Recount your Football Manager stories for us...

I used to wake up, wash, get dressed, have my breakfast, make my sandwiches, speak to my family, pick up my bags and go to school.

I say school. What I really did was go up the road, wait for my mum to leave the house with my siblings and nip back in for an uninterrupted day of CM.

When I saw her return home through the window I had to run the gauntlet of saving the game, running to the hallway, opening the window, dropping onto the roof of our extension and dropping again to the floor and then entering the house after a hard day at school.

Unfortunately I was rumbled pretty quickly. I wasn't clever enough to do it every now and again. Oh no, I did it constantly for a week or so and my mum locked me out of the computer room.

Good times.

Bristol Rovers my team. FM 2013. After some great years i got a team worth winning the BPL title. Also i am a huge fan of Manchester United, have to mention this. I was third in the league, with the 1st being Manchester United and in second place Manchester City. Manchester United was 4 points ahead of me so i didnt have a chance winning the title. City had just one point less from Man Utd. There it was my last match again Man Utd on my field. At half time the score was 1-0, City was also winning at their home 1-0. Around 70 the score was still 1-0 and City was ahead with 3-0. I did it and i dont regret it, i lost the match changing my tactic. The match ended 1-2 and i was happy about it!!! I celebrated like crazy along with a flag of Man Utd. Next year 3 matches until the end of the league. Manchester City had the same points as me but if the things ended up like this they would be the champions. Manchester United was at the fourth place. The games i had left were kinda easy so i was hoping for a draw or a lose for City. We both won our first games but their second game was vs Man United a home match with also Man United best striker injured. I won the match 3-1 and didnt celebrate until the other match ended. There it was City was winning 1-0 until 82, Manchester United equalised with a header. FT 1-1. The crown was mine! A table was broken and posters of Man United were kissed after screaming glory glory!!!

I've done the Jose Mourinho slide on your knees trick when I won promotion to the SPL1. Carpet burns don't come close.

This one time - during winter - I was warming myself up with my laptop by playing FM, because there was no heating in my place 

I won the league with arsenal when Me, Manchester City, Chelsea and Spurs were 1pt apart on the last day of the season.

CM97/98 was my first time getting my feet wet.

I got the game and started to play, I actually thought it would be a nice little break for me as I was working 12 hour shifts and I had just bought a house with my girlfriend.

After a few terrible goes I finally got a good save going, Bristol Rovers, I remember it well.

I signed Wes Brown, Kevin James*( I think that was his name), Robert Boyce and Jermaine Wright we already had the awesome Jamie Cureton (Those 5 players were awesome for lower leagues, 17 years later I still remember them for my team)

I built the side on these guys and once in the Premiership I sold all 5 for a huge amount of money, well huge back then.

I was hooked and after a few seasons I was coming home at 6am after my night shift and playing until around 1pm when I would grab a couple of hours sleep before going to work, the whole time at work my mind was always on how I could strengthen the team, luckily I only worked 4 days a week so could catch up my sleep on my days off.

Anyway I was so hooked I was basically playing whenever I could and would cancel nights out with mates and with my girlfriend, she actually asked me a couple of times if I bought the house to be with her or with the game ....

The last straw came when about 10 of my mates showed up on a Friday night and my girlfriend asked why they were here, I then told her that Bristol Rovers were in the Champions League final and I had invited them over to watch.

We lost that final and needless to say the house was up for sale some 6 months later .....

Happy to say I play the game a little bit differently these days.

* He Played for Falkirk at the time, maybe 'King of Queens' is playing tricks on me.

Picture the scene. Liverpool 1-1 Everton. Final minutes. Need a win to keep in the title race.

Last minute corner goes flying in, the ball ping pongs around the box for a minute before Jamie Carragher slots home from 2 yards out.

I jumped out of my seat screaming in delight. The table and laptop went flying. I immediately seized up in pain as I had pulled a muscle in my knee.

To make matters worse, the laptop had crashed so I had to replay the game and I broke a lamp.

I remember on FM09, playing as Arsenal. My away game at Liverpool was rearranged for after the final day, on the same date as the anniversary of Arsenal's famous league title win at Anfield 20 years previously. I was a point behind Liverpool pre-game and won 2-0 to win the league title. Only FM could replicate such a strange set of circumstances that so closely mirrored that famous night 20 years earlier.

I have told this before, but many, many years ago I played CM93/94 on the Amiga probably a couple of years after it was released (I never was one to continually buy the new version of the game)

I started a new game but using generated players and put Watford into the Third Division.

I don't rememeber too much about the players I started with except the DL (who later joined a foreign club) the DC (who was captain) and a DRLC all ended up playing for England. The DRLC was originally used as sub because of his versatility but after a couple of years I put him in dentral defence despite being poor in the air. The DC and DRLC eventually left the club, but I'm sure that I got at least 1 Premier League title with them int he team.

I do recall signing a central midfielder from Arsenal called Des Dawes, who stayed with me for years as my midfield general. I also had a striker I found early on who banged in 30+ goals a season in Divisions 3, 2 and 1 but coudln't hit a barn door fi he was holding the handle in the Premier League. Even though he was scoring goals for fun in the lower leagues he was only ever worth £50K. I kept an eye on him after he left and he never scored many goals, I guess he just had the right attributes and players around him to score for me.

Anyway I decided that I would end the game once I had won the domestic treble and European Cup in the same season. It took 14 years in the Premier League, but I eventually completed it.

Sometimes I do wish that the random player generation type game worked as well in the modern FM, but I guess with that many players and attributes the game just can't do it that well anymore.

Our family PC used to be in the upstairs hallway and I would sit out there most nights until about 2am. Over time, the computer chair got a bit tatty and started to squeak every time I moved. This would really rile my mum up, and she would shout 3-4 times per night "For Christ sake Alan, go to bed!" I never did, and used to do my best to sit as still as possible to avoid the chair squeaking - but I obviously didn't do a good enough job this one particular night...

I woke up the next day and was absolutely buzzing, as it was one of the 2 days per week I had off from uni. A full day of Football Manager 2006 awaited! I climbed down from the attic, which is where my room was, and passed the computer on my way downstairs to the kitchen to fetch some pre-game cereal.

Imagine my horror when I returned upstairs to see that Mrs Granger had taken the mouse, keyboard and power cable to work with her...where it stayed for a whole week, as a punishment.

Upon the return of the cable etc, I successfully negotiated the relocation of the computer to my room - and went on to lead Leyton Orient to Champions League glory; picking up, and rejuvenating, Cristiano Ronaldo after his unsuccessful 5 year spell at United.

WD40 would have saved much pain!

This is my first post here, but I'm no FM newbie, I've played the game since I can remember (CM01/02 comes to mind) and I usually narrate my saves in another online forum. However...

