Activation Key issue after installing Patch 10.2

I'm very depressed. I had the perfect day planned staying at my mum's in Bracknell playing a whole day of FM whilst watching soccer saturday whilst the rest of the family wonder round Reading sales shopping. I installed Patch 10.2 after a couple of issues, and was looking forward to starting a new game with the might Chesterfield. Alas, on clicking the icon, a pop up box appeared requesting an activation key. Why should I need to put the activation key in again purely after installing the new patch? Is there any way to get playing my game before Tuesday when I return home to Crawley. I am half tempted to drive down this evening just to get the key, but why should I? It would have been nice to have been prewarned regarding this before I blindly went ahead and installed the patch.

Is there anyway round this?

This can happen if you install the wrong patch- make sure that it is the version for your game as there are several patch versions. You may have to uninstall and reinstall to get it working again.

Can I uninstall just the patch or do I need to uninstall the complete game?

You will have to uninstall the game.

Uninstall the game but dont delete the files. Keep them and reinstall the game then just get the second patch then you will not lose any editing, graphics or saved games you have.

D'oh, looks like my weekend is buggered, was looking forward to a heavy FM sesh... gunna have to wait til Monday :-(