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Retro Review: Championship Manager 2010
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Retro Review time again! This year marks the 25th anniversary of me playing Championship Manager for the first time. It was back in 1999 that I first discovered Championship Manager 3 – the game that started a lifelong addiction for me. I will revisit CM3 in more detail later this year. […]
Breaking FM: Anger Management
Welcome back to Fuller FM. I’ll be starting a new Football Manager 2024 story in the coming weeks – but in the meantime, I’ve got something a bit different to tide you over. Breaking FM is my occasional mini-series where I take Football Manager to the extreme and see how the game handles ridiculous scenarios. […]
Retro Review: Championship Soccer
Welcome back to this occasional series on Fuller FM, where I look back at a football management PC game from years gone by. I did not write any retro reviews in 2023, but I’m starting off 2024 with another journey back through time. The game I will be looking at is perhaps the most obscure […]
My thoughts on Football Manager 2024
Football Manager 2024 has been out for close to two months now, and this game cycle is well and truly in full swing. Regular Fuller FM readers may remember back in April that I wrote a pretty brutal review of Football Manager 2023 – canning its lack of innovation, chaotic match engine, and pretty much […]
Millwall Firewall: Part 9
Here we go, this is it. It’s the season 3 finale – and potentially the final episode – of “Millwall Firewall”. With three months to go in the 2025/2026 season, Millwall are right in the Championship play-off mix – and big Jake Cooper’s constant threat from set-pieces has made us a real force to be […]
Millwall Firewall: Part 8
It’s time for the next chapter of my Millwall story – and for once, things are actually going quite well for us! In Part 7, we kicked off the 2025/2026 season by bringing in several new signings, which have breathed new life into our promotion hopes. We sit in 4th place in the Championship table […]
Millwall Firewall: Part 7
It’s now time to kick off the third – and possibly final – season of my Football Manager 2024 series with Millwall! It all went horribly wrong in the previous chapter, where a six-game losing streak curtailed our play-off challenge and plunged us into the bottom half of the EFL Championship. The chairman still gave […]
Millwall Firewall
“Millwall Firewall” was my first Football Manager 2024 story, published exclusively on Fuller FM. In this story, I took charge of a Millwall team who had consistently finished in the top half of the EFL… More
Millwall Firewall: Part 6
It’s time to wrap up the second season of my Millwall save on Football Manager 2024 – and once again, we have the Championship play-offs in our sights. In the previous chapter, my Lions recovered from a rough start to the 2024/2025 season and clawed themselves back into contention for the top six. And having […]
Millwall Firewall: Part 5
Welcome back to my Football Manager 2024 series with Millwall, where I can assure you that everything is going perfectly to plan! The Millwall firewall has held pretty firm so far in the 2024/2025 season, conceding just the 21 goals in 10 Championship matches! You can read all about that in Part 4, in case […]
Millwall Firewall: Part 4
Here we go, folks! It’s time for the second season of my Football Manager 2024 series with Millwall. In case you missed the previous chapter, the Lions came 11th in the Championship in my first season, falling short of the play-offs once again. I’ve been hard at work in the transfer market over the summer, […]
Millwall Firewall: Part 3
Welcome back to my Football Manager 2024 series, where I’m about to finish my first season as Millwall manager. In the previous chapter, we began the Championship campaign with some erratic results, requiring a mid-season change of tactics. Now we’re back in form – and hoping to make a charge into the play-off places. Today, […]
ITCH, ETCH & ATCH: My FM24 team competition history add-ons
Football Manager 2024 is now out of early access and has been fully released. Enjoying it so far? This short post is just letting you know about some FM24 editor files that I have created. They add extensive competition data to virtually every national team in the game, 1,000+ European clubs, 250+ South American clubs, […]
Millwall Firewall: Part 2
Happy Football Manager 2024 release day, everybody! To celebrate a magnificent Monday that even Garfield might enjoy, here’s the second chapter of my FM24 series, where my aim is to lead Millwall into the Premier League within three seasons. If you missed the series introduction, you can catch up with Part 1 right here. Today’s […]
Millwall Firewall: Part 1
“Welcome to the Lions’ Den, temptation’s on his way. Welcome to the house of fun!” And you thought there was already enough madness on Fuller FM! Football Manager 2024 has been in beta – no, sorry, ‘Early Access’ – for a week-and-a-half now. For my first save on FM24, I will be taking charge of […]