I am quite crazy regarding the Football Manager scene. In 2007, with the 2007 version, I managed Sporting Clube de Portugal and managed to get them to the CL final in the fourth season. So, besides the obvious "suit-and-tie" combo (fulfilled simply by a shirt and a tie and some trousers I had from a wedding I went to), I put a coca-cola bottle in the fridge (I was 12) and grabbed a plastic cup. We won the game 2-1. I ran to the fridge and got the bottle. Suddenly, when I was opening it, it bursted in a wave of brown-ish foam and gas, and I completely ruined my outfit. It was awful to explain it to my parents when they got home. I was grounded for two weeks (without PC and TV), but it was well worth it! It was my first Football Manager conquest. And I managed to read some nice books in the meanwhile.

In the 2012 version, I managed Vauxhall Motors of the Conference North. Year after year, I'd get promotion. Players like Leighton McGivern (actually a sunday league footballer), Loris Karius (plays for Mainz) and Ryan Bowman (plays for York City) were solid and good for me. Until I reached the Championship. And I struggled quite a bit. But then, a regen called Vincenzo De Luca, a striker, was released by Internazionale after they got relegated (odd, isn't it?). He was 21 and was an Italian U19 international. I persuaded him to sign for my team. The next season, he scored 32 goals and made 17 assists. I won the Championship and got to the Premier League. The next day, I talked to my classmates about him, telling them all about his attributes, his way to score goals, and how he once put five goals past Middlesbrough in a famed Championship fixture. They were puzzled. Who was the player? Who were the team? I had too much work explaining them the English lower league football structure, that they only knew from playing FIFA. And then I explained them what Football Manager was, and how they should play it. "It was like talking to walls", I wrote once. I don't talk anymore about this because I used a very famed tactic at the time, the "Grid 4-3-3". I still spend sleepless nights thinking about what could have been of me without that tactic.

Still in 2012, I managed RUOR Minsk (the famed team of "State of the Art" training facilities) in Belarus, using an user database. Some promotions later, I got to the Highest League. Then, curiosity hit me. Who were them? Why was there no info on the web about them? Where was Kamvolschik? I decided to learn a bit of belarusian and ask someone on the internet about them. Not even a belarusian (virtual) friend of mine knew them. WHAT THE HELL?! I was puzzled. Then, I decided to go on Google Earth and find out about them. I found rigorously nothing after 3 hours of search around Minsk, on some green fields that could be stadiums (turns out there are plenty of teams in Minsk, Dinamo, Partizan, FC Minsk and SKVlCH Minsk come to mind). So another Google search allowed me to find out about their basketball and handball (that goes by the name of S.K.A. Minsk) team, and to take a glance at their logo. And, after looking at the basketball team's website, that is in well-written English, I found out an address and, finally, the famed training facilities of RUOR Minsk. Are these 20/20? I doubt so. Are they the same team? The name is the same. But their basketball and handball teams are pretty successful. This makes quite a bit of a shock. I spent, in total, 22 hours looking for information on this club. I kept all links in a .txt document. (not to mention I only miserably achieved an Europa League win after 15 seasons of play).

At last, in 2014, I started a Journeyman save. I got a job in Belgium, in the Third Division B, playing as La Louvière Centre. The team was miserable. I didn't even have central-midfielders, so I managed to retrain Mikail Deliboyraz and Jean Fassin (remember his name) to the desired position. We got promoted in the first season and in the fourth season we got to the Pro League. (I originally left in the third season to Hungary and bought Fassin, but I still kept the game saved). Fassin was at his peak and, even with all the transfers, he still was an undisputed starter. My 4-5-1 tactic was built around him and his CM role. We played all games, struggling to survive... And we managed to do it! Then, in the next season, a 6th place. Then, a 2nd place, only behind Club Brugge. Brugge's hegemony standed firm for another year, but then we managed to win the league. Fassin was still a player. He was our captain since the 2nd season, and he had the team's best average ratings constantly for five seasons. He eventually retired and became my assistant manager. In the 12th season, we managed to win the Champions League. Of course I'll always love my regens, but no one will be as great as him. Of course I searched for him on facebook. I didn't find him. (if anyone finds him, could you PM me?). I'm now in the process of writing a letter narrating this journey to send to the club. I became a fan of the club and I follow their results via their facebook page. A third division team, lads. Could you believe it? I have the same passion for them that I have for my teams (Eintracht Braunschweing and Sporting CP).

My FM experience is like a typical italian family dinner. Gestures that doesnt really makes sense (but for me they do) and raised voice with phrases no one really knows what they are suppose to mean.

Me and my best friend from school playing a 48hour non stop face to face link up game. His desktop and his dads desktop sat side by side in their downstairs study and his mum and dad were away for the weekend. I was Luton town and I think he was QPR. We just played constantly for 2 days and we never got even the slightest bit uninterested, only breaking to use the toliet and to make a tray of chicken dippers if we got hungry. This game sticks out because I bought a Portugese player who was an absolute goal machine. His name was Cicerio I think but what I remember the most is me and my friend singing his name to the tune Cecilia by Sugs after he got a hat trick for me at something like 2am. Think we got through the whole song. I would still do anything to go back to these times.

Another one my friend likes to tell is when in a fit of rage after a loss I managed to get my 14 year old fist through our living room wall. And then going through desperate measures to try and hide the evidence. My best effort that my friend often tells is attempting stick the resulting wall flap back in to place using strips of masking tape. I was obviously unsuccesful and had to come clean but my dads living room still reveals the battle scars and whenever I go back to visit I cant help searching for the old wound and have a little chuckkle.

I've ended up concussed before. Back in the days of text commentary only, a friend and I used to recreate the goals we'd imagined our players scoring with a little soft ball.

So one day when I was at his house, Michael Bridges scores a late headed winner for our England side in an important match v Germany. As we always would, we'd grab the ball and head into the next room where there was more space. I threw the ball up in the air, we challenged for it, both missed it and headbutted each other. I remember us both lying prone on the floor in agony, but have never been able to remember anything else from later on that evening.

Needless to say we stopped our little routine after that incident. My head hurts just thinking about it.

My FM experience is like a typical italian family dinner. Gestures that doesnt really makes sense (but for me they do) and raised voice with phrases no one really knows what they are suppose to mean.

We don't dine like that!! Well... not always at least

My little story I still remember like happened 1 hour ago, but it was an hot day in may of.. many years ago.

Champions League Final, FM07. Man U (me) vs. AC Milan. I sweared myself that was my last season managing Man U, all my attempts winning the CL failed miserably. It was my last chance. It was me against The Doom.

