Championship Manager '93

Anybody miss the simplicity of the first Championship Manager game way back when. I still play it through DOS now.

Don't get me wrong the FM series has been great over the years and I've pretty much bought every incarnation and stayed loyal to the great team at Sports Interactive. I just feel that sometimes there is too much to get involved with nowadays. Like in CM93 you want to sign a player, you put a bid to the club - it's either accepted or rejected, next screen does the player want to join you if so then you sort out wages and it's a done deal. Or something like that.

No great involvement with finances at the club or really that much with training. I just don't always have enough time and effort to get the most out of it.

I love the new Transfer Rumours and News pages, great idea.

Just wondered what other peoples views are on the matter?

Cheers

Danimate

This is where it all started for me.

Bought the game after much umming and arring from Software Plus just before Christmas '93. At the time I was into the more graphical Premier Manager series, but read a review in Amiga Format and decided to get it. I won't say I was instantly hooked because I wasn't, I absolutely detested the game, I thought it was awful and so lent it to my mate to have a go at, and he loved it, he struggled at first but soon mastered it, he gave me a masterclass and I took those tips away and began playing it again and over time began to get hooked on the game.

Then over the following years I purchased the two add-on packs (CM94 and EoS update) which I bought from a small independent store in Basildon, enjoyed both of these although found the EoS update a little disappointing as it was impossible to buy foreign players.

If I had never had read that review by chance in that Amiga Format magazine, I wonder how long it would have taken me to pick up on games like CM2 and CM97/98?

Great days.

although found the EoS update a little disappointing as it was impossible to buy foreign players.

So true. That damn "Gary Lineker is not for sale" screen. YARGH!!

I do miss the simplicity!

I started with 99/00 when i was in 16 and i got my first pc, Celeron 400mhz with 128mb of ram and a 4gb disk. The glory days of Saviola, Riquelme and Aimar where your players went off injured if they hit more than 100 passes !!

Simplicity at its best. You chose your team based on their stats and picked your tactic and left it at that.

The next few years are going to be instrumental to the future of Football Manager. The game of football hasn't changed a lot since CM was created and there's only so far FM can go before it begins to mirror the real-life game too much and people become frustrated and bogged down in options and controls.

CM93 was great at the time, and yes, if you want simple NOW, you'd play that.

We look back on it as being simple, but back then when we were actually playing it, was it REALLY that simple? I'd be inclined to say that in it's day it was still quite a complex game to get your head around if you wanted to play it properly. There was a lot less choice in who you could manage and which players you could buy, but there were still win bonuses, finances, and tactics to keep on top of. That the match engine was so basic meant that you could essentially play the same tactic for every league/team and be successful. In my view, that's not very good

Over time, we've continued to push the boundaries of our brain power when it comes to sims and strategy games, and as such the games need to continue to evolve to test our limits. Give it another 15 years and look back on FM2009 and you'll probably be saying the same thing about it that you are now saying about CM93 You can say the same about the original Sim City and the more recent ones.

Or even more recently, the difference between The Sims and The Sims 2?

Ah yes...simplicity.

I started out properly on CM96/97 which i bought as a "classic". It came in the double cd case (even though it only had 1 disc).

My parents wouldn't stump up £30 for the 97/98 version, so i bought the older one cheaply and i have been hooked since!

I remember when there were no scouts, just the transfer list screen. And who can forget the background pictures. What a feature that was!!!! I will always remember the selhurst park photo.....i could never beat Wimbledon away for some reason!

Having said that i busted out 99/00 (or maybe it was 00/01 - the one with the red case) a while back. Although it was nice to whizz through i did miss some of the features i would class as mundane such as the media, protracted transfer dealings and the in depth player personalities.

Cm93 - so many memories. Ade Akinbiyi, Jason Kaminsky, Christian Vieri, Christopher N'Wosu....great players. Wonder what ever happened to Kaminsky (he was at Forrest in the game) and N'Wosu. I do love the newer FM games but if you want it a bit more simpler then you should try the PSP versions. Hooked on the new PSP version right now.

CM 97/98 was just awesome.

Cm93 - so many memories. Ade Akinbiyi, Jason Kaminsky, Christian Vieri, Christopher N'Wosu....great players. Wonder what ever happened to Kaminsky (he was at Forrest in the game) and N'Wosu. I do love the newer FM games but if you want it a bit more simpler then you should try the PSP versions. Hooked on the new PSP version right now.

