Who remembers the Championship Manager strategy guides?

[BARNESDON]

I’m just curious about a particular edition where it gave examples of players bought and how they got on as Leicester City?

I think I can remember them signing a Swedish winger called Karlsson? 

Does anyone recall what edition of CM this was? 
I’m just trying to work out how long I’ve been playing this game for. 

[Johnny Ace]

41 minutes ago, BARNESDON said:

Does anyone recall what edition of CM this was? 
 

Pretty sure I had it and it was for CM 00/01

Kallstrom was a hit in 01/02 so maybe it was that one 

[BARNESDON]

5 minutes ago, Johnny Ace said:

Pretty sure I had it and it was for CM 00/01

Kallstrom was a hit in 01/02 so maybe it was that one 

Yeah Kallstrom was the guy, cheers!

 

Lots of FM podcasts seem to ask where your FM journey began so I thought I’d try and work out mine.

 

when did everyone else start start FM? 

[XaW]

Here is where I started:

Been playing ever since, and I think I have all versions of CM/FM since then. Probably still got the CDs somewhere, Steam only has back to FM09...

[Johnny Ace]

Mine was the Championship Manager 1994 end of season update version, I know that because it was the one with Mark Collis and Fereh Orosco. We didn't have a clue who they were but signed them every save  We then spent the summer holiday absolutely hooked 

Your best players just auto transferred to the foreign leagues at the end of the season and players in foreign leagues were nigh on impossible to sign. The only one I ever managed to get was Gazza and he phenomenal 

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

1982 for me on my good old zx spectrum 48k LOL! In fact it was probably 1983 by the time I got my hands on this. I was 10 / 11 years old and hooked on football management games for life.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Manager_(1982_video_game)

Edited July 3, 2023 by \'Appy \'Ammer

[Feddo]

Championship manager 2. With only the English and Scottish leauge playable, I just found out there where more options 😅. I also played a lot of fifa manager back then, with Bobby Robson on the cover. 

 

Another milestone was the inclusion of playable Scottish leagues, albeit only in the PC version. For the first time in the series there was a selection of leagues to choose from at the start of the game - only one could be run at a time, however.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Feddo

[BARNESDON]

On 03/07/2023 at 11:13, XaW said:

Here is where I started:

Been playing ever since, and I think I have all versions of CM/FM since then. Probably still got the CDs somewhere, Steam only has back to FM09...

Class! 

[BARNESDON]

It’s amazing to think back as to how technology has advanced since these games in the 90’s.

I recall playing Kevin Keegan and a console, maybe a sega mega drive or Nintendo, saved and reloaded a lot in that tbf.

[phd_angel]

All I remember is setting prices for tickets, hamburgers and drinks, and main clubs of choice were in the second or third English division (or maybe my cousins liked to start there). Not even 2D simulation, we just saw the half-time score, made subs, and then the final score. 

 

[Charly]

I had the first Championship Manager on the Amiga, where all of the players were randomly generated, and you had to wait 15 minutes for the vidiprinter between matches. It worked its way around my year at school. The consensous was that it was the best football manager game. I still loved Player Manager because of the match engine, but that had massive limitations, where CM simulated a proper league setup.

Also had the killler 2-3-5 formation. You could just get a bunch of 16 year olds with good pace/passing/shooting/tackling, and murder the opposition in the bottom division. By the time you got to the top they will have developed into superstars

[Junkhead]

I remember the Championship Manager magazines, and distinctly remember a couple of articles which happened to be about clubs I had managed in that version.  One was a tactic for Southend, the other a rebuild of Hereford United.

Would love to have a look again - anyone know if these have been uploaded somewhere online?

[oche balboa]

First management game i played was Kevin Keegan's Player Manager back in 93/94. Then Premier Manager on the mega drive. Started playing Championship Manager in 1998. 