A couple of key players out for national duty (d'oh!!). But I was ready, concentrated as never before. Now or never more. Nothing could beat me. In fact, at 02:12 AC Milan ahead, corner kick and goal from Paletta (yeah, the bald DC who doesn't want to let it go). But it wasn't over yet. At 03:57 my DR sent off after an headbutt to an opponent, forced me to put on the pitch youngster (McNally, may the gods bless you!!!). I started elaborating mystical theorems planned by the engine for not let me win the final. Meanwhile, AC Milan scored again at 11:53. Down 0-2 after 12 minutes of first half, 1 man off. I have to admit the mouse cursor was dangerously near the "X" button and for a little while I thought to format my PC, and then throw it through my window. I didn't and I kept playing. Milan kept pushing up wildly, but Amelia (Ochoa was on international duty) was on fire. So that finally at 43' of first half Sturridge intercepted a pass from Ustari and scored the 2-1. During the break I sensed the match was changing, so I decided for a further forward sacrificing a man on the midfield, and I did well: at 54' Acuna equalized! I started running around home yelling "Pareggiooooo!! Pareggioooo!!!!" (it stands for "We equalized", kind of). I believed in victory but since that moment it was like a medieval siege lead by Milan toward the Man U box: saves, spots, bars, great saves, great saves again, goals disallowed. My shirt was wet, I mean wet like after a shower and I looked possessed believing in victory. Extra-time: third sub and let's touch wood. Result: after 2 minutes an injured player forced me to play 9 men.... a classic!!! 9 vs. 11... penalties.. Decided for 8 men in front of the goalkeeper and only Sturridge with the duty to make troubles up there. And at 101', HE, THE MAN, Sir Daniel Sturridge catched a trough ball and shot through Ustari legs a ball that never wanted to get in. 3-2 and everybody defending the result, myself included. When the match finished I 1) saved the game 2) just rush on the balcony and with crazy movements of arms (mentioned above) I shouted all my crazy happinness (we woooon!!! ahahahahha! we woooooooonnnnn!!!!!!!!!) after have witnessed the most emotional match of FM in my life. Neighbours were looking at me with the typical look people from northern Italy have, a mix of compassion, sadness for someone else condition, fear to have met a crazy guy, resignation to have met another crazy guy. I just didn't care. It is still the greatest emotion FM gave me so far haha!

Back when I was at University studying for a BA Hons in Primary Education we used to have weekly ICT lessons, in which the lecturer would talk us through all of the different ICT packages we could use to educate children. These lectures used to take place in a computer lab, and I soon realised that if I sat at the back in the middle of two of my friends I could sneakily play Football Manager 2009 on my laptop. I think it is fair to say that I didn't learn a lot about the different educational ICT packages, but I did take FC United through the leagues.

I was never caught although I did have to quickly ALT-TAB to the lecture notes a couple of times.

FM06 is a game that has basically changed my life.

Back when I was in college, I acquired a best pal through our love of drinking, pizza and football manager.

We had one particular save file where I was Arsenal and he was Chelsea. We dominated World football, regularly with one of us winning each competition we were entered in - often only knocked out of cup competitions by each other. We learnt to play football manager with our feet so we could play whilst eating pizza, or feeling the need to sit back once in a while. We essentially played for about 1 month solid before I told him that I was getting annoyed by his face - so he went home. By this point he was calling my mum 'Mum' and was pretty much moved in. We'd only leave the house if we needed food or to go to college.

A few hours later I was craving Football Manager, so I called him up and asked if he wanted to come back round so we could keep playing. He'd been missing it too and so I went and picked him up..

At college we tactically missed lessons in order to get our fix. We had to attend a minimum of 90% of our classes in order to avoid paying for our exams - and so we worked out which lessons were the best ones to miss. We both ended the year on exactly 90%, on FM we'd reached the year c. 2026 (which is a long time in multiplayer!) - and born from this little addiction was a friendship that has led to him being the best man at my upcoming wedding!

It's not a 'set fire to bins' kind of story, but it's one I'll always remember.

I've played FM for several years, but it wasn't until FM 13 that I had my first epic long-term save with Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic (former club of Sean Connery), 3 levels down from the Scottish Premier League. It took me 14 years to ascend to the SPL, dethrone Celtic and qualify for the Euro Cup and finally Champions League. At some point during the ascent, I started looking around for a Bonnyrigg Rose jersey (not considering that such an item might not be in high demand), but stumbled upon one from 2006-2007 on eBay. I spent too much time deciding to bid on it, and the item was withdrawn from sale. I contacted the seller to see if they still had it, and discovered that it was still available. Ordered it and had to wait several weeks for it to clear Polish customs (spent quite a bit of time on the Polish Post site, translated through Google, trying to track the package.) Finally got it, pulled it over my head...PERFECT FIT, am I right?

Baguette Express - not exactly a million-dollar sponsorship deal.

Anyway, my wife hates the shirt, calls me "Where's Waldo" when I put it on to contest an important cup game (even though this year's save is with Stirling Albion, I can't afford to buy an obscure team jersey EVERY year.) For my birthday, I'm thinking about ordering a name-customized German national team jersey, maybe start a save in the German leagues for FM 15, and perhaps get a discount at our local German bratwurst food truck.

(P.S. - no, that half-completed kitchen project behind me has NOT been completed, maybe if I can block out a weekend before FM 15 comes out I can wrap it up, and no, there's nothing neurologically wrong with me, I just don't take a good picture and my daughter didn't say "cheese" first...)

Me and my best mate used to play CM together ever since the first one appeared on the Amiga... and for every game we played, we were joint managers. Primarily I suppose as we shared alot of the same thoughts and passion about the game.

Anyway the game was CM2 96/97 season, you could manage in Scotland by these days and that is where we went.... how we got there though was a mixture of being huge Gazza fans, to me purchasing the Rangers home kit of the season for about 10 quid from a well known sports shop and my mate getting the away kit, a red and white number which looked quality. (Note neither of us are Scottish or Rangers fans in any shape).

So there we are loading up the game, pick Rangers and we do a John Terry.... we don the full kit each. At this stage in our lives we are 17/18, so probably should be out porking woman, but alas we were sat in my room, full Rangers kits on, being CM managers.

Not only that, for some reason we decided to remove the mattress from my bed, place it in front of the base of my bed so it felt as if we were sat in a dugout.... I lined the mattress with blue towels to make it look more 'Ibrox' (idk seemed a good idea) and we played the game sat on the base of my bed.

This lasted for probably 4 or 5 days straight, never changing the kit, barely sleeping and chugging through as many seasons as we could... if Gazza scored we would rub our tummies as he once did I believe... if Laudrop scored we would sing 'BRI-ON' (sounds like BRIE - ON) at the screen and many other moments including tantrums as we could not crack Europe at all!

