Author: Chris Fuller

Day 1 on a new Football Manager save

Published on by Chris Fuller

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You’ve bought and installed Football Manager. You’ve downloaded all those graphics mods and name fixes that Sports Interactive definitely don’t want you to use. You’ve kissed your partner goodbye and fed the cat…

…and now you’ve started a brand new save and added yourself as manager of your chosen club. What’s next?

Starting a new FM save can be daunting, especially if you’re new to the series. It can feel like there are hundreds of things to do before you even get into your first match. But if you take the time to set everything up just how you want to, you can get your save off to a strong start – and possibly save time in the long run.

Using my Millwall save on Football Manager 2024, I will give you some tips on what to do on the first day of a brand-new career, before you click ‘Continue’ for the first time. Continue reading “Day 1 on a new Football Manager save” →

Blog Update #7

Published on by Chris Fuller

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So long, Football Manager 2023. I would say it’s been a blast, but… well… it hasn’t.

It’s time for the traditional Fuller FM autumn blog update. As I usually do at this time of year, I’m going to summarise my thoughts on FM23 and round up everything I’ve posted on this here blog over the past 12 months. I’ll also reveal my plans for Football Manager 2024 – the very last Football Manager of its kind. Continue reading “Blog Update #7” →

Championship Manager Magazine: The Cover CDs

Published on by Chris Fuller

Did you know that there used to be an official magazine dedicated to Championship Manager and Football Manager?

Two decades ago, Sports Interactive teamed up with Future Publishing to produce a series of magazines about the game we all know and love, selling it in various retailers across the UK. Future was (and still is) a British multimedia giant behind many successful publications, such as PC Zone and FourFourTwo.

The first issue of Championship Manager Magazine was released in October 2002 and included loads of screenshot and feature reveals about the newly-announced Championship Manager 4. Another four issues were published throughout 2003, featuring plenty of content for anyone who enjoyed CM4 and its sequel – Championship Manager 03/04.

Championship Manager as we knew it became Football Manager in 2004, when SI split up with Eidos and shacked up with SEGA. That year saw three issues of Football Manager Magazine hit the shelves, building up to the release of Football Manager 2005. Sadly, the magazine series was cancelled shortly afterwards.

I collected every issue and still have them all… but they are currently boxed up, in anticipation of a house move that has (for now) been put on hold. I’d like to learn how to scan these magazines and archive them for posterity one day, but that will have to wait.

Each magazine also came with a CD, which included various programs, utilities and tactics for CM fans to enjoy – and a few other goodies to boot. Unfortunately, it appears that nobody has archived them online… until now.

Earlier this month, I uploaded all eight of these CDs onto the Internet Archive. The archive boasts “the largest vintage and historical software library in the world”, which includes cover discs from various other computer magazines.

You can find links to all those files below. These can be downloaded as ISO images and then ‘mounted’ onto a virtual CD drive. If you’re running Windows 8.1 or later, you only need to double-click on an ISO file to mount it. If you’re running Windows 7 or earlier, you’ll need to use a third-party program such as WinCDEmu.

Continue reading “Championship Manager Magazine: The Cover CDs” →

Fake Players in Football Manager

Published on by Chris Fuller

I once had a Western Digital hard drive sitting on the shelf above my desk. This came from the old Fuller family computer – a 1999 Viglen, on which I would spend a lot of time playing Championship Manager during my youth. When the Viglen died in 2010, I kept the hard drive.

A few years later, I tried to recover the data from the drive myself, only to be met by a load of lovely clicking sounds (not a good sign). Defeated, I reluctantly put it back on the shelf, where it gathered dust for the best part of a decade.

Earlier this year, I finally sent the drive off to a professional data recovery service. After waiting several months for them to find the right replacement parts, I was delighted when they brought my data back to life with a complete recovery! My old CM saves live on!

Anyway, while going through my CM archive and reliving my teenage memories, I stumbled across one particular save file from Championship Manager 00/01. This was a save file where all the real-life players were replaced with fake versions of themselves – goodbye Alessandro Del Piero, hello Federico Longo.

And this took me down a rabbit hole, into Championship Manager (and Football Manager)’s fiction factory… Continue reading “Fake Players in Football Manager” →

Looking Ahead To Football Manager 2024 (And 2025)

Published on by Chris Fuller

It’s fair to say that, for some people, Football Manager 2023 has not lived up to expectations.

Despite record sales, FM23 received plenty of criticism over its lack of exciting new features, and Sports Interactive’s apparent reluctance to fix some long-standing bugs. Long-time players, including myself, have begun to wonder if the series is stagnating.