Day 1 on a new Football Manager save
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 […]
Blog Update #7
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 […]
Championship Manager Magazine: The Cover CDs
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) […]
Fake Players in Football Manager
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 […]
Looking Ahead To Football Manager 2024 (And 2025)
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. […]
My thoughts on Football Manager 2023
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 […]
Breaking FM: The Longest Season – Part 2
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 […]
Breaking FM: The Longest Season – Part 1
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, […]
CM4 Revisited: Still Playing In 2023
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 […]
Running old CM & FM games on Windows
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 […]
From The Archives: My Football Manager Forum Stories
I’ve been writing stories around my Championship Manager and Football Manager saves for a very long time. Since I was 13, in fact. When the Fuller family went online in 2003, one of my first visits was to the Sports Interactive forums – and its Championship Manager Stories sub-forum (now known as Football Manager Stories, […]
Player interactions in Football Manager
Being successful in Football Manager isn’t just about signing the right players and building tactics that best suit their skills. You also need to show good people management to keep squad morale high, while also ensuring that your players are motivated and confident. Player interactions are becoming increasingly important in FM. It’s vital know how […]
Let’s Talk About… Football Manager
Every now and then, I like to post my thoughts on a burning topic within the Football Manager community. This might be a significant bug that affects gameplay, a suggestion for a potential new feature,… More
FM13 In 2022: The Superstars That Weren’t
It’s time for another trip back in time here on Fuller FM! I will once again be revisiting my long-time Football Manager 2013 save to see how the footballing world looks in the year 2022. Last time out, we looked at where some of today’s football superstars had ended up 10 seasons into my FM13 […]
Setting up Screen Flow in Football Manager
Back in the days of Championship Manager, the game used to automatically show you the latest results from major competitions such as the World Cup and the Champions League. Some of you probably miss that now, though you can still set that up manually on Football Manager 2023. Hidden in the game settings is an […]
FM13 In 2022: The Best Players In The World?
And now it’s time for something a bit different on Fuller FM. Today, I’ll be revisiting probably my favourite FM game of all time – Football Manager 2013, which just so happens to be celebrating its 10th anniversary next week! My longest and probably best ever save was on FM13. Starting at my hometown club […]
Retro Review: Ultimate Soccer Manager 98
It’s time for another Fuller FM ‘Retro Review’, where I replay a classic football management game from years gone by. I’m particularly excited about this, because it’s an absolute doozy! Today, I will be looking back at a game that many people who grew up in the late 1990s still remember very fondly. This was […]
Blog Update #6
As the final whistle blows on Football Manager 2022, it’s time for another blog update right here on Fuller FM. It’s become an autumn tradition for me to finish each game cycle by updating you on everything I’ve written on the blog this season. I’ll also deliver my final thoughts on FM22 – and I […]
Hale End Heroes: The Final Whistle
Welcome to the 20th and FINAL chapter of my Football Manager 2022 story with Arsenal. In this series, the aim was to win either the Premier League or the Champions League with a team consisting mostly of graduates from the Arsenal youth academy. I will finish this story off with the 2025/2026 season review, before […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 5, Part 4
It’s all or nothing for Arsenal, as the fifth season of my academy challenge comes to an end. After a seven-game winning streak, Arsenal are top of the Premier League table by two points, with just eight matches to play. If our Hale End heroes can hold their nerves, we will be champions for the […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 5, Part 3
After four years of frustration and near-misses, is this the season where Arsenal finally claim a Premier League or Champions League title? We made a fine start to the 2025/2026 campaign, sitting just four points behind leaders Manchester United at the end of December. Today’s chapter will take us through the next three months, which […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 5, Part 2