We have loads of these stories to tell, I mean we often recount them now and we are mid 30s with kids etc, but the love of the game and our friendship made for some of the greatest memories you could have growing up... (that didnt include a female)

Can't remember which version of FM it was sadly, but Swansea was playing in what is now League Two.

Got them promoted the first season, and again the next season. Third season was in The Championship, where I got promoted via the play-offs. Three promotions in three years, and now we had Premier League football on the menu. First season in the Premier League, and I finish 6th, thus qualifying for the Euro League. Never done that before, never done that since.

My GCSEs were taken and pretty naff marks rewarded as a result of playing Championship manager back in the early 90s when I should have been revising but spent time trying to take Newcastle to the top.

Ended up having to take some rubbish A levels then a crap degree 300 miles away from my London home, then a rubbish job in retail banking followed by a much better job in private Banking where I met my wife.

We have 2 kids and have been married 6 years and the great job and amazing family simply wouldn't have happened if I'd have knuckled done and done my revision back in 1991

It was FM08. I spent five seasons assembling an unstoppable Eastern European powerhouse at Spartak Moscow. There were local superstars from pretty much every single Bloc country that very amazing together. Obviously, they needed a leader and they had one in a Romanian tower of a centre-back Gabriel Tamas who, appropriately enough, liked to get forward and score a screamer from 35 yards like a penalty every other game. Naturally, it was a pleasure managing them and soon enough we found ourselves at the business end of the CL season.

You have to remember that back in the day Russia had spring-autumn season meaning that CL games would be early in the season. That combined with the Russian cup, widespread frost and cancelled/delayed games meant that by the time I got to CL final against Real Madrid, I had only played 6 league matches, at least 4 behind anyone else in the league (languishing just around midtable). My board got a bit irritated about the league position but combined with CL glory my status was still safe. I did my usual CL routine, listening to the CL pre-game music, got my lucky shirt on and loaded the game. And what a game it was! Real dominated us in the first half going 3-1 up at halftime with star key striker scoring a fluke penalty and injuring himself in process. A harsh half-time talk followed and.. there was no effect, really. We clawed one back through a corner routine but Raul was merciless with another mazy run and a cannon of a shot landing in our net. Suddenly Cassilas got injured and had to be subbed. Nothing major, I would say, 20minutes from the end and 2 goals down. Yet somehow, I felt this could be our lucky day and I went into the famous AI 4-2-4. Soon enough Cavenaghi broke through the offside trap, rounded the keeper only to be awfully chopped by the hapless substitute. Incredibly enough, the ref produced a red card and gave us a penalty. I sensed blood and 20minutes later we held the cup aloft, having defeated Madrid 5-4. Lots of jumping and CL videos ensued as I felt the luckiest person alive.

Two days later, Spartak board sacked me for poor performance in the league. I haven't played FM08 since.

I remember lurking the forums when I was like 12 or 13 and really wanted to play FM with people online, but none of my friends were into it or up for it. So I would respond to adverts posted by random people on here in the FM Online sub-forum. I'd get their MSN addresses and add them on there, but pretty much all of them would have some rule where they'd only let people join if they were 18 or above. Most of them would soon clock on that I wasn't actually 18 due to my profile picture or cringeworthy year 8 MSN name. So I created an MSN account purely to play Football Manager online with random people. I'd use a fake name and use a picture of a teacher from my school that I'd taken on a school trip to Italy or something, whilst claiming to be in my early 30's, 20 years older than I actually was. Since I was like 12/13 and would have school in the morning, during the week-day sessions where obviously game-play would go on until like 3am or something, my Mum would make sure that lights were off by midnight. So obviously I had to include this curfew in my elaborate online personality that I had created to fool these guys I was playing FM with. Rather than come up with something normal and believable like "I'm a teacher so have to be up really early in the morning" or "yeah I work nights so got to go to work now", the most logical and believable lie that I could come up with was that that I worked for P&O Ferries and had to go to bed because I was going to be on a Ferry going to Calais in the morning.

I can't remember which FM it was exactly but during this one particular save game I'd lucked out and ended up with Liverpool who at the time had Torres as their star player. Torres was banging them in for me and I was top of the league by about 6 points in January. Anyway one night we get this new guy join our "clan", I can't remember what his name was but for all intensive purposes we'll call him John. Anyway he manages to luck out as the guy in our clan who was in charge of Chelsea had literally just been sacked as he'd been under performing and they were 4th by some distance, the rule was if you were sacked you couldn't take your old job back, so that guy quit our clan in outrage/frustration. Since Chelsea were free when John joined and nobody wanted to jump ship from their clubs to an under performing Chelsea, John ends up as Chelsea manager.

So obviously during the sessions there's a lot of small talk and over a few days we start to get to know John a bit more. He'd always leave sessions quite early, even earlier than I was forced to by my Mum, so one day someone asks him why he's going to bed so early. Anyway it turns out this John guy actually legit works for P&O Ferries and genuinely does travel across to Calais and back most days. Everyone is of course like oh wow do you two know each other? So this John guy starts messaging me like asking me for my name, thinking he's found some new buddy he can speak to at work about Football, FM with etc. Obviously my fake name is on my MSN so this John guy starts asking me whether I know all these random people from his work, of course I don't know any of them, he starts asking me what shift patterns I work, what exactly it is I do, what specific ferries i've worked on and of course I haven't got answers for any of this stuff. Luckily in these MSN days you didn't get baited up by "read by ... at 10.45pm" so most of the time I could just pretend I didn't see the messages in the group chat, wait for the conversation to change and eventually join back in the conversation.

It gets to a day before January deadline day and this John guy messages me in a separate chat window. He starts going off about how he can tell i'm lying about the job and that he reckons i'm lying about my job and my age etc and can tell from the way I speak/what I speak about that i'm probably just a kid. Now I'm top of the league and look pretty comfortable in the cups and even have a 2nd round knockout match against one of the Greek teams, Olympiakos iirc, so a very winnable tie. I'm not gonna come out and tell them my age in-case they kick me out, not sure if they'd find the funny side in being completely schooled at FM by a 13 year old. Anyway this John guy tries blackmailing me into not telling them my real age. He makes me an offer. If I let him have Torres then he wont spill the beans. Torres is banging in the goals for me, top scorer in the league by a mile and wining games single handed for me - there's no way i'm letting him go, not that he'd even want to go to Chelsea anyway. I begrudgingly offered him Jermaine Pennant or Andriy Voronin but he was having none of it.

Eventually he ended up telling them of his suspicions, none of them believed him saying that there was no way a kid could tactically out do them the way I had and when I mentioned he was trying to blackmail me into selling him Torres he got kicked out anyway. I ended up winning the PL, CL and FA Cup with Torres getting top scorer in all of them

I'd have to say my best story comes from my years at university some 11-12 years ago. I'd been playing CM/FM since the 97-98 edition, and was totally and completely addicted. But I'd never found anyone to share this 'addiction' with. My friends at school only liked FIFA or Pro Evo, fair enough, but I loved the thrill of managing (still do).

