To be honest I never paid for my first copy on CM, there was a guy (dodgy might I add) who lived near me who sold Amiga games. You paid him a nice amount of £10 a month and got about 30 games. It was a good deal but most of the time you got…how shall I put it…shite! I was 12-13 and if I asked my mother for the money to buy a full Amiga game I would have received a swift slap across the head (a typical Irish mothers response, there you are 4 years old drawing on the wall with crayon. She comes in and says ‘that's right, draw on the fucking walls', you respond by saying ‘I am mam' - and a slap in the head you got).

As it was she had bought me my Amiga 600, which pretty much broke the bank so I found other ways of making a few quid for illegal games. I had plaIt's Ron!!yed Footie Management games a few years. I had a ZX Spectrum and loved Football Manager - which to be honest was shit. My favourite game back then was a freeware game called Pro Masters. Bollocks all gfx but by Christ was it addictive. Buying, selling and managing your own football team!!

So, loading CM seeing this guy pointing at you (Ron Atkinson in a shellsuit?) and finding the result for the match (the anti-piracy part…sorry lads…didn't work!, all you had to do was write them down from an original book - but I do purchase all nowadays).

At this time I was the only one of my mates who had an Amiga and it quickly became a ritual every fucking day that myself and 3 of my buddies would meet up in a designated house (we rotated as it pissed the shit out of our parents to hear 4 teenage lads ‘ooohhhing' and ‘aaahing') and play from 6pm till 11pm weekdays and the weekends was 9am to 12am, possible sleepover. Homework? Who needed it, we were fucking managing soccer clubs, homework, school, girls, socialising? - who fucking needed it? (FACT - Only one of us actually finished school, and only one is now in a relationship, none married)

Two of us supported Liverpool, one Arsenal and one West Ham. This meant the obligatory fighting between myself and the other Pool fan as to who was manager of Liverpool. But I always won -‘it's my fucking Amiga so I don't get them, then I going home' usually sorted it out. He had to settle for Villa.
Then of course the fighting over the players, we unearthed some serious gems in the 94 update which caused a fist fight once. Our parents probably thought we were four 13/14 year olds experimenting, little did they know our lives were being sucked away. Their dreams of lawyers, policemen, singers, rich men who would make loads of money and take care of them when they got older were being sucked away. We now had no futures. Our futures consisted of Nii Lamptey, Steve Watkin, Andy Booth…these were our lives.

ReddersReddersReddersDomark (SI now) teased us with international players which you could never actually sign….bastards! I vowed to have revenge…and I still will. Other decent little players, Lothar Sippel (one of the few foreigners you could sign). J.Cureton, Cloughie, Dublin. But Andy Booth was my man. About 250K from Huddersfield, a man who replaced Ian Rush and by Christ I had dirty dreams about him. In years to come I was to learn he was fairly useless and CM researchers had got it wrong. Ask Sheffield Wednesday

Being a spiteful bastard and the owner of the Amiga, once I got home and I didn't have the players I wanted, I would load the game up and sign whoever I wanted…yes I was a prick!

A continution of the CM Ate my Life Article, if haven't read it then for fucks sake do…Part 1 is here!!

The summer of '94, ahh what a summer, the 4 of us looked like we were dead - we hadn't see a minute of daylight the whole summer. Every other teenager had been out every day from the time they got kicked out of the house by their parents (approximately 7.30am…again this is Ireland) and was allowed back in the house ‘When it got dark' - again this was the summer and you could probably go picking flowers at midnight in the Summer, so normally it was quite late. All them deprived teenagers who didn't have an Amiga and CM did things like cycled for miles, played soccer, experimented with breasts and all those other things that you just didn't need. They had lovely burned faces and looked like lobsters. We were ghosts, locked in a room, eating biscuits and this was, often 24 hours a day. We had nothing to distract us, no school or any of those other things that hinder you CM career.


Christ we were the best managers in the world, while Souness and Roy Evans were destroying Liverpool, George Graham was swindling money at Arsenal, Ian Dowie was the ugliest player in the world at West Ham and Aston Villa were managed by some nobody called Brian Little, were were winning in Europe - Liverpool 2 (Booth, Clough) Real Madrid (Player No.10) with a win bonus of only £250!!- In those days we didn't have a database that contained 30 million players, foreign teams had players who were simply called ‘Player' and their number.

Just a random thing thrown in here. There was a cheat, just in case you ever decide to go back to CM 93 or that time. If a team was interested in your player (you knew this by a red arrow in their profile), get one of your mates to bid £0 for them and then wait for the interested team to make a bid, which was usually a good amount for them. Then reject your mates bid and accept the other….this is a completely useless tip…but just in case…you can never be too careful, if she tells you she is on the pill - still wear a condom!!!