Jason Kaminsky :RIP:

I kinda miss the simpler versions - i sometimes get frustrated with press conferences etc...

The thing about the press Conferences is that I don't want to upset any of my players by saying the wrong thing.

As for players I used to sign on CM93. Whenever I managed Luton I would always sign Kevin Francis. You were guaranteed at least 25 goals each season from him.

Tactics were so complicated

Heehee

(1010)

I say get CM 93/94 as it has real players. I have been playing it regularly recently, continuing my Man Utd game. I'm in the 2008/2009 season. My other save is Brighton and Hove Albion (home town), which I promoted up to a yo-yo Premiership club from Division 2. Nogan is awesome! That's in the late 90s though.

Once I played a game up to the 2030s, so about 40 years. Even the managers had all retired.

The European Cup is much more ruthless in format and competition, especially as the game starts only just after the ban. In the Man Utd game I reached the final in '99 or 2000 but lost it and thus The Treble to, yes, Bayern Munich. I won the Euro Cup finally in 2005, beating Porto.

Also I won the Premiership 7 times in a row after the first season.

Be fine with providing any screenie requests of pics for my 2008/2009 game, or perhaps the other save for any Seagull fans out there.

The Man Utd save has a couple of records gone before the last few seasons as I moved the save game from one comp to this one.

It works fine on XP, although for some reason it's stopped working now so I use DOSBox.

Happy, happy days back then!

My first CM was CM2 when I was 6, I played through as Blackburn and won the Charity Shield and League Cup in my first season. I still played it up until CM 00/01 because I wasn't interested in the other CM's. But after CM4 I lost interest because the 2d pitch added so much more to the series. But IMO FM has taken the genre to such dizzy heights that I don't think I could go back to the old CM's but I will always have the fond memories.

Anybody miss the simplicity of the first Championship Manager game way back when. I still play it through DOS now.

Don't get me wrong the FM series has been great over the years and I've pretty much bought every incarnation and stayed loyal to the great team at Sports Interactive. I just feel that sometimes there is too much to get involved with nowadays. Like in CM93 you want to sign a player, you put a bid to the club - it's either accepted or rejected, next screen does the player want to join you if so then you sort out wages and it's a done deal. Or something like that.

No great involvement with finances at the club or really that much with training. I just don't always have enough time and effort to get the most out of it.

I love the new Transfer Rumours and News pages, great idea.

Just wondered what other peoples views are on the matter?

Cheers

Danimate

I recently discovered the wonder of DOSBOX, where I can now run all the classic CM series on my Mac!!! Absolutely amazing piece of software.

Tactics were so complicated

well, 5 different styles, can't remember how many formations it gave you, not to mention being able to push people forward or backwards, etc...We probably didn't need to adjust them much to win games, but that was down to a lacking Match Engine rather than lack of options in changing things. Not complicated by todays standards, but back then, other games only had a couple of formations, and no mention of the various styles and no individual player "running movements".

Well obviously I'm comparing it to now. And obviously it was way ahead of anything else at the time, just like it is now.

But it was a much simpler time, and I don't know many people who failed at the game.

I was thinking not that long ago that a Symbian adaptation of this would be awesome as a mobile phone game. I'd pay for it!

I don't miss it in the slightest. I think it's great that I am currently living at the peak of technology and I believe things should move forward, not backwards. Nostalgia has a funny way of fooling people into thinking something was perhaps better than it really was. Yes I had fun whizzing through seasons in a couple hours, but now I crave depth and like to feel involved in my teams success, this is what FM gives me and I'm very content with it

I don't miss it in the slightest. I think it's great that I am currently living at the peak of technology and I believe things should move forward, not backwards. Nostalgia has a funny way of fooling people into thinking something was perhaps better than it really was. Yes I had fun whizzing through seasons in a couple hours, but now I crave depth and like to feel involved in my teams success, this is what FM gives me and I'm very content with it

toooooo right

I say get CM 93/94 as it has real players. I have been playing it regularly recently, continuing my Man Utd game. I'm in the 2008/2009 season. My other save is Brighton and Hove Albion (home town), which I promoted up to a yo-yo Premiership club from Division 2. Nogan is awesome! That's in the late 90s though.

Once I played a game up to the 2030s, so about 40 years. Even the managers had all retired.