I went off to uni very worried I'd not make many friends, as I'm quite the shy type. My floor in the halls of residence was about 70% women, there were just three guys myself included. After a couple of days of getting to know each other us guys found out we all had a mutual love of Championship Manager (as it was at the time). David had the best laptop so we booted up an aged copy of CM 01-02 (one of the best if not the best of all time). Figuring that the Scottish league would be unfair as David was a Rangers supporter and I supported Aberdeen and our other friend Alan supported Dundee Utd, we went for England and picked our favourite teams there. I ended up with Arsenal, Alan with Man Utd and David with Chelsea (pre-Abramovich).

This started off as a 'few hours each night' kind of deal, as we progressed through the seasons for about ten years. But I was clearly the more addicted party, one time even getting down on my knees and begging to play it one night instead of going out to the pub. Which was promptly denied. I continuously had to ask nicely for more playing time, as on my turn I would spend ages scouting players and looking at form, etc while Alan and David were more happy to poach the players that I then found from said searches.

One of our last times playing the game in our first year was the night before my biggest exam. I distinctly remember a knock on the door as I procrastinated through revision, and there it was, Alan and David, asking if I'd like to play Champ Man. I feebly protested, saying I had an important exam the next day and I couldn't...but they wore me down within about three minutes. We ended up playing into the wee small hours of the morning as I rebuilt my team with a curious 3-1-3-3 formation (I put it down to tiredness). I went to bed, got up about two hours later and went in and got a decent mark on my exam. Naturally I raced back to the halls and put off packing for another day to play the game yet again.

I think it would be CM 97/98 and my first real career save. I was managing Wolves in the second tier ( cant recall if it was div 1 or the Championship) and struggling to get close to promotion. I had got to the pay-offs a couple of times but always came up short. I was mid table around the transfer window in January nd my one and only scout recommended a regen striker with pretty average attributes who was in a premiership reserve squad. Decided against it and continued to struggle scoring. About 2 or 3 days later. the same recommendation appeared and again I had a look but saw nothing to make me think that he was the answer to my striking woes. This sequence occurred every two or three days throughout January until the last day and the scout report said that I really, really needed to sign this guy. relented and signed him for next to nothing, paid him below average for my squad and he scored 4 on his debut!. Now by this time it was way past my bedtime but I played another game and he scored another 2 and the team started to click. Then the "just one more game" syndrome kicked in. I ended up finishing the season at 5.45am, with promotion, an very unhappy wife and the prospect of going to work with no sleep. This regen scored in almost every game till the end of the season, scored about 1.5 goals a game and won the league top scorer despite only playing less than half the season.

Needless to say, he wasn't nearly as effective in the Premiership, but I sold him after that season to Arsenal for loads of money and so my long term relationship with CM/FM was cemented.

After winning everything for a few years with Numancia, I quit in 2026 and looked for the perfect job.

I saw it. NAC Breda in the Eredivisie. I applied, interviewed and got the job.

Only then, did I see the situation. NAC were in the relegation playout, 2 points from safety. My next opponents? de Grafschaap. They were flying high in 8th place and had one of the league's top goalscorers in their team. The team above me, ADO Den Haag, were playing 6th placed AZ Alkmaar, which gave me some cause for joy.

I decided to use my 4-1-3-2 that I played at Numancia against de Grafschaap, hoping that it's effectiveness in Spain would rub off on me. I set the team up and sent them out. The game was barely 6 mins old when Enzio Sion, an attacking midfielder picked up the ball on the edge of the area and hit a looping shot that floated into the top corner. 1-0!!! We were level on points with Den Haag, level on GD+, but this wasn't enough to get us out of the playout. However, we dragged ourselves out of the playout on 19 minutes when Alex Schalk, my fulcrum in the attack, found himself free inside the box and he lashed high into the far corner, past the keeper's despairing dive. 2-0!!!!..

Joy was uncontained. We made it into halftime, 2-0 up. Den Haag were drawing 0-0 with AZ, which put us into safety. However, the cat was put well and truly amongst the pigeons when De Grafschaap scored with their only shot on target to date. 2-1, and we were back in the playout. Ivo de Vries, our main striker, was having an absolute 'mare. 4 times, when put clean through, he contrived to put it against the keeper or just wide. At a 5.6 rating, he had to go off after 60 mins. His replacement didn't do much better, having his shot saved after being put clean through again. However, AZ winger Menno Ackermans made sure that he wouldn't need to buy a pint in Breda for a while, as he netted to put AZ 1-0 up and left us back in safety.

I then commited one of the cardinal FM sins and went too defensive. And were punished on 89 minutes as the de Grafschaap striker netted from close range to make it 2-2 and put us back into the playout for go... WAIT! OBJECTION! Assistant referee was madly waving his flag. No goal! I was still in the lead and promptly tried to be a bit more attacking. THEN on 93 mins, a deep cross to the far post was bulleted into the back of the net by a de Grafschaap player. 93 mins, that was us done, we were in the playo... NO! AGAIN! The referee had waved it off again!! A foul, this time!! The reminaing minute passed so slowly and when the final whistle went, we'd stayed up by a point!!!

After promoting from bottom to top and winning CL with Ceske Budejovice in year 2134, I decided to resign and look for a new challenge. So I holidayed and applied everywhere. 10 years later I was still unemployed. My personal record of waiting for new a job was 5 years back then. Unbelievable that no one was interested in a CL winner coach. I had to give up the savegame.

In all fairness RadoN not many teams would be willing to hire a 150+ year old manager.

In all fairness RadoN not many teams would be willing to hire a 150+ year old manager.

In previous FM 13 it was no problem until 2252+.

Back in the CM2 days, me and my 5 friends (ages 15-17) would meet up at this one kid's house. He had the best computer out of all of us and so we'd load up the game on one PC and play altogether, that's all 6 of us, same pc hotseat gaming style. The chaos and fights that broke out when we'd bid on the same players were some of the most vivid memories I have from that part of my childhood, trying to outbid each other on average players just to spite the other... very good times.

We actually once managed to make it through a whole season that way, 2 of us had dropped out, the remaining 4 stuck it out all summer and finally finished the season, I remember being the only one that stayed up and that made the summer for me... later on we had network games so we'd lan party alot for fm, but nothing was as fun as those hot seat multiplayer fm games.

