this years game will surely be great for Albion fans.

 

[Butch Willykins]

I built a contraption (basically an old cardboard box that used to house walkers salt n vinegar crisps) which allowed me to play in the garden on my laptop without the glare of the sun on the screen. I was a massive addict. Been clean for about 8 seasons now.

 

[narly101]

I have to dip into the dim and distant memory of October 1995 and the days of Championship Manager 2. I can remember an entire weekend starting early Friday evening and finishing in the wee hours of Sunday night/Monday morning where I took the Albion from the Division Three into the Premiership. On the Friday evening, I had just managed to get them promoted into Division 2 (the new League One if you didn't know) and then the addiction hit. I think i managed a total of around 8 hours sleep the whole weekend, only left my room for food, and to nip to the shops for more fags. If memory serves me correctly I smoked around 100 cigarettes over those two and a bit days, and had a Ben Nevis mound of smokes in the ash tray. I don't recall showering, or even getting dressed out of my PJ's. I remember the elation when I won the Premiership by about 5 points ahead of Spurs, all handed to me on a plate by Graham Kavanagh in midfield, and Gabriel Batistuta up front.

those were the days

 

[Wozza]

Book is already out. Football Manager Stole My Life: 20 Years of Beautiful Obsession: Amazon.co.uk: Iain Macintosh, Kenny Millar, Neil White: Books

I was pretty addicted to "Champman" in 1996. Certainly had a few all-night sessions.

Used to write about it too. Played alongside Ron Atkinson (entire season) and Joe Kinnear.

 

[Igor Gurinovich?]

I find that if you are on a good run, and then you save and switch off your team can sometimes go to shit when you turn it back on again.

Therefore the best plan is to keep going if you are on a good run.

Unfortunately this can lead to 12hr plus stints when things are going well.

This is absolutely true.. its like the game punishes you for turning it off...

two of my greatest moments of yesteryear that will live with me for ever..(well maybe)... signing selling Todorov to Inter for £12m a year after he was a 300k signing from Bulgaria.. felt so proud....
and a roller coaster run to the champions league semi final with FC Copenhagen that included a win over 2 legs against Real Madrid.. Tobias Linderoth was absolutely immense..

damn i want to scoot out of work and fire up my latest career...

 

[Stumpy Tim]

A friend of mine spent a year playing ChampMan while caring for his Mum who had breast cancer - he literally had no life outside these two things. He got Southend to the FA Cup Final, so got changed into a suit - his cup final suit. He felt it was important to take it seriously.

 

[5mins-from-amex]

Been playing this game since it first came out on ms dos!!! Would love to know how many days/weeks i have spent trying to get some minnow club into Europe, According to steam i have spent over 900 hours playing the latest version.

 

[GingerBeerMan]

I play football manager though, it's a good thing to have on when watching the telly and half paying attention. I find it too frustrating to be addictive though. My plan for the new one is to make Brighton a club with just english players and as many english internationals as possible a la Barcelona.

Good luck with that. You'll never crack the top four. All the decent regens are from Argentina/Brazil and you won't be able to resist buying them. Also good English players are ridic expensive that you'll have to settle for mediocre players forever or until a gem comes through your academy.

 

[Box of Frogs]

I used to find the blur between Champman and real footy difficult to take sometimes. I would turn up at Withdean and wonder why half the team weren't playing before realising that they were only signed by me in Champman, not in real life!

 

[Munkfish]

The thing i found weirdest was scouting around the leagues and then signing them, only to see them at games and real life and them being shit. it was always a gutter.

 

[Seagull27]

Anyone find their game has been particularly clairvoyant at times? On a fair few occasions, a player transfers to a club, nothing to do with the club I'm managing. Only for the exact same transfer to happen a few months later. It's happened quite a few times for me, it's scary.

I also loved the fact that on one of the games, Federico Turienzo would absolutely tear up the league we were in, before being sold for about £2.5M

 

[Farehamseagull]

Looking forward to reading that. I haave had various times addicted to Football Manager over the years, always look forward to it being released. The longest I ever played for was about 30 seasons with Brighton a couple of years ago and in the end I had won everything and had a new stadium built named after me which was massively exciting, the pinnacle of my football manager playing!

