What is your favourite ever save game on any CM/FM?

Greetings all,

Someone has recently opened a 'favourite ever game on FM09' thread. It made me think that it might be interesting to have a 'favourite ever game on CM/FM' thread as well.

So what is your all-time favourite CM/FM save?

For me, it has to be my FM07 St. Albans City save. More of that shortly.

There are a couple of other games that would come in second and third respectively.

A CM2 97/98 save game was one of my favourites. For some random reason, I picked Bolton to manage, and took them to Premier League glory. The main reason for it being my favourite was because of two youth players whose careers I oversaw. Both were young English strikers, one number 9 type player in Dean Clarke. He was a prolific goalscorer who ended up moving to Bayern Munich in the end. The other was a number 10 type player called Scott Rimmer. He was absolutely fantastic but ended up suffering from two broken legs. Every time he came back stronger though. I brought them both through the ranks and slowly watched them become two of the greatest English forwards in the game.

Digressing slightly, another legendary player I remember on CM2 97/98, or it might have been CM3, was a Chilean playmaker called Enrique Cáceres. The guy was an absolute legend. An amazing player who scored for fun and had an awesome name too!

On CM4 03/04 I had another very memorable save. I was getting really into lower league management back then and I would always start with a team in the bottom divisions. In that game, I picked Cremonese in Italy totally randomly. I took them up the leagues and won Serie A a few times. I'm not sure I ever managed to win the Champions League though.

On FM08, I had a terrific journeyman career game. I started off in the lower leagues in England with St. Albans City. In my career, I also managed Derry City in Ireland, Kaiserslauten in Germany, the Ghana international team and Leverkusen. Although I never did succeed at the very top of the game, I won a fair few lower league titles and thoroughly enjoyed my first journeyman save.

But it was FM07 that provided me with my favourite ever save game though and by a long way. I had been away from FM for a little while. I remember playing FM05 a little bit and I definitely bought a copy of FM06 but I don't think I played it very much. When FM07 came out, I finally had some time to get into a save and over 20 or so seasons, I took the Mighty Saints up the leagues until reaching the Premier league.

Along the way, there were some real FM legends for me:

1) Target man centre-forward John Dawson, a £3k signing from Hitchin Town, and a great goalscorer in the lower leagues. John played in every division except the Premier League and also saved the club from being relegated from the Championship. He ended up becoming a physio and rejoined the Saints as a member of staff.

2) Captain fantastic, Jim Pirie. This Scottish defender was probably the most talented player at the club in the end. As we went up the divisions, he just kept getting better and better until I rewarded him with the captaincy. A Saints legend.

3) Italian genius, Enrico Muratore. An amazing striker. His trademark was to score a brace. I don't actually remembering him scoring a single goal, it was always a brace. He joined in the Championship and went on to become one of the best strikers in the Premier League.

On the way up the leagues, my Saints team spent six years in the Championship, struggling along, nearly getting relegated and managing to stay up on the last day, as well as failing in no less than 4 playoff finals in a row. I also managed England and took them to a World Cup semi-final, however I followed this up by getting knocked out of the group stages of the Euros and resigned before I was sacked. :o I also managed Turkey and failed to get them to the WC.

What a roller coaster ride that save was!

All of those CM/FM players (especially John Dawson, Jim Pirie and Enrico Muratore) send a shiver down my spine!

So, for me, it has to be my Saints save on FM07.

How about you? Looking forward to some interesting stories!

Regards,

C.

Made a thread you could participate in eh Crouchy?

Mine has to be my Braintree save in FM08. Never have I celebrated a none-Birmingham or England goal so much as when I got myself in the play-offs by scoring in the last second of the last game of the season. Don't know what it was about that save, but something kept reeling me in and I felt really attached to the side.

Mine is the very save i'm playing now with Havant & Waterlooville, I can't be bothered to go into heaps of detail but my career is on the all new careers forum. Take a look! The name is United Kingdom Journey (Sorry to Hijack there)

Basically i'm only in my second season but I am having a great time. Started unemplpoyed and holidayed until November. The first season I brought them out of relagation into a tense play off race. I started to late however, and I didn't make it. This next season has total domination so far, 8 games gone 7 wins, 1 Draw and 0 Losses.

The one when i was in charge of Anderlecht and won 10 league titles in a row and 7 cups aswell as getting to the champions league final but lost to Valencia when Michael Owen scored a hattrick and i lost 3-2

it was fm 07 if i remember correctly

My best save is my Hammerfest one from FM2007. I chose Hammerfest because they were the most Northern team in the world you could manage from the start on FM2007.

They started in the Norwegian 2nd Division Group 4 which I won in the first season with the addition of only 1 player.

