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johnireland · 04-04-08, 02:29 AM

Man have I been addicted to football manager sims. I can fully confess that this game has caused me to miss many an hour of my life and contributed to me not doing so well in school (supposed to be sleeping but was playing this game to all hours of the morning)

My first contact with a Football Manager sim was in 1992 when believe it or not I was the great age of 10. I had an Atari St (as far as I can remember) and got Championship Manager as part as a bundle package from Santa Claus one year. It really was not the hardcore football action I was looking for but eventually I came around to playing the game.

My obsession with the game was short lived and it was not until I got my first PC that I then rediscovered Championship Manager. Championship Manager 02 was released in 1995 and in my opinion rejuvenated the Football Manager Sim. It had a slick interface but most importantly, due to its DOS release, it was able to take advantage of a PC processing power. This game took up hours and hours of my life. I would sit down and be still sitting there for 12 hours solid playing this game.

This game was able to incorporate a detailed search engine and also for the first time a database worth talking about

In 96 Eidos released the first version of the game and with that came the name format we are all used to these days, calling the game Championship Manager 96/97.

Eidos brought the game to a new level and in my opinion with out them, we would not have the research and in dept knowledge in our current game. The Eidos team proactively seaked researchers to forward information regarding their own national leagues and with this information came a more realistic game.

The game players of the day loved it, to the extent that for the first time ever a Football Manager Simulator was now out selling games released for RPC like Sega etc.

Every year since then Eidos and Sports Interactive gave us many a version of Championship Manager, we had 97/98, Champ Manager 3 and 99/00 and 00/01, The later three were all released on the windows format which once again seen the game get more intense and more data loaded.

Championship Manager was now officially an established product in the gaming market and fans eagerly anticipated every new release. By the time the game had been released as a Windows version, Fans were now able to down load patches and update the game regularly. This once again added dept to the game.

2001 saw for the first time Championship Manager released on a gaming console. Although this was eagerly anticipated by the gaming community, it didn’t live up to expectation. The Xbox was limited compared to a standard PC of the time. The game on the Xbox lacked the dept and game play as users were used to on the PC.

The game continued to grow in popularity and in 2004 Championship Managers were hit with a huge shock.
After splitting from publishers Eidos Interactive, it was announced that Sports Interactive, developers of the Championship Manager game, had retained the rights to the source code but not the rights to the title Championship Manager, which were held onto by Eidos (who previously acquired the brand rights from Domark upon their merger in 1995). These developments led to a further announcement that future Sports Interactive football management games would be released under the famous Football Manager brand name. Whilst the Championship Manager series would go on, Eidos no longer had any source code, or, indeed a developer for Championship Manager.

Having been left without a publisher for its football management series, Sports Interactive teamed up with Sega and later, in April 2006, Sports Interactive was acquired completely by the publisher in a continuing trend of consolidation within the games industry.

The first game released under the newly acquired Football Manager brand was Football Manager 2005. Commonly known as "FM 2005", it competed directly with Championship Manager 5 from Eidos-funded Beautiful Game Studios
Fans of the game were left in limbo, do I buy Champioship Manager (the brand I am used too) or the new game Football Manager 05.

Like most I bought the two versions of the game and soon relised that Sports Interactive were the way to go. Granted Championship Manager had all expected from a Champioship Manager title but that was all they had. The brains behind the game were Sports Interactive and with Sega on board they had a reputale publisher to help produce and grow the game.
Football Manager was born. Football Manager has seen a huge following globally and with the Internet as a major driver, we have seen tons of sites for people to swap tactics or just discuse the love of the game

In the 16 years of myself playing Football Manager sims, I have seen the game grow and grow. The current game of today Football Manager 08 has been one of the best selling titles in the games history. It has also helped grow the popularity of the Internet forum and fan site and a lot of us couldn’t imagine not having a copy of the game to hand (granted not all of us have as much time to play as we used to).
I can put my hand on my heart and say that Football Manager sims has an intergral influence on me growing up.

If anyone wouldlike to download the original game for free and see for yourself how the game (and technology) has grown, hit the link below

Champ Manager - Downloads