And a plucky young upstart in the field of football management simulation games emerges in the form of Championship Manager, ready to take on the Tracksuit Managers and Premier Managers of the world. Eschewing the graphical flourishes of its rivals – no offices with Venetian blinds here – it instead favours cold, hard statistics.25 years later, the series celebrates a milestone in 2017. Football Manager (the series was renamed following a split between Sports Interactive and long-time publishers Eidos) is pretty much THE only footy management game in town and, truth be told, it’s been that way for a good few years now. Premier Manager soldiered on for a few years before being steamrolled by Sports Interactive’s juggernaut; LMA Manager offered a short-lived alternative for console owners; Championship Manager became a completely different title, eventually living on through mobile releases only. However, the groundwork for the franchise’s huge and continued success was laid in its most formative period from ‘92 to 2004.

Win everything, get 20 stats for all players. NOT CHEATING. Added 29 Jan 2005, ID #5741. Ok, this is the best thing that I have ever done on.

So, join me as I take a look back at the Championship Manager years. Championship ManagerPublished by Domark (ask your dad), written in BASIC (ask your dad) by the Collyer brothers and featuring no real-life players, Championship Manager stood out from the crowd with an eye-catching match engine and the introduction of the average rating to the genre, meaning that you could now track the performances of your players over several games. Whilst reception was muted, you can see the foundations were already in place.Barnet, champions of EnglandEverybody loves taking control of their favourite team in any football game, but the real achievement in the Championship/Football Manager series is to be had by “running the table” – taking a team from the depths of the bottom league to the heights of the top league.

Such a challenge represents my earliest and, in some ways, fondest memory of the series. Lowly Barnet FC had only been in the Football League for a year when I took the reins. Regularly drawing crowds in the hundreds, rather than the thousands, the challenge couldn’t have been much more difficult, but through tactical nous and prudent use of my real-life football knowledge to pick up some bargains (I had a lot more spare time on my hands back then), I was in the Premier League within six seasons. Two seasons later, and just eight after playing Hereford United in front of 400 people, I wrapped up the Premier League title, and my love affair with the series was set in stone. Championship Manager 93/94Following the template of its predecessor, 93/94 saw a slew of iterative features added (including injury timemore on that later) and, more importantly, real-life players replacing the original’s fictional generated ones.

This was what set Championship Manager above its rivals and ensured it quickly became the management sim of choice. This was also the first game in the series to be developed under the Sports Interactive studio name.The formationAsk any player of the series in recent years about their favourite formations, and you’ll receive a plethora of answers covering variations of your standards. You know, your 4-4-2 with a holding midfielder, your 4-3-3 with a false 9, your 5-3-2 with a sweeper. But ask me as someone who played the series in its earliest days and there’s only one formation.

The formation. No full-backs.

No wide midfielders. A sweeper and two centre-backs. Three central midfielders and an attacking midfielder. Three centre forwards. I know, I knowit sounds utterly crazy, but it was absolutely unbeatable. It wasn’t uncommon to see scorelines of 8-0, 9-0 and even occasionally 10-0, as I dominated every game and every team I came up against. Sure, it got pretty dull, pretty quickly, but it was always fun to break it out every now and then and watch your mates’ faces as you rained shock and awe down upon them.

Championship Manager ItaliaEssentially a reskin of 93/94, Italia came around at a time when, thanks to Channel 4 coverage of Serie A, British interest in Italian football was at an all-time high. Therefore, the first opportunity to manage the likes of Roberto Baggio, Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini ensured that Italia was guaranteed to be a big seller.The last minute winnerI can’t even claim this story as my own, but I witnessed it.

I would pop round to a friend’s house every week to play his copy of Italia and, whilst I could hold my own over a league season, he would always find a way to sneak over the finishing line first. But when it came to Europe, we both struggleduntil the season. Having serenely sailed through to the semi-finals of the Champions League as Juventus behind the goals of Roberto Baggio and Ryan Giggs, my journey was cruelly ended in a 5-4 aggregate defeat when I came up against my friend’s formidable AC Milan side.

And so it was that I took a seat to watch him take on Bayern Munich in the first Champions League final that either of us had made. It did not make for pleasant viewing in the first half, as he quickly fell 2-0 down with Lothar Matthaus pulling the strings. But the second half? Well, that would become the stuff of legend. An early goal from Gianluigi Lentini gave him hope. A Jean-Pierre Papin header gave him belief.

And as Roberto Donadoni slid home the winner in the 93rd minute (sweet, sweet injury time), even I found it impossible not to leap out of my seat and punch the airno, you shut up. Championship Manager 2OK, I have a confession at this point – I basically didn’t play Championship Manager from around 1995 to 2001. I know, I know – but being in my late teens/early 20s as I was, I decided to adopt some of the social norms and give the whole “social life” thing a try. However, I’m nothing if not diligent so here’s a potted history of what I missed:In 1995 Championship Manager 2 was released. Whilst many of the gameplay elements remained the same, the best addition (and, by “best”, i mean “absolute worst”) was the optional audio commentary provided by Clive “I’ll find a way to mention 1966, regardless of who’s playing” Tyldesley. Championship Manager 96/97Champ Man 96/97 hit the market primarily, like many games in the series, as an iterative update.

However, 96/97 also deserves mention as the first game in the series to feature playable leagues in more than one country, with Scotland and Italy joining the fray. Championship Manager 97/98By now, SI were really hitting their stride and Championship Manager 97/98 – the last game of the Championship Manager 2 series – featured a total of nine countries with playable leagues (Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Portugal and Spain now added) and, more importantly, allowed for more than one league to run concurrently.

Championship Manager 3Championship Manager 3 was finally launched to huge anticipation in the spring of 1999. In addition to a UI overhaul, its main new feature was a big one – multiplayer via LAN and internet. Yep, no longer were you just exchanging stories with your mates and hoping they believed you (much like I’m asking you to do by reading this ahem). Now, you could actually involve your mates in those stories, providing the opportunity to gain those all-important bragging rights. Championship Manager 00/012000: In a real departure from their usual naming convention, SI and Eidos named their latest game Championship Manager 00/01. As well as the usual incremental improvements across the board, it was the first game in the series to include a full database editor.

Want to give Leyton Orient £100m? Want to turn Egil Ostenstad into the second coming of Pele? Then there’s probably something wrong with you but, sure, you can do that tooHowever, one entry in the franchise garnered so much positive praise that I couldn’t keep away any longer.

That entry was Championship Manager 01/02Representing the pinnacle of the series for many (so much so that the game was eventually made available for free, and dedicated souls continue to produce data updates for it to this day – in fact, I’m playing it again now!), 01/02 introduced the EU regulations on the Bosman free transfer system, attribute masking (strategy game fans may know this better as the “fog of war”) and a whole host of other features, players and leagues.