[GuitarMan]

I've been playing since CM2 97/98 - every version since through CM and FM (even the short lived FML)... can't see myself stopping anytime soon - I get too many hours worth of joy from it. 

[Charly]

I remember the original football manager on the c64. It was pretty naff even by the standards of the day. It wasnt until the 16 bit computers that decent games started to come out. I remember having Premier Manager which was decent. The Manager which was ok. Player Manager which i loved because you could export your team into kick off 2, and the match engine was quite fun to watch. Championship Manager kinda blew them all away though. It was completely minimal in terms of graphics, but went harder into stats  and spreadsheets. And the text match commentary made you have to imagine what was going on.

 

Bit of a jump in realism since then. I wonder what football manager 2063 will be like? You can knock up your leftbacks missus in proper VR, choose which Swiss bank to hide your earnings, or maybe pay a cartel to kidnap those annoying agents, and lop a finger off every time one of my lovely contract offers gets rejected.

[Arijit]

On 03/07/2023 at 04:03, BARNESDON said:

Yeah Kallstrom was the guy, cheers!

Arsenal legend. Won us the FA Cup in 2014.

[Pafnus]

On 03.07.2023 at 16:50, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

1982 for me on my good old zx spectrum 48k LOL! In fact it was probably 1983 by the time I got my hands on this. I was 10 / 11 years old and hooked on football management games for life.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Manager_(1982_video_game)

Wow i did not know this.. too goodd

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

On 10/07/2023 at 21:24, Charly said:

It was pretty naff even by the standards of the day.

Don't knock the 3d match highlights. 

[Johnny Ace]

4 hours ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

Don't knock the 3d match highlights. 

That looks awesome for 1982! I'm sure I brought that on the app store maybe 10 years ago, don't think I ever played it

[kevhamster]

On 03/07/2023 at 11:30, Johnny Ace said:

Mine was the Championship Manager 1994 end of season update version, I know that because it was the one with Mark Collis and Fereh Orosco. We didn't have a clue who they were but signed them every save  We then spent the summer holiday absolutely hooked 

Your best players just auto transferred to the foreign leagues at the end of the season and players in foreign leagues were nigh on impossible to sign. The only one I ever managed to get was Gazza and he phenomenal 

I'm pretty sure mine was the same.  I managed to win multiple Premier League titles in a row with Sheffield Wednesday.  Chris Bart-Williams was an absolute beast.

[kevhamster]

On 05/07/2023 at 16:21, BARNESDON said:

It’s amazing to think back as to how technology has advanced since these games in the 90’s.

I recall playing Kevin Keegan and a console, maybe a sega mega drive or Nintendo, saved and reloaded a lot in that tbf.

Kevin Keegan's Player Manager on the SNES?  With the match engine based on a shonky version of Kick Off 2?  I sank many hours into that myself.  The menu music was burned into my brain for years lol.

[kevhamster]

On 10/07/2023 at 21:24, Charly said:

I remember the original football manager on the c64. It was pretty naff even by the standards of the day. It wasnt until the 16 bit computers that decent games started to come out. I remember having Premier Manager which was decent. The Manager which was ok. Player Manager which i loved because you could export your team into kick off 2, and the match engine was quite fun to watch. Championship Manager kinda blew them all away though. It was completely minimal in terms of graphics, but went harder into stats  and spreadsheets. And the text match commentary made you have to imagine what was going on.

 

Bit of a jump in realism since then. I wonder what football manager 2063 will be like? You can knock up your leftbacks missus in proper VR, choose which Swiss bank to hide your earnings, or maybe pay a cartel to kidnap those annoying agents, and lop a finger off every time one of my lovely contract offers gets rejected.

I remember Premier Manager on the Mega Drive.  If you won the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup in the same season, you'd get offered the England job and if you accepted the game would just end as there was no actual international management in the game!

[Johnny Ace]

3 minutes ago, kevhamster said:

I'm pretty sure mine was the same.  I managed to win multiple Premier League titles in a row with Sheffield Wednesday.  Chris Bart-Williams was an absolute beast.