I remember leading ligaBBVA with 10pts ahead of Barcelona with 5 games remaining with real Madrid.The matches left were against teams far lower than us so I got a bit complacent,i would go to a match and just click on quick pick so that my assistant will select the team for me.Then I started losing and drawing matches.I lost and drew until we were level on points with Barcelona with one game remaining against Hercules.If we win the game we win laliga,simple.What happened next was unbelievable:

At the break,we were leading 2:0 goals by Jose Carlos Lopez and Gabriel Iancu.Barcelona were leading 1-0 at this time.

In the second half Hercules managed to score 3 goals in like 15 minutes.I tried everything to score an equalizer but to no avail,what made it worse was that Barcelona had drew with malaga.We lost the title and I didn't play fm for a year.

Best day in my Football Manager career is when i picked up my first copy of Champ Man 2001/2002. I like playing league management games at the time but there were all something like Premier League Manager or LMA Manager on Playstation. I got to Uni and my room mate had his copy and he showed it to me, it was like nothing i had ever seen with stats aplenty of every player playing professional at the time and the amount of leagues! In the inferior games you could only manage in the Premier League and the lower leagues, but on Champ Man you could manage in spain, france, italy and a whole lot more and that was intriguing. I went out and i bought my own copy of the game after my friend told me you didnt need a super computer to run it(i thought it did with the amount of stuff going on but my mate said all i needed for one league is a 133mhz computer). I started with Leeds as at the time they were on the cusp of becoming one of Footballs superpowers (how the mighty fall!) they had an amazing squad and they just needed a few players to take them the rest of the way. Suffice i will wrap it up by saying i failed Uni possibly in thanks to this game and its further Iterations (you give me a scare when you split with Eidos but now your with Sega and have a very successful computer game and what have Eidos got! they kept the name but the name is nothing without the game!) Yeah there have been some false starts (FM2005 comes to mind, came out in Feburary with the season half over and it had some many updates!) but i always look forward to early november in earnst as the latest version comes out and all my time is sucked away, (girlfriend has to poke me with a stick just to get me to come to bed sometimes!)

To be honest, there haven't been many stories to tell from my nearly 16 years of playing Championship/Football Manager, but to quote Julie Andrews, let's start at the very beginning...

Back in the late 90s, my dad subscribed to a now long-gone magazine called PC Review, each issue of which came with a cover CD. On one of those CDs was the demo for Championship Manager 3. One day, when my obsession with football was starting to flourish, I sneakily installed the demo on my parents' computer.

When it came to choosing which club I would manage in my first ever CM foray, I just picked a team at random. That team was Shrewsbury Town.

I was only eight years old at the time, so I had little idea of where my players were meant to go in my line-up. I knew that defenders went in defence, but not necessarily that left-backs should go on the left side, so I frequently played players out of position.

Needless to say, my debut at Shrewsbury was not a success. In my first CM session, we failed to win a single game on a pre-season tour of Wales, which I remember included a 3-0 defeat to Total Network Solutions. However, that first session took me well past my bedtime, much to my mother's annoyance! I had fallen for Championship Manager - hook, line and sinker.

Our fortunes didn't improve when the competitive matches got underway. We crashed out of the League Cup at the very first round, and after eight league matches, we were rock-bottom of Division 3 - with zero points.

I gave up on Shrewsbury after that terrible start, but it didn't put me off Championship Manager forever.

Since then, I have bought seven editions of CM/FM, and I am currently enjoying playing FM13 as my hometown club Romford. You can read about my progress so far on the FM Stories sub-forum.

I actually have to add a little bit to my previous story.

I was telling the wife about it today and I suddenly remembered something that I am actually quite embarrassed about thinking back.

I am not sure if it is the same now but back then houses had electric meters that you had to buy cards for and place them in the meters, I think they came in 5 pound cards, once the money was up you got 15 pounds worth of 'emergency power', once that was gone the lights went out until you put money back in, with that in mind .....

After 1 of my sessions I went to bed at 3am to which my girlfriend said "Have you finally given up then?"

I answered "yeah no more power left", she took a second to register this and then she went nuts, no electricity and she had to work the next day, no shower for her, no cup of tea, no piece of toast for her in the morning .....

Man what a real SOB I was ....

CM 96/97

Blackburn Rovers

Leonenko (SC)-Anderson (SC)

Wilcox (AML)-Ripley (AMR)

Le Saux (WBL)-Sherwood (DMC)-Basualdo (WBR)

Antonio Carlos (CDL)-Gamboa (CD)-Berg (CDR)

Flowers (GK)

I played a game with an old mate and we had an all-nighter (it was one of those where you could do a full season in 6 hours). I was Blackburn and he was Newcastle (with Shearer and Ferdinand unstoppable). We managed 2 seasons and in the first I won the premiership and then in the 2nd season I beat AC Milan in the Champions League final. He couldn't believe it (he was a traditionalist and preferred 442 so my wacky Louis Van Gaal-type formations were a bit strange to him! Ahead of my time perhaps lol).

I've posted this in another thread, but it's one of my favourite FM/CM memories.

I used to play quite a bit in the lower Italian leagues back in the late 90s-early 2000s. In one of my games in CM 1997/1998 if I remember correctly and after wandering around and a few mediocre seasons in the third and fourth tiers of Italian football, I ended up at Serie C1 relegation favourites Ternana. We had no money, a very poor squad and everyone expected us to go down.

We were pretty solid defensively but couldn't score no matter what or who I tried. Almost all our matches ended 0-0 or losing 0-1 and we were stuck at the bottom of the table, very close to relegation and getting sacked. I tried various tactics, instructions etc but there where games were we didn't register a single shot on target.

Times were desperate, so I decided to try a big central defender as a striker and see what happens. This was no DC/ST, just a proper DC with half decent heading and positioning attributes but nothing more, whose name sadly I can no longer remember.

And it worked! He banged in 14 goals in the second half of the season, most of them from corners, and we got a mid table position because of him. All we did was kick the ball in his general direction and he would make things happen for us. Every time we won a corner, I knew he would be in the right place and win the header.

I tried to do it again next season, but it didn't work at all so he returned to his usual place in the back four. However, midway through my second season there, my achievement of saving Ternana paid off and I was approached by Serie B side (I think it was Bari), I said yes and in the first transfer window I signed the goal scoring defender to reward him for his goals.

Ok this is weird. After a bit of research, I think the player in question was Cristian Stellini who stayed 4 seasons at Ternana and finished his career at... Bari! How about that.

When I was about 13 I was playing an early version of FM/CM with my friend. All was normal when I heard some footsteps walking up the stairs. My cat turned the corner and miaowed. He looked at me and then my friend. And then did a massive whizz over my bedside cabinet. Session abandoned.