Don't tend to play it for as long as I used to, maybe a couple of hours a night three or four times a week during the autumn/winter but have never found it to be a problem in my relationships though. I'm not a big fan of watching TV except for sport so I let the other half have control of the box while I play it on the laptop!

 

[tinx]

It was all a lot easier in the old days as well as there wasn't the distraction of the Internet so you could fire up Champ Man and not be continuously flicking over to NSC or others whilst playing.

 

[The Fifth Column]

I have lost days of my life to various versions of footy sim games and do not feel bad about it as it is a superb form of escapism. Who else remembers the guilty realisation as you glance out of the window to see the sky getting light in the early hours of the morning and then creeping into bed hoping the missus wouldn't notice. Then you tell her you had a crap nights sleep to explain your tiredness the next day! Haha

 

[Racek]

A guy I knew used to play one Sat match and a mid week game. He would wear a suite on Saturdays and training kit on a Monday night.
After the game he would set the camcorder up and got his Mum to ask him questions about the game. He would sit in front of his Everton wallpaper and have his own little press conference.

To has he was not the full ticket is an understatement.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I haven't played it since the 90s but "No chance Cheesewright." is still a catchphrase of mine.
For me, i never had a computer in those days, so i relied on my housemate to leave either for work or college in order for me to romp upstairs and begin again. 20 or 30 fags smoked. 10 cups of coffee. 2 Mars Bars. My girlfriend moved in at some point of this for a while. She would arise for work at about 5am. If she was gone and the housemate had stayed at his ladyfriend's then i was on it by 5.30 until the girlfriend came home from work. Even then i'd be playing, telling her i was upstairs writing an essay on and off. Come 9pm my efforts to convince her she seemed ever so tired and ought to sleep properly would succeed. Her eyes would close and i'd be back upstairs until about 3am inspecting on the progress of Tonton Zola Mokouko.

 

[NickBHAFC18]

A guy I knew used to play one Sat match and a mid week game. He would wear a suite on Saturdays and training kit on a Monday night.
After the game he would set the camcorder up and got his Mum to ask him questions about the game. He would sit in front of his Everton wallpaper and have his own little press conference.

To has he was not the full ticket is an understatement.

Bet he was a hit with the ladies..

 

[Racek]

Bet he was a hit with the ladies..

Just imagine the conversation on the first date.

 

[BiffyBoy]

I have to dip into the dim and distant memory of October 1995 and the days of Championship Manager 2. I can remember an entire weekend starting early Friday evening and finishing in the wee hours of Sunday night/Monday morning where I took the Albion from the Division Three into the Premiership. On the Friday evening, I had just managed to get them promoted into Division 2 (the new League One if you didn't know) and then the addiction hit. I think i managed a total of around 8 hours sleep the whole weekend, only left my room for food, and to nip to the shops for more fags. If memory serves me correctly I smoked around 100 cigarettes over those two and a bit days, and had a Ben Nevis mound of smokes in the ash tray. I don't recall showering, or even getting dressed out of my PJ's. I remember the elation when I won the Premiership by about 5 points ahead of Spurs, all handed to me on a plate by Graham Kavanagh in midfield, and Gabriel Batistuta up front.

those were the days

Gabriel Batistuta was a classic "Brighton Premership" buy on CM2, I think the later versions got a bit complex with agents etc. Would be nice if someone could bring the orginal format back with updated players etc.

 

[folkestonesgull]

the first one i had was champ manager 92/93. I remember buying it for my Amiga 600...Dwight Yorke was a 16 year old left winger at Villa. Beardley still a player. From then on I had every version up to 2010/11 and would often play until 5am. The only way to recently kerb my addiction was not to buy the newer versions, though once I fire up a game (my last game I started managing Dover, moved to Ipswish and have now done the quadruple (3 domestic & champions League) 3 years in a row, probably my best ever performance) its hard to stop.
I genuinely believe the game/my addiction was responsible for poorish GCSE and A level results. Luckily in the last year of my degree we had a house amnesty and uninstalled it and sent the disks home...I remember when I was a teenager I had a key for my mates house so that I could play it there when they were away as he had a faster PC....