Football Manager Stole My Life

by Iain Macintosh

  It’s all change in England where Liverpool snatch back the title, with David Moyes’ West Ham, who have somehow retained Joe Cole and Jermain Defoe, trailing just behind. Arsenal and Leeds make up the European places while champions Chelsea finish seventh and manager Rudi Voller is sacked. Manchester United drop to 14th, only seven points above the relegation zone, and lose the League Cup Final to a Clint Hill-inspired Watford. Chairman Martin Edwards, when questioned on David O’Leary’s future, mumbles something about him having photographs of, “that awkward episode in the bathroom” and offers the Irishman an extended contract. Grimsby are promoted to the Premier League, as are Wrexham, who sneak through via the play-offs. Southampton reach the fourth division play-off final, but lose to Shrewsbury. Owner Rupert Lowe dryly suggests changing the name of the stadium from St Mary’s to St Jude’s, but no-one gets the ‘patron saint of lost causes’ joke and his car is set alight.

  These are dark days for Real Madrid, they slip all the way to sixth, while Barcelona, for whom Saviola (185) and Kluivert (275) have now scored 460 goals in eight seasons, lift the title again. Meanwhile in Scotland, Celtic finish fir- what? Good heavens! In Scotland, Rangers finish first and Celtic finish second! The world has been turned upside down!

  2010

  Towering Sevilla forward Xisco is the King of the World. It’s his goal that seals Spain’s first ever World Cup win after a nervous final against Paul Le Guen’s France. Dave Jones’ England, of course, are knocked out in the quarter-finals, which is, in fairness the best that anyone has done since Sir Bobby Robson in 1990.

  For the first time since 1927, Newcastle win the league. Manager Louis van Gaal spends two days celebrating and then hotfoots it to Deportivo. There’s no prizes for guessing the player of the year. With an astonishing 50 goals in 65 games for the Magpies, 24-year-old Cherno Samba ensures that he will never have to buy a drink on Tyneside again. Liverpool, who swipe Ronaldinho from Paris St Germain, finish second, with Arsenal and Leeds in third and fourth. Chelsea manager Tommy Svensson is sacked after just six months and replaced by, yes, you’ve guessed it, Kenny Dalglish. They finish sixth with David O’Leary’s broken Man Utd in eighth. Grimsby finish ninth under Peter Taylor, but Wrexham are sent packing, ending the season with just 16 points. Manchester City fall into the third division where they’ll meet Southampton, who win the fourth.

  In Europe, Dortmund doom Juventus to a second consecutive set of runners-up medals in the Champions League, but consolation comes with the capture of the Serie A title, finally bringing an end to ten years of Roman supremacy. Lazio drop to third, Roma slide to fifth and Fabio Capello pushes a police van down a flight of steps in the city centre and runs away, claiming that, “a group of bigger boys did it.” He is later sacked.

  In Spain, Real Madrid are in real trouble. For the first time in living memory, they lose more games than they win and finish in eighth. Somehow Vicente del Bosque keeps his job. Over at Barca, Charly Rexach has a job for life after dropping just 11 points all season, finishing first 35 points ahead of Valencia. Meanwhile in Scotland, Celtic finish first and Rangers finish second. Phew.

  2011

  Porto are the surprise winners in Europe, over-turning a subdued Barcelona side still mourning the departure of Patrick Kluivert, who retired in the summer. The Dutchman isn’t the only one to call it a day. In England, Gerard Houllier steps down, hands the reins to coach David Preece and the former Luton maestro seals the title in his first season. It’s Liverpool’s third Premier League in five years. Emile Mpenza leads the way in the scoring stakes, while Pablo Aimar pulls the strings for the resurgent Reds. Not that they can recreate their European glory days. No English team has reached the Final of the Champions League since Sir Alex Ferguson’s last Man Utd side. Kenny Dalglish’s Chelsea come second, three goals ahead of Rudi Voller’s Newcastle. David O’Leary finally runs out of credit with the Man Utd board as Martin Edwards feels that no revelations could be as bad as another season above the relegation zone. With United in thirteenth, he pulls the trigger and replaces the Irishman with Gareth Southgate, who has done such a good job with Arbroath.