Repeated failures as Gillingham: around 2005 I got the team to the League One play-off final. Within 30 mins we had three red cards and were 3-0 down. Chased the game. Lost 8-3. I didn't try again until approximately FM 2009. The team were rooted at the bottom of League Two with 15 games or so to go, but I got them to a safe-ish 22nd position with one game remaining. At 1-1 we were safe until injury time. My centre-back passed back to the 'keeper from 30 yards out. Unchallenged, my 'keeper stepped forward to claim the ball... and then just watched it trickle into the net for an unlikely relegation.

Flat-hunting on the outskirts of west London and being confused as to why I'd recognise a road name in an area that I wasn't familiar with. A little later it clicked that it was home to Wealdstone, the team that I'd been managing for three seasons.

Playing as Gateshead for so long that I went to see Gateshead play in real life.

In a really old version, signing one of the best (but most tempermental) players in the world on a free transfer but with a huge sum to be paid after he made 50 appearances. Sold him after 49 appearances and then pulled more or less the same trick to bring him back a year later.

Ok this is weird. After a bit of research, I think the player in question was Cristian Stellini who stayed 4 seasons at Ternana and finished his career at... Bari! How about that.

Is this the same Cristian Stellini who is now a coach? That's a wonderful memory. :')

Is this the same Cristian Stellini who is now a coach? That's a wonderful memory. :')

Yes I think he is/was at Juventus. What a legend

My FM08 save was probably the most fun I've ever had in a computer game.

I spent 30 seasons bouncing around various clubs in Europe - Velle del Giovenco, Carlisle, AS Cannes, FC Kobenhavn, FC Brussels, Lazio, SC Bastia (including some short spells at fallen giants Barcelona and Bayern Munich) without much success.

Five seasons at Fiorentina saw me take them from the C1 to the Quarter-Finals of the Champions League, mostly thanks to a hilariously prolific striker - 50 goals in 41 league appearances in one season.

Anyway, after all that, I ended up at KFC Verbroedering Geel, taking over a club that had just about stayed in the top division in Belgium. I scraped away for a couple of seasons to get some money and some decent players and got into Europe. Managed to stick around long enough to get my first league title in my 34th season. We took our second league title in my 36th season and got a stadium expansion in the process. The expansion was finished two days before probably the single-best moment of my time in FM - a Champions League group stage game against Spanish champions Alicante where we were 0-3 down after 25 minutes and came back to win 4-3 (a second-half substitute scored a hattrick). The final group game saw us clinch first place thanks to a 92nd minute winner. We ended up securing back-to-back titles and reaching the Champions League Semi-Finals.

I started playing Championship Manager in 1996. I was 10 at the time and now, 18 years later I have so many memories from playing the game. When I was 10, I had my appendix removed and after the surgery my brothers gave me Championship Manager 2: European leagues. I was so happy. It was a released by Eidos or Kixx, and had the Italian, German and French leagues if I remember correctly. Having won everything in England, it was time for a new adventure. Unlike Ian Rush, I didn't mind all the italians in Italy. This was the time when all the best italian players were still playing in Italy. Middlesbrough had bought Ravanelli, but that was about it. Vialli, Lombardo and Padovano didn't arrive in England until the year after, I think.

I had sent letters to Milan and Inter a couple of months earlier and received autographs and postcards, which was of course immensely fun for a 10-year old. I took charge of AC Milan, and with the likes of Boban, Desailly, Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta, Baggio and Lentini we dominated. One thing happened in that savegame, in 2008. A fella called Gaspare Paschetta appeared, a regen. I suspect it was Roberto Baggio's regen. Anyhow, this guy was class. He scored 157 goals for Italy in 172 games, and for me he netted a total of 1700 goals. I still remember his name to this day and when I had to play a important game, I would call my little brothers into the room and they would be chanting "Paschetta, Paschetta". And we would win and win and win.

I'm older now but still play a lot of CM0102 and various FM-versions. I still think of FM after a good season, even if I should sleep. A couple of years ago, me and my girlfriend had a row, and as I was going to bed I got my phone up and started to text. She asked who I texted at this time of night, still annoyed from earlier. I said I wasn't texting anyone, I was on the calculator calculating the average age of my newly promted, FA Cup-winning Crystal Palace side - the line up I of course had in my head. "So you're not thinking about earlier?" she said. "21, 73", I said. She laughed and told me she loved me - which of course was the least she could do - who would not love a winning Wenger gone Palace?

Then there was that time when my girlfriend couldn't find our dogs. I told her not to come into the kitchen. The look on her face when she saw me and the dawgs all wrapped up in Sporting Lisbon shirts and caps, waiting for a late winner over Porto in the UEFA Cup final. Totally worth it.

My darkest moment was probably when I was 12, managing Barcelona on CM9798 and took on R. Madrid. I had lost the game 14-15 times in a row and restarted every time. I added a new manager to R. Madrid, started the game with 11 vs 4 and won 87-0 while listening to Guns n' Roses. My computer crashed, either because it was telling me not to cheat again or not to listen to GNR again. I've played it safe since that and done neither.

Now do not even remember the first time I approaches to CM. It was 1994 and ...1995? I just know that I was kidnapped by that game, as they are still today after 20 years and an age not exactly youthful.

At the time there was only the English League, which even was called Premiership.

I had an antediluvian computer, too underpowered to play, and then I often went to the home of a friend of mine to help him with more teams matches. Many afternoons spent in merriment.

Having to describe all wins, losts, the joys ... the pains that during these years I got from CM-FM would not a book.

But perhaps the real best feelings I had when I managed to win with my Lazio its first European Cup (was still called so). Esultai so much, alone in a room, which my mother (I was living with my parents) are to see if they hurt themselves. And went away with the classic expression of disapproval. I think it's the situation that we are all incurred in recent years.

I hope that these feelings the will to live again and again over the next few years.

I have two stories, one a game that never materialised as the save crashed, the other was just a regular match in the middle of the season, but it was amazing. I will go with the latter. Below is the story as I posted it in the FM13 San Marino Challenge:

This is one of my proudest results in Football Manager history.

San Marino 4 (Nieuwenhuis 66, 90+3, Petrucci 90, 90+2)

Vs

Palermo 3 (Alex 3, Dybala 8, Nabih 37)

Palermo Flew out of the blocks and Summer target Alex dispatched a shot from the edge of the area to take an early lead. We were shell shocked and did not even have time to react as Palermo hit us again this time with a lovely ball in to Dybala who calmly finished to make it 2-0 in under 10 minutes. The game took some semblance of normality as possession football started to come in to play with Palermo maintaining most of the ball and the shots on goal. Eventually they broke us down again and Nabih hit a lovely shot at 37 minutes to seemingly kill off the match. We went in to half time well down in confidence and I was livid at the side with their performance but had no idea how to tackle the issue.