The European Cup is much more ruthless in format and competition, especially as the game starts only just after the ban. In the Man Utd game I reached the final in '99 or 2000 but lost it and thus The Treble to, yes, Bayern Munich. I won the Euro Cup finally in 2005, beating Porto.

Also I won the Premiership 7 times in a row after the first season.

Be fine with providing any screenie requests of pics for my 2008/2009 game, or perhaps the other save for any Seagull fans out there.

The Man Utd save has a couple of records gone before the last few seasons as I moved the save game from one comp to this one.

It works fine on XP, although for some reason it's stopped working now so I use DOSBox.

I'd love to see some screenies!

Could you put up a premiership history, FA Cup history and perhaps the current 08-09 league table?

Here ya go!

Premiership:

I missed out by one point last season.

F.A. Cup:

Current league table:

We've been having scoring problems, I bought a not outstanding bloke called Flowers, hope he helps us! We usually have great form in the latter half of the season, thanks to me setting win bonuses.

I can never get a win against Torquay, always a draw. Grr.

Incidentally, England haven't won the Anglo-Italia Cup since 2002 (Chelsea) and England are rubbish in Europe (though we've done well), even the Cup Winners Cup.

Then over the following years I purchased the two add-on packs (CM94 and EoS update) which I bought from a small independent store in Basildon, enjoyed both of these although found the EoS update a little disappointing as it was impossible to buy foreign players.

There was one version where you couldn't sell players to foreign teams, as the number of available players playing abroad filled up with playrs from England going elsewhere at the end of their contracts, and you would only ever see more go if you bought some 'foreigners' yourself. No AI teams bought thm, as I recall.

Then there was the whole other problem you mention in a different version, where it ended up with 'too few' and wouldn't let you buy them. Can't remember which order these problems came in though.

Speaking of all this, remember your players would only go abraod when their contract expired, and you'd get a fee set by tribunal? Was exciting to see how much you'd get for them...

Then Jean-Marc Bosman ruined it all.

Mark Collis and Ferrah Orosco anyone?

One of the problems with the old CM series that used to irk me was your squad reaching its maximum size after so many years and not being able to do anything to get rid of players to free up a spot.

And even if you did finally get someone to retire or leave, a youth player would suddenly appear and grab the spot.

my view is that the game has got soadvanced the casual player will walk away.........

I have to decide if i actaully have the time / effort required to put the 'work' in - surely there is scope for a difficulty level?

Not saying it has to be easy, medium, hard but could be -

Coach - where you literally pick the side, suggest/confirm transfers, training overview (want players to increase in which stats and tactics (or again basics such as 3-5-2 with attacking wide players)

Manager - as above but with more detail

Director of Football (boo hiss) - micro manage everything!

This would please all camps as people could wizz through a season in a few hours or be a detailed as they like!

But hey who wants to live in a perfect world huh?

Ooo Aston Villa 2008 winners, game was close but 1 year off.

I definately miss CM97/08-CM01/02. They were fantastic games (nearly got me thrown out of A-levels/Uni...) I miss the times of 'to madeira'... Ronald Gomez, Assane N'Daiye and Chiotis (greek gk)

Its not so much the complexity, a complex game is fine as long as you can 'delegate' some of the bits to the assistant manager. The thing I find is that even if you could delegate a large portion of what you didn't want to be involved in to the AI, the game would still take a really long time to process. you basically be sat there watching the game churn through all the calculations.

I'd like a better holiday mode, where I can say what things I want to be involved in, the assistant deals with everything else. that way you'd keep the 'waiting to play' time to a minimum and fly through the seasons.

Thanks Ozzy

The Crazy Gang winning the league in 93-94

I remember Cantona, Lee Sharpe and Darren Caskey being immense in that game. I also remember Aldershot were almost always promoted to the football league at the end of the first season (conference wasn't playable obviously), either them or 'Windsor'- whoever they are. The European Cup format iirc was 2 groups of four after qualifiers, with the players in foreign sides being called 'No 1' 'No 2' etc

Happy days.

I can't remember how many seasons I had played on CM93 or CM94 but I was Luton Town in the Premiership and had the likes of Robbie Fowler up front, Giggs on the Wing, Gary McAllister in the centre of midfield. Wished I had kept a screenshot of it. Was quite impressive. I think it must have been about 1998-1999 by then.

I fully intend on taking the mighty Hatters to the top of Premiership in FM09. May take me a few seasons though. As long as I'm not in the Conference next season.

Mark Collis and Ferrah Orosco anyone?