  In Italy, new Roma boss Francesco Guidolin comes within a play-off of retrieving the title, losing to Juventus thanks to a Kieron Dyer brace. In Spain, Sevilla become the first non Barca/Real club to top La Liga since Deportivo in 2000. World Cup winner Xisco leads the way. Barca slip to second, while Real Madrid finish eighth again, their third successive season outside of the top six. Meanwhile in Scotland, Celtic finish first and Rangers, oh you know this by now… Oh yes, and someone called To Maderia wins the World Player of the Year award after scoring 48 in 48 for Dortmund. Strange, I’ve never actually heard of the man… Extraordinary, isn’t it? A hideous dystopian version of our present, warped and contorted out of recognition. Manchester City are a third division club, Manchester United are a spent force, Lionel Messi is an unknown chimney sweep in Buenos Aires and Cristiano Ronaldo is serving tables in a bar in Lisbon. Well, let’s go home, eh?

  What’s that? Really? You want to stay? Well…there’s no accounting for taste. Let’s have those jump-leads back. Now, step out of the pod, would you? Thank you. I’ll just lock up...there, we’re all set.

  Oh, I forgot to mention, in this reality Tony Blair didn’t step down, the Spice Girls never broke up and that Keith Chegwin ‘naked’ gameshow is now the nation’s favourite programme! Seeya!

  Iain Macintosh was exploring the world according to Championship Manager 01/02. If you want to spend more time there, why not visit www.champman0102.co.uk. You can download the game, including updates that enable you to play today’s teams, old school-style, or just spend hours talking about Ryan Williams. It’s your call.

  SHALL WE

  SING A SONG

  FOR YOU

  How 1990s indie music provided

  the backbeat for Champ Man

  Somebody wrote, in the early 1990s, that comedy was the new rock ‘n’ roll. But comedy had been around for longer than the old rock ‘n’ roll. In the same decade, one of gaming’s greatest franchises, Grand Theft Auto, was created by a company that would end the 90s calling itself Rockstar. Meanwhile, the equivalent of a garage band on an independent label was setting sales records every year with a football management simulation.

  / Jesus Jones, transatlantic guitar pop peddlers who almost had their very own computer game

  Sports Interactive had one foot in rock ‘n’ roll from the start. This is a story that features Blur, one of the most famous bands of the past 20 years; Jesus Jones, international bright young things in the early 1990s, and Elevate, a band with a bass player who knew one or two things about the Italian lower leagues.

  It’s also about an A&R man at Food, the label behind all but one of those bands, who ended up running the studio that, all these years later, is still kicking out the jams.

  Miles: I had friends at Domark [the publishers of Championship Manager] and I had been mucking about with some data updates anyway, for the game. I had been talking to Domark about doing a Jesus Jones game – I was working in the music industry and Jesus Jones at the time were massive. The Domark guys wanted to see Blur play and I gave them a couple of tickets. In return, they put me in touch with, it was you, originally, Ov.

  Ov: Yeah, I remember getting sent ideas for the game from this Miles character.

  Miles: They put us in touch because they knew I was a fan of the game. I helped out with some testing and some data. Somehow I’ve ended up running the studio, 17 years later.

  FMSML: DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE REVIVING THE JESUS JONES GAME?

  Miles: No. But I had a big birthday and they played at the party and they were absolutely awesome.

  Paul: They must be playing loads.

  Miles: No, they hadn’t done a gig for well over a year. They were really good. No plans for a new Jesus Jones game, but I am still in touch with them, and a lot of people from that time in music.

  FMSML: SO IT WAS RESEARCH TO BEGIN WITH THEN I
T SEEMS LIKE YOU JUST…

  Miles: Well… I don’t really know.

  Ov: It is sort of a blurry time.

  Miles: I was doing research. I was doing QA [quality assurance], and then I started doing some research and then I got asked to do the whole of the UK research while I was also doing the data updates and had a full-time job as A&R guy.

