Where did it begin for you?

Silver Stone

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Since I am old, I remember first playing Championship Manager 93/94 - the second of its name (Championship Manager 92 was the first and did have Maidstone in the league, but not real players - 93/94 was the first with real names).

I highly suggest giving it a try here - no fiddly downloads, you can play right here in your browser. Copy protection codes are at the bottom!

https://archive.org/details/msdos_Championship_Manager_93-94_1993
 

Techno Natch

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Will check that out.

My first experience of manager games was playing USM 98 and CM 96 with my mate. He had one game where you'd have to go and see the chairman. Good times, but I didn't really understand it. I think CM 4 was the first one where I really started to understand it.
 

AFCB_Mark

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Premier Manager 95 on the Sega Megadrive. First football management game I came across and without doubt the Megadrive game I spent the most hours playing. It had a sequel in 97 I think as well. That it was quite basic made it easy to pick up as a kid, but you could make it as basic or detailed as you wanted really.

Players were simply rated on goalkeeping, tackling, passing, and shooting to tell you roughly where they should play. The tactics was made up of picking from a preset list of formations, slotting your players in, and the overall strength of your side was than calculated for you based on the ratings in those relevant departments. Pick a setting for your style (long ball, counter attack, passing etc) and off you went.

Once you got into it you could start looking at the opposition formation and style before each game and try adjusting your tactics to suit. Matches were text based and you could play them in 'real' time or speed right through them. There was a basic transfer list you could buy and sell players from. There was a list of coaching staff positions to fill and a training focus to set. You could build and upgrade bits onto your stadium, And it taught me the concepts of profit/loss & credit/debt as you had to vaguely look after the finances, otherwise you got sacked.

Blackburn and Man United were the powerhouse clubs to start, but you could burn through a season in a couple hours, so quite easy to get a long term game going and get the divisions jumbled up. Job offers would come and go each summer if you wanted to jump club.

It got me into the genre and was a gateway drug for the more advanced and complicated Championship Manager and later Football Manager games. CM 97/98, CM4, the early FM games - all good stuff.

With a bit of googling you can easily find a Megadrve emulator for your PC and a copy of the game.
 

Aber gas

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Premier Manager 95 on the Sega Megadrive. First football management game I came across and without doubt the Megadrive game I spent the most hours playing. It had a sequel in 97 I think as well. That it was quite basic made it easy to pick up as a kid, but you could it as basic or detailed as you wanted really.

Players were simply rated on goalkeeping, tackling, passing, and shooting to tell you roughly where they should play. The tactics was made up of picking from a preset list of formations, slotting your players in, and the overall strength of your side was than calculated for you based on the ratings in those relevant departments. Pick a setting for your style (long ball, counter attack, passing etc) and off you went.

Once you got into it you could start looking at the opposition formation and style before each game and try adjusting your tactics to suit. Matches were text based and you could play them in 'real' time or speed right through them. There was a basic transfer list you could buy and sell players from. There was a list of coaching staff positions to fill and a training focus to set. You could build and upgrade bits onto your stadium, And it taught me the concepts of profit/loss & credit/debt as you had to vaguely look after the finances, otherwise you got sacked.

Blackburn and Man United were the powerhouse clubs to start, but you could burn through a season in a couple hours, so quite easy to get a long term game going and get the divisions jumbled up. Job offers would come and go each summer if you wanted to jump club.

It got me into the genre and was a gateway drug for the more advanced and complicated Championship Manager and later Football Manager games. CM 97/98, CM4, the early FM games - all good stuff.

With a bit of googling you can easily find a Megadrve emulator for your PC and a copy of the game.
Ha, you’re so old!
 

Habbinalan

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My first Subbuteo set was the flat celluloid figures, playing with the big ball.

images


I only moved on to the full 3D teams in proper colours and with more sensible sized balls when I went to the big school in the 1960s and we started a league to be played in the dinner break. Barrow played in the same colours as Chopper Harris and Peter Osgood's Chelsea.

chelsea.jpg


Never did get into Football Manager
 

Luke Imp

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I can't remember which CM was my first, but my first managing game was Ultimate Soccer Manager '98. Now that was a game!

There was also a Premier League Manager '98, or something. I can't remember exactly what it was called, but you invariably ended up building a new stand, only for it to be burnt down because of an electrical fault!
 