On the Amiga? I kinda remember hearing about them I think.....not sure....but I think it was them

well i love how it gets more 'complicated' every year i love spending hours trying to figure out the best tactics for team and players. i love the financial side of the game and love how you can make transfer & contract negotiations as real as possible. if football manager ever became simple again i would probaly loose intrest because it wouldnt be enjoyable in my oppinion for a quick season with easy settings.

also i would hate it if they made difficulty settings that would really put me off fm if they did that.

Jason Kaminsky :RIP:

poor guy

I remember 97/98, was that the one where Middlesbrough were in Division 1 with players like Merson and Emerson.

Stockport also had 2 great players I would always sign at the beginning Tony Dinning and some other guy.

cm 1 was good

I put my immortal copy of CM97/98 into DOSBox, put DOSBox into DropBox and now I can play my CM9798 game whereever, whenever

I put my immortal copy of CM97/98 into DOSBox, put DOSBox into DropBox and now I can play my CM9798 game whereever, whenever

Awesome. Dosbox has to be the greatest invention the software world has ever seen.

One of the problems with the old CM series that used to irk me was your squad reaching its maximum size after so many years and not being able to do anything to get rid of players to free up a spot.

And even if you did finally get someone to retire or leave, a youth player would suddenly appear and grab the spot.

So does anyone know of a fix for this problem? Did one ever exist?

One of the problems with the old CM series that used to irk me was your squad reaching its maximum size after so many years and not being able to do anything to get rid of players to free up a spot.

And even if you did finally get someone to retire or leave, a youth player would suddenly appear and grab the spot.

On the Amiga? I kinda remember hearing about them I think.....not sure....but I think it was them

Yeah they were superhuman players in the lower leagues. Think it was a cracked version of the Amiga disks or something. I remember my first introduction to CM93/94 or whatever it was at my friends on his Amiga 1200 - we would both rush to sign them first, for Blackburn or Man U.

Sorry to bump this thread.

I still play this all the time and I have a few tips and tricks for anyone interested.

First off, the formation.

You will no doubt win the league if you go with the following formation

All central positions which makes it a lot easier when looking for players and you will need less players in the squad because you wont need 2 right midfielder's or 2 left backs for cover, which will keep your wage bill down. You can play wingers and full backs in the anchor or support position in particular if you have Giggs, he is an awesome support player and generally scores loads of goals from that position. This formation gets me promoted and wins me the title every single year, I probably lose about 2-3 games a season and draw about 2-3. I've even won the European Cup with a third division team once promoted to the premiership, obviously with this formation, you cannot go wrong.

Another tip is to purchase players that are exactly 30 years of age and are worth plenty of cash (the reason they have to be 30 is as soon as they hit 31 their value decreases dramatically). Once the season comes to an end before you click on New Season make sure you transfer list the 30 year olds at the highest price you can and then make sure you have insured them. Then when you go to New Season they will retire and you will get their value to spend in the New Season. International players are the best ones to buy, especially if you can purchase them at the beginning of the season before they're called up. This way you can purchase them for a smaller price then when they get called up their value increases and therefore you can then list them and increase their value further. Make sure you insure them as they will retire and you will get nothing for them. This also frees up numbers from your squad for you to purchase other players, be warned tho as most of the time you will find that if you have a small squad then you'll see a lot of youngsters come through from the reserves.

I've heard many of times "I can't purchase a player on the foreign market", this may be a bug to do with your save game but in general you have to purchase them pre-season, preferably in the first week. The reason behind this was due to the foreign transfer market being only open for a few weeks back in the day, iirc. Unfortunately, Gazza and Platt are not available for at least 3-4 seasons but you can get them after this. Depending on what version you're playing Nii Lamptey (Nil Lamptey) is an awesome buy and highly recommended. You may also struggle to purchase from the foreign market due to the amount of players in it. Make sure you don't purchase too many foreigners as you won't be able to play them all if you're in the European Cup.

Let me also get this straight, you all may have heard of a cheat where if you name yourself as "Mr Bulgaria" blah de blah de blah and choose Tranmere you'll be given over £34m to spend, well, in fact, Tranmere have this amount of money anyway. I remember seeing this cheat in all the Amiga magazines back in the day and it's always bugged me, lol.

This is a screenshot of Tranmere's Info in a Demo game (no added managers). '94 Updated Version

I won't bother going into detail about players to buy as this takes away the fun of finding a great bargain etc, but Ceri Hughes at Luton normally wants to leave to go to a better club and he turns out to be an awesome player.

