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. 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. Lowly Barnet FC had only been in the Football League for a year when I took the reins. Such a challenge represents my earliest and, in some ways, fondest memory of the series. Whilst reception was muted, you can see the foundations were already in place.Įverybody 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.
Published 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. So, join me as I take a look back at the Championship Manager years. However, the groundwork for the franchise’s huge and continued success was laid in its most formative period from ‘92 to 2004.