Sheff Wed were great in that CM, is that who Paul Warhurst was at and could play in every position up the middle?

[kevhamster]

2 minutes ago, Johnny Ace said:

Sheff Wed were great in that CM, is that who Paul Warhurst was at and could play in every position up the middle?

I think he was at Blackburn by then, but it may not have been reflected in the version of the game I had.  I can't remember for sure, I just remember Bart-Williams being an absolute goal machine, along with Mark Bright!

[BARNESDON]

On 09/07/2023 at 07:06, Junkhead said:

I remember the Championship Manager magazines, and distinctly remember a couple of articles which happened to be about clubs I had managed in that version.  One was a tactic for Southend, the other a rebuild of Hereford United.

Would love to have a look again - anyone know if these have been uploaded somewhere online?

I had a Google and found one on Amazon to buy. Not online though. 

[Johnny Ace]

49 minutes ago, kevhamster said:

I think he was at Blackburn by then, but it may not have been reflected in the version of the game I had.  I can't remember for sure, I just remember Bart-Williams being an absolute goal machine, along with Mark Bright!

Nil Lamptey was almost a cheat mode, for some reason, one of the early database cock ups 

[davehanson]

Right from CM the original for me. I went in the shop to buy Birds of Prey for the Amgia (I did buy it a few months later) - came out with Championship Manager. Returned it 3 days later as I couldn't get it working - the guy in the shop asked if I had formatted the floppy discs as it said to - oops.

 

Versions blur into one for me - but things that stick out:

 

Around an hour to set up the game on the Amiga when it first came out.

CM Italia - awesome, being able to manage the likes of Baggio and Batistuta

Whichever version had the Diablo tactic. CM with arrow right forward to the strikers - unbeatable tacitc.

Freddy Adu being god-like

Losing my GF at the time as I played too much CM 

Had a mate at school who got signed for Northampton - signing him and watching him become a not very good player

 

Ah, memories. 

[Charly]

3 hours ago, kevhamster said:

Kevin Keegan's Player Manager on the SNES?  With the match engine based on a shonky version of Kick Off 2?  I sank many hours into that myself.  The menu music was burned into my brain for years lol.

I think I may have actually cried when I bought player manager 2 and saw it was completely changed from the original.

 

Kick Off 2 is still the greatest fooball game ever made.

[Johnny Ace]

3 hours ago, Charly said:

Kick Off 2 is still the greatest fooball game ever made.

Better than SWOS?

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

6 hours ago, kevhamster said:

I remember Premier Manager on the Mega Drive.  If you won the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup in the same season, you'd get offered the England job and if you accepted the game would just end as there was no actual international management in the game!

That's hilarious 😂😂

[Charly]

In my option, Kick Off 2 was better than SWOS.

I think Sensi was all a bit too easy. It took a fair amount of skill to play Kick Off 2 well. Having to actually control the ball when you ran, and hitting a pass on the run was also quite tricky... It was all too easy to slice the ball straight into the stands... just like in real life. Sensi you could knock it around like Dutch in the 70s after about 10 minutes. The pitch felt a bit bigger too.

I also liked that I could import my PM team in, and tactics too. I felt that it always gave me an edge over my friends. I used to save scum the season endings to make sure I had a top class intake the following year so I ended up with a team that was as good as or better than the international sides in KO2.

The tactics editor (in PM) allowed you to place players specifically depending where the ball was on the pitch (which is probably better than the FM tactics editor imho), which made it easy to exploit players with high stamina and pace. You could position people exactly on the corners too.

Of course all my mates emmigrated to Sensi when it came out. I would still kick their arses on Speedball 2 though.. Super Nashwan aint got nothin'...

[gunnerfan]

My first was CM3, after having played USM. I bought every new game until around FM11, the I went to every other year until FM13. Been a regular ever since.