  I didn’t want anything for it, I kept coming into the studio and Ov was like, ‘We have to pay you something’. Well, no you don’t. I was just happy to be part of it, it was just fun.

  And then I got to know Paul. He was in a band called Elevate, who I really liked. It was interesting. Every time they had a commercial song and someone would think ‘That’s great, that could be a hit!’ they’d immediately rewrite it so that it was more difficult.

  / The two albums released by Elevate and, below, the band in action, with Paul Collyer on bass (right)

  Paul: That’s alright, I’m quite proud of that.

  Miles: I didn’t end up signing them [to Food] because of that. Actually, you chose to sign somewhere else.

  Paul: Yeah, well, that wasn’t my decision.

  Miles: It doesn’t matter if it was, I’m glad. Let’s be honest.

  Paul: You’d have made us work.

  Miles: Yeah, probably.

  Paul: Probably wouldn’t have done this [Football Manager].

  FMSML: DID YOU GUYS KNOW EACH OTHER BEFORE THEN? WERE YOU GUYS ALREADY WORKING…

  Miles: I knew Ov through the game. I didn’t really know Paul, and Ov had said his brother was playing in a band. Paul wasn’t in the studio much, so when I was popping into the studio I’d see Ov.

  Paul: I was basically working at 40% wasn’t I? I was working 40% on the game and 60% doing the music, for about two years or something.

  / A youthful and angelic Blur, around about the time Miles Jacobson worked with them at Food records

  Miles: And because I’d only pop in during the evenings, that would be when Paul would be playing or rehearsing, so we hadn’t got to know each other that well. I went to see the band, really liked them and that’s when we got started talking on that score and that’s when Ov told me about some contractual issues as well, and asked if I could help out, because I was used to being on the other side of the table.

  Ov: Then you took a look at our contracts and…

  Miles: … cried. So I started doing that, I was just doing it to help my mates out. I then got more and more involved, just very organically over the years, until a point when Paul was in Sweden. I started doing all the dealing with the publisher. The chairman of the publisher had sent Ov a fax and you’d written ‘f*** off’ in a big black marker pen on the fax and faxed it back.

  That was the time I started helping out.

  Ov: So we decided to go for a more diplomatic negotiating style.

  Miles: Which is amazing because I’m not a diplomat, but I was still more diplomatic than Ov.

  Ov: I was very relieved when you took that away.

  Miles: And apart from putting the odd idea in I wasn’t that involved creatively, and then Paul was living in Sweden for a few years, and Ov actually... you decided to leave didn’t you?

  Ov: I decided to leave, I wasn’t even going to come back.

  Paul: I was working away from the office for a few years, working from Sweden just from home, and Oliver’s walking round the jungle in Vietnam or something like that.

  Miles: I had a phone call going, ‘Do you want to be MD?’

  Ov: Can you take care of this please?

  Miles: ‘I’ve still got all these other jobs that I’m doing’. I tried to carry the other jobs on for about four months and realised that wasn’t really going to work so I moved my other companies to SI’s office and did that for about another year until I realised that I couldn’t actually do the other things as well, and just went full-time. That was in about 2001 and then we went through the whole CM4 thing, and that was the point we all realised we had to professionalise the studio, rather than it being just a bunch of kids making games.

  FMSML: WAS THAT THE POINT YOU FOCUSED MORE ON THE GAME THAN THE MUSIC OR WERE YOU STILL 60/40 IN FAVOUR OF THE BAND?

  Paul: Well we’re talking 1994, 1995 or something. I think it was about 95–96 we just stopped doing the music, or I stopped doing the music. I had to decide and it was becoming clear that, well, we’d been relatively successful with the game, but it was becoming clear that we had to put everything into it, it needed my full attention. And I think I enjoyed it more as well.

  Miles: It’s better than being a fat bass player isn’t it?

  Paul: I wasn’t fat then.

  Miles: Did that come afterwards?

  Paul: Well it came when I stopped jumping around on stage, I was always short so, and coming here and having 10 beers every night...

  Miles: Yes, that’s true.

  Paul: So yeah, about 96 or something like that and I think that’s around the time when we moved to our first sort of bigger office on Upper Street, 96/97.

