Copyright BackPage Press 2012
ISBN 978-0956497178
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover photography and design: Freight Design, Glasgow
Designed and typeset by Freight Design, Glasgow
Ebook production by Laura Kincaid, tenthousand creative services
www.backpagepress.co.uk
2.5% of the sale of this product will be donated to War Child, charity no. 1071659
This goes out to my brother John White, my co-manager in the glory days Neil White
FOREWORD
Miles Jacobson
Sports Interactive
Summer 2012
Sports Interactive have spent two decades creating and improving a game that has stolen the lives of millions but it wont stop there.
When Ov and Paul Collyer first started working on a game they called European Champions as teenagers they were football fans who wanted to make a football management game that they wanted to play.
When I first got involved with the studio 17 years ago, it was as a mate helping out a couple of other mates who made a game Id spent so much of my free time playing.
Who would have thought that 20 years after Ov and Pauls first release, wed have sold more than 20 million copies of the studios different games, played for an average of more than 100 hours by each person, every year.
It never ceases to amaze us how many people enjoy our games and the effect it has on them. Just like we were all those years ago, were still football fans making a game for ourselves that lots of other people seem to enjoy as well. We thank those of you who buy our games every day for allowing us to have made a career out of what is still our hobby!
Weve had musicians telling us how the game keeps them sane (or, in some cases, insane) on tour. Footballers telling us how the game has inspired them to do their coaching badges and get into management when their careers end. Weve heard how the game has helped people get through some dark times, as they were able to escape into a parallel world where they were managing a football team.
People talk about their games in the pub as though its real life. Our amazing research team around the world find great talent before theyve made their first team debuts and when people see them play, they know of them from FM.
We even heard people admitting that they only put money on Alan Dzagoev to score the first goal against the Czech Republic in Euro 2012 because they knew of him from FM with me asking them to donate some of their winnings to War Child, a charity that benefits from every copy of Football Manager sold.
So when BackPage Press approached us asking for some help for a book they were working on to document some of these stories, we were delighted. Especially as they too offered to donate some of the proceeds to War Child!
Its been a great 20 years. But this is only just the beginning of the story of Sports Interactive and our games. All of us at the studio hope to keep making a game that we all want to play for many years to come.
INTRODUCTION
Neil White
BackPage Press, Summer 2012
How one unjust sacking almost destroyed a marriage and inspired a book on the greatest game in the world.
I thought I was alone. We all did.
For years following the split of a turbulent yet triumphant managerial partnership with my younger brother, I had hardly discussed Champ Man with anybody. Those days when I would come back from university and the two of us would sit side-by-side in his room constructing a team around Ariel Ortega were long gone. I was making my way in the world, in a meandering kind of way, but my managerial alter-ego remained a secret identity. My finest hour, when Stirling Albion won the League Cup out of the Third Division and my statue was erected outside Forthbank, was one I did not feel able to share.
Shortly after the epoch-defining front two of Barry Elliott and Scott McLean took Stirling to Hampden, I got a job on the sports desk of The Sunday Times Scotland and realised that I was not alone.
Of the five writers on the desk, only one did not play and that was because he feared that once he loaded the game up, there was every chance he would go native. He was absolutely right, but part of me still regrets never seeing that sprawling database and the spiders web of cause-and-effect decision-making overload this fastidious football mind. I imagine him degenerating into something like Martin Sheen in the final reel of Apocalypse Now, except instead of Marlon Brando, his deranged quest would be for Maxim Tsigalko.
The rest of us would talk about the game we were in: me scratching out a reputation in the lower leagues, trying to earn the Falkirk job I cherished, not walk into it; them throwing money around at Rangers, Celtic and Liverpool. Then, one day, the chief football writer, lets call him Douglas Alexander, told me this story.
His pregnant wife returns home from work to find her husband sitting at the breakfast bar in his kitchen, in his suit. His work laptop is open in front of him. His head is in his hands. She asks him what is wrong.
I cant believe it. Theyve sacked me.
What? How? Why? But were going to have a family! What are we going to do?
What? Wait no its OK, I mean its Liverpool. Theyve sacked me. Im second in the league and still in Europe, but we got beat 40 off Everton. Its not fair.
Incredibly, Dougies marriage survived that derby defeat dismissal and baby David is almost old enough to co-manage Liverpool with his old man.
Hearing Dougies confession, I began to wonder how many more stories were out there. How many lives had been... whats the right word? Touched? Stunted? Destroyed? by this most immersive of games?
At every turn in the production of this book, somebody else told us their story: the gamers who sent in their tales, some of which appear in these pages; the Champ Man/FM legends who confessed to signing themselves for Barcelona or Manchester United; the guy on the seat next to BackPage Press on the train to the launch of Graham Hunters Barcelona book; Andrew and Adrian, at Freight, who designed this book. That pair once spent an Edinburgh-Glasgow train ride discussing strategy for their matches, in character of course. At the end of the line, the lady across from them said: My son is a footballer, he just got released by Hearts and hes been training with East Fife. What team do you manage? Andrew and Adrian, faced with the choice of confessing to their delusions or staying with the story, made the right call. Im at Aberdeen, hes St Mirren.