Techno Natch

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Premier Manager 95 on the Sega Megadrive. First football management game I came across and without doubt the Megadrive game I spent the most hours playing. It had a sequel in 97 I think as well. That it was quite basic made it easy to pick up as a kid, but you could make it as basic or detailed as you wanted really.

Players were simply rated on goalkeeping, tackling, passing, and shooting to tell you roughly where they should play. The tactics was made up of picking from a preset list of formations, slotting your players in, and the overall strength of your side was than calculated for you based on the ratings in those relevant departments. Pick a setting for your style (long ball, counter attack, passing etc) and off you went.

Once you got into it you could start looking at the opposition formation and style before each game and try adjusting your tactics to suit. Matches were text based and you could play them in 'real' time or speed right through them. There was a basic transfer list you could buy and sell players from. There was a list of coaching staff positions to fill and a training focus to set. You could build and upgrade bits onto your stadium, And it taught me the concepts of profit/loss & credit/debt as you had to vaguely look after the finances, otherwise you got sacked.

Blackburn and Man United were the powerhouse clubs to start, but you could burn through a season in a couple hours, so quite easy to get a long term game going and get the divisions jumbled up. Job offers would come and go each summer if you wanted to jump club.

It got me into the genre and was a gateway drug for the more advanced and complicated Championship Manager and later Football Manager games. CM 97/98, CM4, the early FM games - all good stuff.

With a bit of googling you can easily find a Megadrve emulator for your PC and a copy of the game.

I completely forgot those two. Brilliant games and actually they were the first ones I owned myself. I played them both a few years back and they were still really good.
 

Aber gas

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I completely forgot those two. Brilliant games and actually they were the first ones I owned myself. I played them both a few years back and they were still really good.
I might have to dig out the old mega drive and see if I’ve still got those games. Hopefully it still works:lol:
 

mente captus

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Karl-Heinz Rummenigge's Player manager back in 1994 on SNES :D

best manager game ever. Karl Kissinger were a fucking beast!
 
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I think LMA 05 of a friend's, but that I got and played the hell out of myself? LMA 07, followed by FM 07 in about 2009 (friend of Mom's gave it to me), from there I was a bit hooked even though I decided playing as Eastbourne Borough and getting spanked every week was a good idea.
 

Techno Natch

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LMA were great games too. It's a shame there's not a decent manager game on console.
 

Soup Ladle

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Premier Manager 1 on the Amiga was my first when I was 9 in 1992. The details of those games are well explained by a poster above.

One thing I will add is that you could change the players names, so having just learned swear words and other sexual references, I remember having a forward called 'sperm' a winger named 'sex', 'booby' at full back and a 'twat' at centre half. I'm sure I had a 'gay' in there too but it was probably intended as a libelous accusation about my brother. I was asexual at that age, naturally.
 

Bilo

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Well I was a late starter in these terms. Football manager 2009 it was. I remember starting off with Man United to give myself the easiest possible start (remember, this was when they were champions of Europe). To this day I have no idea why, I wouldn't manage United if you paid me to now and I hated them way more back then.

FM12 was probably the one I enjoyed the most. A Liverpool save where I in 2020ish managed to go a full season without losing a match in any competition, a feat I haven't managed since. It should be added though that while I always start off with a Liverpool save trying to win everything, I rarely get into it long enough to enjoy complete dominance (winning the league three years in a row and I'm done). So I suppose I could do it again if I really, really tried. Nowadays I usually set up different challenges for myself. I remember a Southampton save when they were in the Championship where I only bought british players full stop, that was good fun. Before the create a club-feature I created a club called Camden FC, started off in the back then Blue Square South and worked my way up. I don't think I won the title but I made it to the CL before the next game came out and off I went. Kerry Morgan pulled me through league, two one and did ok in the Championship for me on that save. Hero. Most challenges I set up for myself now are tactical, I like to imitate real life tactics. The only one you can't quite manage is Simeone's imo, because his use of wingers is scripted to be impossible in FM as wingers automatically cover full backs. It fixed the deep crossing bug, if you recall.

Aside from my own saves we used to have a more active current career thread back on TFF and smat with Darlington is pretty much the best read on the entire internet. I'll be forever grateful for that. And Kerry Morgan. Legend.
 
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Aside from my own saves we used to have a more active current career thread back on TFF and smat with Darlington is pretty much the best read on the entire internet. I'll be forever grateful for that. And Kerry Morgan. Legend.