  Miles: It was 95 we moved there, I think, 95/96.

  Paul: Yeah so it coincides with that first stage of professionalising if you like.

  Miles: Yeah.

  Paul: Like, ‘This is what we do now’. No more messing around.

  GUNPLAY, PENALTY

  SHOOT-OUTS AND

  DUKE NUKEM

  MARATHONS

  Why working for Sports Interactive in the

  early days was a Boys’ Own adventure

  Paul: We used to play Duke Nukem Forever every day, and because we had this kind of small room with five of us, at the top of this old house in Highbury Corner, the other offices in the other rooms must have been like, ‘What the hell are you doing? What is your business? Why is it booming?’

  We sort of got a lot of childishness out of our systems at that stage.

  Ov: It carried on to the next office, to be fair. Steering wheels on every desk. I can remember Ken the cleaner would come in and sort of whip round the bins, this kind of shadowy figure whipping round while we’re killing each other with guns or driving cars.

  Miles: And that kind of carried on until about six months before Paul got married, when his fiancée came into the office and took all the guns. We had a load of BB guns and that.

  Paul: They weren’t even game guns were they?

  Miles: No they weren’t, but someone had made the fatal mistake of pointing it at someone and missing, and it hitting Camilla, and therefore she confiscated all of the guns.

  Paul: It was part of the professionalising.

  Miles: Camilla’s not someone to argue with.

  Ov: The sponge ball, don’t forget that.

  Miles: Yep.

  Ov: The big sponge ball.

  Paul: Oh we had some good penalty shootouts didn’t we? That was in the office from ’97 or ’98 or something like that, wouldn’t you say?

  Ov: We’d have bike races around the sort of spiral staircase, and ducking as you went under, we had sponge balls landing in people’s lasagne they were eating at the computer and splashing them, it was terrible.

  Miles: And people working so hard they actually fell asleep at their keyboard as well. When Svein was over here, I’ve got a great photo somewhere...

  THE NEXT

  BIG THING

  Notes from the biggest scouting

  network in world football

  From Danny Murphy to Eden Hazard, this team of volunteer researchers has been identifying the best young players in the world for almost 20 years. Kenny Millar found out how they do it.

  Miles: Did CM even have real players?

  Ov & Paul: No

  Miles: CM1 had made-up data. CM2 was the first one that had real players, and that was the one with Neil Lennon and Danny Murphy, who were in Crewe reserves.

  Miles: The research team was built organically to the point where we‘ve got well over 1000 assistant researchers around the world now and 51 head researchers. We‘re at a stage where Everton licen
sed it off us. Whether they used it or not I don‘t know – that was very surreal.

  But we have become very well known for finding these players early. It‘s not us directly that find them, it‘s because we have this amazing team of volunteers – in the main – around the world, who want their club and their country represented properly inside the game. That‘s where Messi would have come from; he would have been a kid they [Barcelona] would have just brought over from Argentina and he was in the game as someone who would become a future superstar. And we don‘t get many of the future superstars wrong.

  Sometimes we do and those people have become quite big stories. People like To Madeira, who didn‘t exist. Or you‘ve got Tonton Zola Moukoko, who was a really talented player, but had some personal problems, unfortunately.

  Ov: Freddy Adu?

  Miles: Well, Freddy Adu could still make it.

  Paul: And the Icelandic kid.

  Miles: Sigporsson?

  Paul: Yes!

  Miles: Andri Sigporsson. Justin Georcelin is another one to look out. He was a 16-year-old kid at Northampton, who had a big career ahead of him and… I‘ll let you do the research on the story to see where it went wrong for him. It‘s also a fascinating one.

  Ov: When I think about the research team, going back, we‘re talking about a time when we barely even had the internet. We used to send out printed charts of the squad, filled in with the ones we knew, taken from the Rothmans [the annually published directory of clubs and players in UK football]. Those would be sent out to fanzines to be filled out by hand and sent back. Some people would have accounts with Compuserve or AOL, so you would have a mixture of that and things coming through the door.