Championship Manager

[pineapple stu]

All stories here! Screenshots encouraged

Never really graduated from CM01/02 myself. UCD were a good team in that because there was a lot of good young players and you could actually keep them at the club.

Did have Alan Mahon score a cracker of a free kick in the Bernabeu to put us 1-0 up in the Champions League one year.

Think I had Anelka at Belfield Park too. Stayed one year, but was unhappy by the end of it and couldn't get him to sign on for a second year

[peadar1987]

Well there's this...

Some interesting things are apparently going to happen to Irish football over the next few years!

[nigel-harps1954]

Christ...do I really have to wait that long?

CM4 was more my thing. It was my first real introduction to the game having only played Fifa Soccer Manager previous to that, which was a bloody fantastic game too.

I've had a few Football Manager titles since, but CM4 was the pinnacle of the game for me.

[NeverFeltBetter]

I remember as a kid when 00/01 and 01/02 first came out, Ireland actually had a hell of team with the right scouting and tactics. The two Keane's, Duff, Given of course, but also Stephen McPhail, Derek Toibin, Martin Rowlands, Alan Quinn, were all way better than they were/would turn out to be in real life. I got to a world cup semi with them once (and a World Cup final with some save scumming...).

I used to play 01/02 with the Champman updates all the time. It was fun, but very open to manipulation, you could sign Messi for 25 million if he was in a slightly sour mood with Barca. I recall that the LOI First Divison had to have 12 teams because of the coding or whatever, so you had Tralee Dynamos and Dublin City in there. Oh, and with Limerick playing at Thomond, you basically had to get into Europe or else go bankrupt after one season.

The game generally used to always drive me bonkers with the long shot goals and the way you could get completely ****ed over by the in-match performance system effect on goalies. The kind of thing I would pick up again for nostalgia's sake, play religiously for a month, get very frustrated with, abandon for years, repeat.

[NeverFeltBetter]

Also, one my favourite CM related things ever, looking up the current crop of EPL managers in CM 97/98: https://thesetpieces.com/the-fm-proj...bosses-cm9798/

[peadar1987]

I remember as a kid when 00/01 and 01/02 first came out, Ireland actually had a hell of team with the right scouting and tactics. The two Keane's, Duff, Given of course, but also Stephen McPhail, Derek Toibin, Martin Rowlands, Alan Quinn, were all way better than they were/would turn out to be in real life. I got to a world cup semi with them once (and a World Cup final with some save scumming...).

I used to play 01/02 with the Champman updates all the time. It was fun, but very open to manipulation, you could sign Messi for 25 million if he was in a slightly sour mood with Barca. I recall that the LOI First Divison had to have 12 teams because of the coding or whatever, so you had Tralee Dynamos and Dublin City in there. Oh, and with Limerick playing at Thomond, you basically had to get into Europe or else go bankrupt after one season.

The game generally used to always drive me bonkers with the long shot goals and the way you could get completely ****ed over by the in-match performance system effect on goalies. The kind of thing I would pick up again for nostalgia's sake, play religiously for a month, get very frustrated with, abandon for years, repeat.

I had one game where my strike force of Robbie Keane and Lee Trundle, of all people, set the world cup alight. Richie Partridge was also brilliant in it, I seem to remember.

They also had that thing where guys could be "promising young players", meaning the dev team had pretty much no idea what they were going to be like, so they had a random value for their potential ability. Ended up with Wayne Rooney being a lower-league journeyman, and Richard Keogh being a marauding right wind back á la Cafu or Dani Alves.

[osarusan]

I only played one of those types of games ever, can't remember what it was called.

What I do remember is that I was winning everything for years on end, but was always on a tightrope in terms of going broke and getting sacked.

One time I saved the game, and next time I loaded it I got a message from the chairman saying I had 2 games to sort out the financial problem or I'd be sacked.

I loaded it dozens of times, getting the message from the chairman each time. I tried everything to get money in quickly. Sell players, reduce ticket prices, renegotiate wages, everything. But the main problem was that the next 2 games happened to be away, and I could never sort it out, and was sacked after the 2 games every time, until I gave up.

[NeverFeltBetter]

I don't recall CM ever being too buggy: the biggest thing that comes to mind is an LOI season I played once where it became normal for league matches to be scheduled every Thursday and Saturday, and injuries sky-rocketed.

[pineapple stu]

There was a couple of little bugs alright. Getting a LoI team to a European final was a nightmare; the final was two or three weeks after the end of the season and your players would lose all match fitness in the meantime.

I had a forward pairing on 8+ average rating, but they scored less than 10 goals between them all season (same issue for the rest of the team actually). So we'd regularly lose 1-0 with great ratings and you wouldn't know how to fix it.

[peadar1987]

There was a couple of little bugs alright. Getting a LoI team to a European final was a nightmare; the final was two or three weeks after the end of the season and your players would lose all match fitness in the meantime.

I had a forward pairing on 8+ average rating, but they scored less than 10 goals between them all season (same issue for the rest of the team actually). So we'd regularly lose 1-0 with great ratings and you wouldn't know how to fix it.

Yeah there was a bug with the game where all the regenerated players had really high positioning, meaning after a few years every single team had a world-class defence, and results came down to whoever was lucky enough to get the 1 goal of the game. There's a community patch that fixes that.

[Mr A]

There was a couple of little bugs alright. Getting a LoI team to a European final was a nightmare; the final was two or three weeks after the end of the season and your players would lose all match fitness in the meantime.

I had a forward pairing on 8+ average rating, but they scored less than 10 goals between them all season (same issue for the rest of the team actually). So we'd regularly lose 1-0 with great ratings and you wouldn't know how to fix it.

Yeah I had the Euro Final issue. Playing fecking Juve with a squad of players at 67% condition.

[NeverFeltBetter]

I recall the finishing stat was very overpowered back then, compared to everything else. Man Utd had a youth player, Daniel Nardiello, who started with finishing 20 at age 18 (and was a "promising young player" as I recall?), so if you signed him quick you had a 20 goal a year striker at once, and a potential Messi on your hands for the right training, for relative peanuts. The real guy is still playing, with Bangor in the Welsh second tier.

Does anyone remember Saviola too? I think 99/00 edition was the one where he was the new Pele/Maradona/Cryuff. Had to wait on that work permit though.

[SkStu]

I haven't played the game since I left Ireland in 2006 but this thread is giving me some laugh - lots of familiar names.

The only all nighters I pulled in university were playing this game!!

[nigel-harps1954]

Freddy Adu is my favourite memory

[Mr A]

Cherno Samba!