1995 came and we were getting older, all 3 mates now had managed to get themselves Amigas. We still didn't socialise like normal teenagers. While they now have fucked away their bikes they cycled on, wanted to stay out until ‘It got Dark' and were past the stage of breasts, it was now the lower region and it was possible that she may touch you now. We were the hermits, we our days in school working out formations and nights in our rooms alone 2 foot away from our TVs sitting in the dark staying up as late as we possibly could. With my mother, if you turned off the TV but left the Amiga on with a cushion and duvets over it to drown out the sound of the hum, she would normally check firstly that you still alive because she hadn't heard a murmur in your room since you came home from school. ‘Are you being bullied in school?' she would ask…'Do you want to talk about anything?'…she would ask. Yes I want to talk about something mam, I want to know why that lucky bastard Les Ferdinand had just got the fucking winner against me, she obviously wouldn't have had the answer as she knew fuck all about football, let alone CM. I would pretend I was asleep when she checked on me and then quietly get back out of bed, which transformed in a chair also, turn on the TV and try to play CM without her hearing the mouse click. But of course the mouse on the Amiga was a brick and clicks could be heard in Rwanda, let alone 5 metres away.

But we'd still meet up and discuss players, Iffy Onuara, some Cambridge player who was great (but for the life of me I can't remember his name…give me a break it's been 12 years!!). Cambridge actually had a great team for some reason, but they weren't the best. The Colliers decided because they supported Everton that they would be the invincible team, far from the truth - but I suppose when you make a game you can do whatever the fuck you wanted….like ruined little boys lives.
We would chat and smoke (incidentally being the spiteful prick I was…remember Part 1? I smoked extra long fags called XL I think cause they lasted longer and I thought they looked cool…I looked like a woman). After our chat which may last an hour we would migrate back to our nests that contained the following. One 14" TV, one Amiga, CM, a Bed which was also used as a chair, and possibly clothes. This nest contained the perfect life. Girls, homework, school were still not a factor in our lives…who needs them we were fucking managing football teams….
I must say I don't have much of a memory of CM from about the years 96 - 99 but I do know that my other mate who supported (and the person who I fought with viciously to control) Liverpool, developed a terminal illness at the age of 17.

I suppose you could say at this stage we had sort of grown apart from each other. I had a left school, got a job and was an absolute terror to the community. Arsenal fan found new mates, got a girl pregnant (which meant goodbye for him to life), West Ham fan - being the oldest discovered pubs (goodbye life) and the other Pool fan had gotten sick.

But despite haven gone our separate ways we spent the last month of our sick mates time playing CM93. The game had made us the best of mates, and ironically pushed us apart! He passed away in Aug99 and an offering we made at his funeral was the 3 discs of CM 93 (pirate copy by the way), that had gave us the best years of our teenage lives. Now you may think that this is bullshit, but believe what you want. The game meant so much to us as teens growing up. Liverpool and CM were his life so what better way than to be buried in your Liverpool jersey and have CM offered up at your funeral. Christ if I ever go, it's quite possibly the way I want to go as well.

Now back to business, so by now I was 18 - I had of course lost my virginity (whilst thinking of my first true love…not Pammie, not Kylie…some ugly bastard Andy Booth!). I had a shitty job and was a mad drinker. CM2 was out, but one problem - I didn't have a PC! I didn't have the money to buy one and because I had dropped out of school early my mother wouldn't give me a fuckin penny towards one (yet the bitch took 30% of my wages from me each week for living under her roof….under her rules!!)….so what was I to do?Andy Booth...true love

So I had no option really, at 18 with a shite job and having dropped out of school at 15…it was back to school for me to complete my Leaving Cert (I think English people will know this as GSCEs???). After 2 months back at school I couldn't handle it anymore, I was put back a few years which meant while I was 18, having experienced real life I was stuck in a class with people who averaged in age of about 16. I had a 4 o clock shadow and they had fluff which you could wipe of with a wet tissue. I'd been DJ'ing part time about 3 years as well, very occasionally but I just drank the money or dabbled in other stuff.

But in school on the computers they had CM!!! I hadn't played it for a year or two and in school sitting next to some guy who's voice hadn't yet broken I got bitten. That bastard of a game which took my teenage years was back - and this time it wasn't a pre-pubscent excitement I felt, it wasn't a wet dream, this was a mother fucking orgasm with cherries on top excitement. All I can remember is that it had completlet changed, all new, much bigger, players like Alfonso, Ronaldo, Figo. I was determined by this to get a PC and wait for the CM Reaper to take my soul away once more…

So I've saved and saved (well cut my weekly alcohol intake in half really) and eventually bought myself some shitty PC. I can't remember the specs but it would be like you having a Dodge Viper and me having a little 1967 Opel (like Oliver…Top Gear anyone). I also purchased myself CM 00-01 or 01-02, again I can't remember (this will become obvious to you why as you read). So CM & PC…in my best french AU REVOIR LIFE.