While the Football Manager 2023 hype train has started, my FM22 series with Arsenal is still going strong – and things are arguably just heating up! Today’s chapter takes us through the first half of the 2025/2026 season, which I previewed in the last installment. Unfortunately, we lost the Community Shield to Liverpool, but that […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 5, Part 1
Welcome to the fifth season of my Football Manager 2022 series with Arsenal. We finished the last campaign by winning the FA Cup at Wembley… but by the end of the 2025/2026 season, I want us to be lifting an even bigger trophy. My challenge of rebuilding Arsenal into a title-winning team with a strong […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 4, Part 4
We’ve now come to the end of my fourth season at Arsenal. 2024/2025 started with high hopes that we could overtake Liverpool and win the Premier League, but inconsistent finishing was ultimately our downfall. Our hopes of major silverware rested on the FA Cup, which… well, you can read about that in the previous chapter. […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 4, Part 3
I never said this Arsenal academy challenge would be easy! Midway through my fourth season, this is already shaping up to be my most frustrating one yet! In case you missed the first half of this campaign, my young Gunners have been VERY inconsistent. While we’ve finally figured out how to defeat our title rivals […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 4, Part 2
In the 2023/2024 season, Arsenal scored a record 107 Premier League goals and picked up 88 points… but still finished runners-up to Liverpool. As we head into my fourth season as Gunners manager, there is plenty of reason for optimism. We have largely kept the same squad that pushed Liverpool so close, and after beating […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 4, Part 1
My Arsenal academy challenge on Football Manager 2022 has reached the halfway point. While my young Gunners have only claimed a couple of EFL Cups during my three-year tenure, I’m confident of bringing some major silverware to the Emirates Stadium over the next three seasons. In the previous chapter, our 2023/2024 season ended in double […]
Assessing and developing youth intakes in Football Manager
It’s youth intake day, and you’re hyped for a potential golden generation. You’re dreaming about bringing through a 200 PA striker who will make Erling Haaland look like Yaya Sanogo. Then you open up that inbox message… “Pfft, the best players only have 3* potential. They’ll never make it. What’s our Head of Youth Development […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 3, Part 4
As the third season of my FM22 academy challenge draws to an end, my free-scoring young Arsenal team is on the hunt for yet more silverware. The previous chapter saw us lift our second EFL Cup, after a crazy Final showdown with Leeds. We also extended our unbeaten Premier League run to 28 games and […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 3, Part 3
We’re now halfway through my third season as Arsenal manager, and things are starting to take shape. In the previous chapter, we made a very rocky start to the campaign by losing our first two games, including a 6-3 thrashing at Liverpool. Since then, however, we have been on an unbeaten run that has put […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 3, Part 2
Third time’s the charm? Let’s hope so, as my third season as Arsenal manager kicks off in earnest. There has been quite the rebuild over the summer, with over £200million spent on new players who will hopefully fix the defensive issues we had last term. I’ve also brought two more Hale End Boys into the […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 3, Part 1
Passion, clarity, energy. Those are the three things Arsenal desperately need as we head into the tricky third season of my Football Manager 2022 youth challenge. The 2022/2023 season was a real rollercoaster ride. Although a disappointing second-half collapse saw us finish 6th in the Premier League, we also made it to the Champions League […]
Hale End Heroes
“Hale End Heroes” was my main Football Manager 2022 story, published exclusively on Fuller FM throughout the summer of 2022. In this story, I took over the reins at Arsenal, with the aim of restoring… More
Hale End Heroes: Season 2, Part 4
The real-life 2022/2023 Premier League campaign might have just kicked off… but on my FM22 save with Arsenal, it’s almost over. And what a ride it has been! Yes, this season has been an absolute disaster – at least where the league is concerned. It looks like Arsenal will miss out on a top-four finish, […]
Hale End Heroes: Season 2, Part 3
My Arsenal adventure on Football Manager 2022 continues – and this chapter could be a very important one, as we attempt to lift our first trophy since I became manager. The Gunners are heading into 2023 sitting just inside the top four of the Premier League, but we also have some defensive issues that need […]