If I can think of any more tips I'll post them up.

Btw if you are familiar with WinUae then this is probably the best way to play as you can use the Warp Mode feature to speed everything up including the data crunching when starting a new season.

I think 95/96 was when i started playing CM...or 96/97...and yes I think it had a lot more appeal to it back then. I have bought every version of Champ manager since then up to the first Football manager when i thought the last version of Champ manager wasn't holding my addiction as much so I left the game for a while. I came back on the second football manager release and found it okay. The last one I have found okay. This latest I have bought and played one season, getting promoted from scottish 3rd division to the 2nd and have lost interest already. I havent played at all for about a month or so now and haven't missed it a bit or felt those cravings to play that i used to. That desire to build a team and feel familiar with all your players, tactics etc. Building youth teams who go on to star for your first team...it is just far too much hassle now. The tactics are far too in depth for the casual gamer because these days I have to work for a living and dont wanna spend 2 hours working out what tactics work and what dont. I feel bored as hell when i play it now. Even a 3d match engine does nothing for me. Just a "fifa" type cosmetic lift to a money making machine...which is fine all businesses have to make a profit. But come on of all the changes you could have made for this release, removal of arrows going sidewards and diagonally...addition of decimal points in player ratings...

Looks to me that ideas are running thin and there is no more atmosphere in the game anymore. It has actually become a glorified spreadsheet and database where. People may say the tactics now are more realistic than ever before but how you can implement tactics with a slider bar is beyond me...put any worldclass computer literate manager in the hotseat for a game of this and I'll bet he wont have a clue how to implement his own preferred tactics in a match winning formula!

Sorry to say, but I do feel better in doing so, my long love affair with CM/FM has finally come to an end. Dont get me wrong I'm not bashing any developers for ruining a great, fun, addictive game, you cant always get it right for everybody. Its just a simple case of, this isn't for me anymore. And I know I'm not the only one (PCGamer 60 something %)but I also know some people do enjoy the later incarnations so there you go. I just think the latest FM is one step too far into a game of mundane statistics that bores the hell outta me!

As some of you already mentioned, I also play the CM93/94 game nowadays. And I must say, it is still lots of fun and still, after all these years you will find some new players who turns out to be good players. The settled players, like Giggs, Hutchison, Cantona and Shearer, are not difficult to buy, because you know that they will be killers.

But you have to play the game over and over again to find out what the good players are.

Maybe it is nice to compare with other CM93/94 players which players they often buy. My favourites are:

- Chris Bart-Williams (Shef.Wed.)

- Scott Houghton (Luton?)

- Ceri Hughes (Luton?)

- John Aldridge (Tranmere) --> old but good for goals

- Ged Brannan (?)

- Mark Pembridge (Derby)

- Phil Gray (?) superstriker !!

I always play with a sweeper, 2 central defenders, left-centre-right midfielders with the left and right one with an arrow back, a support man, and 2 wingers with the arrow back and one central striker. With Luton I got from Division 2 to the Premier championship in 3 years and every year with more than 100 goals.

I know that there are more good line-ups, but I think it is nice to compare good players with other people. So, what young players do you always buy?

Is there any way of running dos box on an Iphone?

I would love to play this on the go!

Chris Bart-Williams is keen on the move.

One of my greatest ever moments

That said, I wouldn't want to go back. As everyone of us could (0102 can be downloaded for free), I expect I'm not alone with that opinion.

Mark Collis and Ferrah Orosco anyone?

When reminiscing these to bolts of nostalgia will always pop up.

Cambridge if I remember rightly?

I remember 97/98, was that the one where Middlesbrough were in Division 1 with players like Merson and Emerson.

Stockport also had 2 great players I would always sign at the beginning Tony Dinning and some other guy.

Was it Aaron Wilbriham???

At that point in time the CM series got pretty much universally panned in the press over here. Upon having taken a look now I can easyil see why. On The Ball or Football Limited are really superior games.

Still, SI have come a long way since back then.

At that point in time the CM series got pretty much universally panned in the press over here. Upon having taken a look now I can easyil see why. On The Ball or Football Limited are really superior games.

Still, SI have come a long way since back then.

I still have that disc hanging about my bedroom somewhere, first Footy manager i ever played, i only played it a few times though as i Didnt have my own computer.