I spent the next 4 seasons in the First Division. The First Division was a struggle as we were semi-pro, and half the league was pro. That made it harder to gain promotion but we managed it in 2011 as we won the league.

We then turned pro upon promotion to the Premier Division and in 2015 won the league for the first time. We quickly became the dominant force in Norwegian football after then, so conquering Europe was now the challenge.

The European season was 2020/21 and in June 2021 my star striker Frits Jansen was leaving the club to sign for Marseille for £18m. So I thought this was my best chance of winning the Champions League. We'd caused a few upsets in previous seasons by beating the likes of Roma, Chelsea and Man Utd, but had never had the consistency to get near to winning the Uefa Cup or Champions League.

We easily beat Red Star in the qualifiers and then won our group which contained Valencia, Napoli and Olympiakos or Panathinaikos or AEK Athens, I can't remember. In the 2nd round we faced Lyon and went 2-0 down early on in the first leg. We pulled it back to 2-1 though and smashed them 4-1 at the Breidablikk Stadion (Why it was allowed to host Champions League football I'll never know).

Next round we faced Schalke if I remember correctly. We won 3-1 at home with Jansen scoring his greatest goal, a wonderful solo run from his own half. But the last minute goal we conceded looked like it could be costly as we fell apart in Germany, going 2-0 down, and missing a penalty. But we pulled one back and edged through 4-3 on aggregate.

We then played Benfica who were one of the best sides in Europe. We won 1-0 at home, before gaining a sensational 2-0 victory in Portugal, Jansen scoring the first.

It was Tottenham in the final and it went to extra time. Jansen got injured in this game and didn't play well, but his "replacement", whose name escapes me dribbled around the Tottenham goalkeeper and then amazingly hit the post. Thankfully Argentine substitute Inaki Barba, a £17m January signing from River Plate tapped in the winner and Hammerfest from far northern Norway were European champions.

We subsequently won the European Super Cup and the World Club Cup which meant we won every trophy we entered in 2021 as we continued to dominate domestically.

I'm not sure if anything will ever beat that save.

Got to be as Crystal Palace in CM 98/99.

Started as tottenham but got sacked after 10 games Thought that would be making new game tomorrow but said to myself well i'll take palace job for now (In january). We were bottom by 14 points and 1st season I won Div 1 thanks to Victor Renner - 50 goals form midfeild in half of season. Then in prem, i signed the magnificent James Flood on free and 1st season in prem i won it with flood top scorer with 49 goals then Victor Renner on 45 goals. Got to 2012 winning every competition possible every time every year. But now playing FM

Definately my Rotherham save on CM 03/04. Took them from Championship obscurity to being the most dominating team in England. At one point I was so successful I had something like a 1B transfer budget. Was insane.

Then they sacked me for upsetting a reserve player in 2020 was fuming, could not believe it. They cited "poor general performance", even though we were unbeaten and top of the Premiership, not knocked out of any cups and had just thrashed Coventry 7-0. :confused:

Anyway, I took over Newcastle in January. They were bottom and in serious trouble. I managed to buy back a few players from Rotherham who the new manager did not rate and pulled Newcastle up to 11th. I soon wrestled Rotherham from top spot, bought many of their players, and made Newcastle the new major force in English Football loved that game with a passion.

I have 2 my FM07 game as Crewe was brilliant as we won the quad and became the best club in the world was tough getting to the top but well worth it in the end. The other one was on CM99/00 I think where I played as Rangers and cheated to get loads of cash it was my first ever long term game on any CM or FM on a slow ass computer that took ages to progress to the next day. Due to cheating I have the ultimate squad it would feel so wrong now to manage another club and buy players for huge amounts.

FM07, Rangers. Champions of Europe 2012. Pretty well sums it up for me.

I've had a few great games...

FM05 I was Newcastle and my brother was Tottenham and we became the two biggest forces in the world game and it was great to go to war every season with each other and Chelsea/Man Utd.

FM06 we swapped teams this time and he just dominated everything.

FM07 I had a game as City (pre-takeover) and developed them into the world giants with 3 straight Champs leagues, prem titles etc... was great and I stayed for 12 years.

CM4 i took Oxford to the prem in straight seasons and finished 4th in the first one, then won the Champs league in the first season too.

Currently really enjoying FM09 but just don't get time to play anymore

On FM05 I won two titles and the UEFA Cup with Peterhead after being in charge for ten years, longest I've spent at one club I think. Won the league with a collection of Old Firm rejects which made it extra sweet. On 06 (I think) I got four consecutive promotions with Accrington Stanley and finished in the top ten in my first season in the Premiership, but then 07 came out and I stopped playing. Also had a great game managing St Pauli, got them into Europe after four seasons, but the save file corrupted. Taught me the virtues of three-file rolling autosave.