No. THIS by Gulliball is the best FM career on the internet.
 

smat

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Aside from my own saves we used to have a more active current career thread back on TFF and smat with Darlington is pretty much the best read on the entire internet. I'll be forever grateful for that. And Kerry Morgan. Legend.
Ahh. The good old days. Can't remember if I actually managed to win the title with Darlington, but I do remember going to Real Madrid and spent about £300m (£130m on one winger) and still failing to win the Champions League. Dorchester was my real nadir, I think I spent 8 years in the Conference before eventually getting sacked in League One. I think my favourite was starting at Brackley and ending up, via Bolton and Burnley, at Arsenal, who had inexplicably got themselves relegated.

I think CM2 was my first game, and I went through many variations on the genre. Premier Manager, Player Manager, FIFA Manager, Ultimate Soccer Manager... I sure loved manager games. I hope I'll have time to try FM again one day, but my infant son takes up a lot of gaming time.
 

Bilo

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Dorchester was my real nadir, I think I spent 8 years in the Conference before eventually getting sacked in League One.
I genuinely feared for your well being when this happened. Always your friend and comrade, me.
 

Son of Cod

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Premier Manager 1 on the Amiga was my first when I was 9 in 1992. The details of those games are well explained by a poster above.

One thing I will add is that you could change the players names, so having just learned swear words and other sexual references, I remember having a forward called 'sperm' a winger named 'sex', 'booby' at full back and a 'twat' at centre half. I'm sure I had a 'gay' in there too but it was probably intended as a libelous accusation about my brother. I was asexual at that age, naturally.
Premier Manager 2 on the Amiga was my first when I was 9 in 1993. Pretty sure the picture on the box was Alex Ferguson giving a team talk to Wales? :lol: I think the player ratings were something like Fair (1 to 5 stars), Good (1 to 5 stars), Very Good (1 to 5 stars), Excellent (1 to 5 stars), Outstanding (1 to 5 stars) and World Class (1 to 5 stars). You had to start in the Conference and it was your job to not only manage the team but also sort out all the sponsorship deals and upgrade the stadium.
 

Soup Ladle

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Premier Manager 2 on the Amiga was my first when I was 9 in 1993. Pretty sure the picture on the box was Alex Ferguson giving a team talk to Wales? :lol: I think the player ratings were something like Fair (1 to 5 stars), Good (1 to 5 stars), Very Good (1 to 5 stars), Excellent (1 to 5 stars), Outstanding (1 to 5 stars) and World Class (1 to 5 stars). You had to start in the Conference and it was your job to not only manage the team but also sort out all the sponsorship deals and upgrade the stadium.


Almost makes me want to download an emulator and play it again.

That music :) My childhood is re-born.
 

HarvSFC

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I started with Total Club Manager 2005 before moving onto LMA Manager 2006 and 2007.

Then got onto the FM’s in 2010 and put too many hours into each one since.

My greatest achievement still lies in LMA when I won the Premier League with Newcastle with Roque Santa Cruz as my main striker.
 

dedwardp

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Premier Manager 98 on the Playstation was the first one I played, I used to skip straight to the results though and just whizz through seasons at a time. On the PC, CM4 was the first of the CM/FM series that I got with the big football on the cover. I think FM 2006 was the best one, I think it was the one after that where they made some pretty wholesale changes and I never quite got into them after that but I went back to FM 2006 a few times and started some lengthy careers again.
 

iesty wfc

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premier manager 97 was the first one i dabbled with. real player pictures and used the Actua Soccer match engine for 3d games - about 10 years before Footy Manager did it! :)

then i got into CM97/98 and from then on alternate years up to modern day
 

Smally

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Premier manager on the mega drive was my first manager game, it was 94/95 season and Duncan Ferguson was amazing on it.

On PC the first I played was Champioship Manager 96/97, I was fucking awful on this game with everyone apart from Juventus. Allen Boksic, Roberto Baggio and Del Piero all excellent
 

GFCSludge

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CM 97-98. I had previously played Ultimate Soccer Manager, but CM 97-98 was the absolute pinnacle of the Championship Manager series for me.

Playing CM/FM has given me a world of (useless) knowledge and a strong interest in the players, teams and leagues across the continent. I've never managed outside Europe on any version of the game, their "aperturas" and clausuras" and draft systems are too alien for me.
 

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