Thank christ I had quit school because that would have meant 8 hours a day/480 mins - yes a whole 28800 seconds without being stuck 5 inches away from my 15 inch CRT monitor clicking. So my daily life was, wake about 1pm, play CM till 9pm, go to work till 3am, come home and play a bit more till about 6am. Go to bed and my day starts again…..now that's the feckin life (besides the working part, but my mother would have thrown me out, that would have meant no electricity to play)

At the weekends I DJ'ed which brought me into a Clubbing Scene which of course involved drugs. Now don't get me wrong this is something I'm not proud of, but something I can talk openly to people about as I've not taken anything for a good few years now and don't plan to do for the rest of my life. I've been in hospital, rehab and probably spent €10,000 on the stuff. Iwas a moody bastard, no money, depressed, and you can say goodbye to any relationship because drugs do NOT help your sex life!!!

But I had re-discovered my first addiction (and can you believe it, unlike your typical man, it did not involve masturbation), Championship Manager! I had a lovely girlfiend at this time and we had been going steady for about 2 years…she was now a part-time hobby.

‘Wanna go a spin love?'

‘I feel kinda sick baby, might just go home cause I'm tired'

‘It's only 1pm'

‘I know babe, but I think I'll go to bed'

This was a typical conversation of ours, it happened about 6 times a week. I was sick though, I was a sick man…sick in love, nope not with another woman - in love with a little compact disc. I can't remember my playing life though of 00-01, but I know it played it religiously. 01-02 was the one I can remember brilliantly and that introduced me to the CM Scene….if she thought she didn't see me when it was just CM…then she didn't (nor I) know what was about to come next…..

TBC

I say the dirty years because the next few years is the time of my life when I washed the least. When I was a teenager I was made by my mother to take a shower at least 3 times a week instead of being stuck in front of ‘that game that has no graphics, the one that you don't even play football in'. Just because I didn't play FIFA 93, she thought I was strange….I was a fucking legend in the football manager world mam, did you know your son took Huddersfield to the Premier League aged 14? Yes your daughter won Irish dancing medals, but I won the Premiership.Anyway, the reason I washed less was because I had came across the CM Scene. I don't know how I landed on the scene but it was probably a typo, I probably meant Cum in Google, but typed CM…something I never regretted doing though.

The first site I remeber was of course The Dugout, but it didn't really appeal to me. Even though there were bizillions of players, tactics etc I don't know why I searched on. So I came across a site called CM Center, despite Center being spelled wrong I loved the menubars on this site. I was in awe at the graphics on the site, I had never known that you could insert your own menubar in your CM game. The first menubar I downloaded was a Trish Stratus one, my mother now thought the game was perverted. Yes mother it perverted your son, looking at the stats of Jonus Lunden perverted me. So now I had CM and Trish Stratus staring at me all the time…both made me quite horny I might add.

Diving more into CMC I came across the thing which nearly ended my life - forums! Being new to the net I wasn't too sure how forums worked, but shared my opinions anyway….to be honest I was (and still am) a fantastic CM player and thought that my advice was always quite good. I was a player who loved the game, had a great eye for players and always found success, whether it was LLM or a second string Dutch team.

The scene and CM now left about 42 mins per day for my girlfriend, I had quit my job as I was on pirate radio whilst signing on the dole and gigging 4 nights a week which meant I picked up about £500 a week. Making loadsa dosh and had every single night after 2am to surf the net and try to play CM.

Now I think when people are involved in the scene, then their CM time in reduced in a big way, I spent more time on forums than actually playing the game, I think most people find this the same.

I came across a site which had just relaunched and had a new forumboard, the site was called Project CM. It wasn't long before I posted like a motherfucker on the forums along with a guy called Marsh. I was offered a mod position,because I spent about 8 hours a day on the board - who better to mod the board than a person who spent more time online than asleep? My dedication paid off and I starting contributing to the site and after a while had the honour of becoming Co-Admin of the site. As well as spending all my time on the site, I would like to think I made some fantastic mates on the site. The thing with the scene is that it bring people together who, in the real world you would not look at twice. Here I was a 21 year old chatting with 15 year olds about the thing we love. I also became a scene-whore, I think I was a member of every forum board that was available and tried to offer advice and contribute to the scene in a good way.

I'm not a great writer, gfx artist or anything like that, but I just gave good CM advice. There wasn't anything about the game I didn't know. What amazed me about the scene is that there were so many talented people on it. 15/16 year olds who actually coded their own sites, people who could write articles for The Times, people who could design graphics for gaming companies. These people are brilliant and I had and still have massive respect for these people and long may it continue….so Project CM, CM and the entire scene….washing rate per fortnight was down to about 2….and this was just because of the scene…..don't get me started on the game…