To say that we came out firing is an overstatement as the game hit a lull early in the second half, with Palermo now happy to sit on their lead, content that they had done enough. Our first goal came in the 66th minute through Nieuwenhuis who hit a poachers effort after the ball bobbled around and this didn't show me any signs that we had the ability to mount a come back. I needed to make some changes and fast, so Ademir was given a chance as Bonelli was playing poorly up front, firing blanks, while Borges was also subbed for Stahl in a surprisingly lacklustre performance. Bellotto was brought on for Bochini to try and get some better passes forward as opposed to making runs, which Bochini was struggling with.

Despite the changes, nothing looked like it was mounting as Palemo thwarted all our balls in to the box. Petrucci, who was not particularly having a good game up until this point, was a potential substitute that I was looking at but was I glad not to have made the substitution when the 90th minute appeared on the board. The midfielder, struggling to get good balls to the strikers, decided to head in to the box himself. Being the extra man in the area allowed him to make a run that went untracked until it was too late and he was on the end of a lovely header to score on the 90th minute, and make the scores 3-2 with only 3 minutes of stoppage time registered by the referee/ Palermo continued to remain defensive, happy to allow us range and to try and hold on to the lead. Petrucci, feeling good from his previous strike, took this as an opportunity and with a free kick on the edge of the area, decided to take a long range shot, this time driving it higher, into the top corner. Palermo were in shock, as just 2 minutes later the score went from 3-1 to 3-3. In the space of 2 minutes, Petrucci had turned the game on its head and sent the bench and Titani fans wild. I was ecstatic with the result, a draw with 2 goals in stoppage time, tremendous!

Palermo kicked off, with just seconds left to run on the clock, and looked downhearted at letting the lead slip through their hands. In fact, they were so shocked at the proceedings, that they failed to see a storming Nieuwenhuis running in on the back pass from the kick off. Nieuwenhuis' speed caught the whole match of balance as he got to the player when the ball arrived and won the challenge. All of a sudden, he was through on goal, one on one with the keeper, stoppage time all but over and the whistle in the referee's mouth!

He took a few steps and poked the ball forward on the floor as the keeper was still caught of guard with the sudden swing of possession, the ball rolling past the keeper before he could get down to it. the net rippled slightly as the ball crossed the line and hit the back of the net, the whistle blown just seconds later. San Marino had pulled of 3 goals in just 3 minutes of stoppage time football to register what may be considered the most show stopping finale to a game since the Manchester City v Reading ending for the Premier League title back in 2012!

I was in delirious celebration as the whistle sounded and run on to celebrate with the players. Though this was a regular season game, in the middle of the calendar, it felt like so much more. This was like a Champions League, a title... The World Cup. This was the best feeling in football. As the scenes died down over the next couple of days, I realised that we were no longer just a small club from a smaller nation. We were Serie A big boys, European contenders, and with the right stuff and performances like this, future champions! We were on a high and nothing is going to stop us until we reach the top now... Nothing!

At the time, I was trying to get in a few sneaky games at work during lunch, so was fairly subdued until the 3rd goal levelled the game. At the point of the third goal I jumped out of my seat, luckily being hidden by the desk dividers, a small little fist pump and a whispered yes!

As I was in the motion of sitting down, we scored the winner. I sprung back up, chair going down as my jerky reaction forced it to topple, and I ran around between the desks, hands aloft. I jogged down to a colleague who knew of my San Marino save and FM addiction and said something along the lines of "I have just won the best game of my life, come and watch". He and a few people came down to my desk and proceeded to watch the highlights, a small huddle of guys cheering on a San Marino side winning a club game, with no significance, in the year 2026.

FM 12, I managed Doncaster Rovers. The year was now 2020, and my club, Doncaster were playing in the Champions League Final - their first appearance in the competition after finishing 4th the season before, against Chelsea. Legendary striker Thomas Aggrey had given me a lead on the stroke of half time, and things seemed to be heading my way until the 69th minute, when my centreback and club captain David Bergmann was sent off for a professional foul. Chelsea didn't score the resulting free kick, so I felt relieved, only 20 mins left. 72nd minute, and I was down to 9 men, my left back (Magnus Pirie) was sent off for a second bookable offense. I subbed off two attackers for defenders in the hope of holding on, but it wasn't to be - Chelsea equalised in the 90th minute, and the game went to extra time. The Doncaster players were tiring, having worked hard to restrict Chelsea to just one chance in the last 20 minutes of the game (the one they scored from). I bought on 22 year old Daniel Soboljew as the lone striker- he could play centre back too, and was a strong, tall player who was great at long shots, signed as an 18 year old from Bury for just 150k. 119th minute, and I was still holding on, surprisingly having had the better chances in extra time. Then I had a corner. The ball was whipped in low, and Daniel Soboljew came running in from deep and volleyed in at the near post! I was ecstatic! I jumped up and the swivel chair toppled backwards as I did, a small plastic peice of the arm rest breaking off as it hit the ground. The whistle went as soon as Chelsea kicked off, and I had the most unlikely of victories.

I decided that if I ever get rich, I will turn one of my rooms into a fake football dressing room, and I will buy 17 Doncaster shirts (I already bought one after this), get the names of my best players printed on the back and hang them up for display.

not much of a story, but fm once nearly got me killed back in 2012.

Was playing fm on my laptop, carried it into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and in between me turning the gas on for the hob and lighting it my sunderland side concede a goal in the 80th minute of the champions league semi-final second leg, our first time ever making it that far, that puts us behind on away goals and i understandably got distracted.

Long story short, gas build up, i passed out, was luckily found a couple of minutes later when my dad arrived home from work and ended up having a lovely couple of days in the hospital as a result.

we have a winner!!!

Managing Ipswich I'd built them up to a Prem title contender, one season I was pushing hard for the title and just needed a win in my last game, cannot remember the exact details but I lost the title with 7 minutes to go! That was fairly annoying............

So the next season it again went down to the final game of the season, me vs Chelsea at my place, we needed a draw or better to seal the title.........we were 1-0 up with 82mins on the clock when they made it 1-1......ok o k don't panic..........then they go and score with literally the last kick of the game! Losing the title like that two years running was pretty tough to take!

Managing Ipswich I'd built them up to a Prem title contender, one season I was pushing hard for the title and just needed a win in my last game, cannot remember the exact details but I lost the title with 7 minutes to go! That was fairly annoying............

So the next season it again went down to the final game of the season, me vs Chelsea at my place, we needed a draw or better to seal the title.........we were 1-0 up with 82mins on the clock when they made it 1-1......ok o k don't panic..........then they go and score with literally the last kick of the game! Losing the title like that two years running was pretty tough to take!

Reminded me of: http://i.minus.com/ibrbOoRe6fTRMf.gif

=)

What made it worse was that Chelsea then won the league...............and my place..........