But good news is on the way! Last week, SI put out a lengthy blog post in which studio director Miles Jacobson discussed “The Future of Football Manager”. This development update gives us some exciting details about Football Manager 2024, which will be released later this year… and even gives us a taste of what we can expect in Football Manager 2025!

So, what do the next 18 months have in store for us FMers? Continue reading “Looking Ahead To Football Manager 2024 (And 2025)” →

My thoughts on Football Manager 2023

Published on by Chris Fuller2 Comments

I should probably have got round to this by now, shouldn’t I?

Hey there, folks. It has now been five months since Football Manager 2023 was released, and so much has happened during its life cycle. On a personal level, my dad had cancer surgery, my old computer slowly died on me, and I’ve been getting ready to move 150 miles across the country. It’s not been much fun.

And what about FM23 itself? Well… that’s not been much fun either.

During the beta, I started a short-term save with Real Betis (which I wrote about on Twitter), but playing the game was such a frustrating experience that I abandoned it a few weeks after the full release. I’ve dabbled in a few test saves since then, but I only got into playing the game ‘properly’ again after the Winter Update came out early last month.

So, at long last, here are my thoughts about the latest installment of Sports Interactive’s football management simulation. Is this a genuine upgrade on FM22, or is it a season update too far? Continue reading “My thoughts on Football Manager 2023” →

Breaking FM: The Longest Season – Part 2

Published on by Chris Fuller

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Welcome back to Breaking FM, where my aim is to take Football Manager 2023 to the limits – and see how it can cope with extreme (and extremely unrealistic) situations.

For the first experiment of this series, I will find out what happens if a team in the English league system played the maximum number of games in a single season. This includes ALL league games, play-offs, cup ties (including replays), and even European and intercontinental fixtures!

The club I have chosen for this experiment is Dagenham & Redbridge. In Part 1, I explained how the experiment would work, which involved beefing up the Daggers squad, and giving them two seasons to qualify for every possible competition, so that their 2024/2025 season can become the longest one ever.

But Part 2 is where the fun really happens! In this post, I will go through the entire 2024/2025 season, in which the Daggers are aiming to play 99 games of football. We’ll see if FM23 can cope with scheduling so many matches, or if it will all fall to pieces… Continue reading “Breaking FM: The Longest Season – Part 2” →

Breaking FM: The Longest Season – Part 1

Published on by Chris Fuller

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Welcome to the first installment of a brand new mini-series here on Fuller FM.

In Breaking FM, I will be pushing Football Manager to its limits, seeing how well (or otherwise) the game handles extreme scenarios. I’m not sure if this will become a regular series on the blog, but if you enjoy reading this, then who knows?

For my first attempt at breaking FM, I will take over a team in the English leagues and manipulate their results, so that they play the maximum number of games in a season. Chelsea currently hold the record, playing 69 matches during the 2012/2013 season… but that’s not even close to the number I have in mind!

This first chapter explains how my experiment will work. I’ve worked out the maximum games a team can play, and how long it will take to get them into every available competition at the same time. Then it’s just a case of finding a club, assembling a team, and setting everything up for the longest season ever. Continue reading “Breaking FM: The Longest Season – Part 1” →

CM4 Revisited: Still Playing In 2023

Published on by Chris Fuller

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Championship Manager 4 – one of the most controversial games in Sports Interactive’s long-running franchise. To many fans, it was a groundbreaking release that introduced a 3D match engine to our favourite game. To others, it was a broken and buggy mess that was rushed out to the public before it was ready. Over the coming months, I will revisit the game in a series of posts.

In this article, I am celebrating the ‘survivors’ of Championship Manager 4. I have found 17 players in the CM4 database who are still playing football at a high level 20 years later, on Football Manager 2023. Some of these names will be familiar to you, but there are others that might not be so well-known… Continue reading “CM4 Revisited: Still Playing In 2023” →

Running old CM & FM games on Windows

Published on by Chris Fuller1 Comment

We’re all Football Manager lovers, aren’t we? But as much as we might enjoy the newer titles, I’m sure those of us who’ve been around for a while would love to go back in time – and re-play an older version of FM or Championship Manager.

Technology marches on – and those classic games that were designed for Windows 95, 98 or XP may not run perfectly on newer operating systems. Fortunately, it is still possible to play those older games on Windows 10 or 11, with a little bit of work.

In this guide, I will give you some tips on how to get your old Sports Interactive games running on modern versions of Windows. These instructions might also work for some other video games from the 1990s and 2000s, but I’ll be focussing on the CM and FM series. Continue reading “Running old CM & FM games on Windows” →