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CM3 Revisited: The Euro 2024 Coaches
As the 2024 men’s European Championship gets ready for kick-off, the final whistle is about to blow on my CM3 Revisited mini-series. Over the last few months, I have been looking back at Championship Manager 3, which marked the start of a real golden era for the series. I’ve just finished an epic five-season series […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 15
It’s funny how these things pan out, isn’t it? My first Fuller FM blog story ended with Napoli and Fiorentina battling it out for the Serie A scudetto – and now history is repeating itself. Only this time, I’m managing the Partenopei, rather than the Viola. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is the FINAL chapter […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 14
This is the penultimate chapter of my Championship Manager 3 series with Napoli. I hope you have enjoyed the ride so far, because I sure have! Last time out, we kicked off the 2002/2003 season – and our defence of the Serie A scudetto. Things are going fine so far, but how long will our […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 13
After four seasons in Naples, I am about to begin the final lap of my Championship Manager 3 adventure. The 2001/2002 season saw Napoli mount a serious title challenge, as they attempted to win their first scudetto since 1990. I won’t spoil the ending here – but if you haven’t read Part 12 yet, then […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 12
My fourth season with Napoli on Championship Manager 3 is reaching a climax… and it’s sure to be a thrilling conclusion. It’s March 2002, and the Partenopei are on the verge of history. Just 12 matches stand between them and an unbeaten Serie A season – and though they have missed on one cup competition, […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 11
Things are heating up in my Championship Manager 3 challenge with Napoli, where I have been attempting to transform the Partenopei from Serie B chumps to Serie A champs. In the last chapter, Napoli enjoyed a strong start to the 2001/2002 season. That was thanks in no small part to Filippo Inzaghi, who has been […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 10
Welcome back to Naples – and to the fourth season of my Championship Manager 3 series! Despite a shaky end to the 2000/2001 season, Napoli secured a top-six finish, which means we have some European football to look forward to this time around! Can we now emulate the 1989 team of Maradona, Careca and Ferrara […]
Retro Review: FIFA Manager 13
I’m reviewing another retro football management game today on Fuller FM… and it’s time to wrap up a ‘mini-series’ that has been three years in the making! Back in May 2021, I reviewed a bunch of games in the FIFA Manager series that was published and developed by Electronic Arts. I continued the retrospective with […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 9
This is Season 3, Part 3 of “Canzone Napoletana” – and it’s perhaps the biggest chapter of this Championship Manager 3 series so far. Midway through the 2000/2001 season, it looked like Napoli were on track for an impressive Serie A and Coppa Italia double. But just two miserable months later, and the Partenopei are […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 8
Here we go again. Time for the latest installment of my Championship Manager 3 nostalgia trip! Last time out, we kicked off the 2000/2001 Serie A season at Napoli. Much has been expected of our new signings after a busy summer in the transfer window, but some of them haven’t quite delivered the goods yet. […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 7
I’m now into season 3 of my Championship Manager 3 series with Napoli. Where does the time fly? After storming through Serie B in my first season, the Partenopei didn’t take long to establish themselves back in Serie A. Sadly, a woeful run-in meant that we missed out on Europe and could only finish in […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 6
I’m coming to the end of the second season of my Championship Manager 3 series. It hasn’t been the most thrilling campaign, but thanks to the second-greatest Argentine striker ever to play for Napoli, the Partenopei are all but certain to survive their first season back in Serie A. Can it get even better, though? […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 5
Welcome back to my Championship Manager 3 story, where I will be aiming to take Napoli back to the top of Italian football. After securing promotion in 1998/1999, the previous chapter saw us kick off the 1999/2000 season in Serie A. Results haven’t been too bad, but our supporters are perhaps getting frustrated with our […]
Review: We Are Football 2024
Some people in the Football Manager community like to lament that FM “has no competition”. But while it has indeed been a long time since Sports Interactive have had a serious rival to their crown, perhaps that might be about to change? Having recently become disillusioned with FM, I’m now hoping that this title from […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 4
My Championship Manager 3 series with Napoli is now in full swing, as I’m about to kick off my second season at the San Paolo! In the previous chapter, the Partenopei secured promotion from Serie B as champions. We will now kick off the 1999/2000 season back in Serie A, where this once-great club belongs. […]
Championship Manager 3 Revisited
Championship Manager 3 was released on 26 March 1999. Developed by Sports Interactive and published by Eidos Interactive, it was the first version in the series to run natively on Windows (previous iterations had used… More
FM Mythbusting: More Common Misconceptions
Three years ago, I wrote an article that explained nine common misconceptions with Football Manager. For example, I stated the ‘wonderkid’ tag has much more to do with a youngster’s current ability than their potential, and that having a higher xG than the opposition doesn’t mean your team played better. Of course, there are still […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 3
I’m glad that you’ve joined me for the latest installment of my new Championship Manager 3 series. I’m now well into my first season at Napoli, who are flying high in Serie B after averaging nearly two goals per game! It is now March 1999. CM3 is about to hit store shelves, and the Partenopei […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 2
This is the second chapter of my new Championship Manager 3 series. The year is 1998 – and while Cher is asking us if we believe in life after love, I’m making Napoli fans believe in life after relegation. In last week’s opener, I took over a Partenopei side who had just slid down into […]
Retro Review: Ally McCoist’s Director of Football
I’ve been feeling in a nostalgic mood lately… so I reckon it’s time for another Retro Review of a football management game from years gone by. Today, I’m taking you to the 2001/2002 season – a time when Liverpool were challenging Arsenal for the title, and an English midfielder was firing Real Madrid towards continental […]
CM3 Revisited: Canzone Napoletana – Part 1
Welcome to a brand new story on Fuller FM! This week marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Championship Manager 3, and I’ve been thinking for some time about how best to mark the occasion. My first thought was to recreate my first ever CM save – with Shrewsbury Town, down in Division 3. […]
CM3 Revisited: Cult Icons
Championship Manager 3 celebrates its 25th birthday later this month. In lieu of baking a cake, I thought I’d take the opportunity to celebrate some cult players who would often develop into world-beaters. I’ve come up with a list of 15 players in the CM3 database – young and, er, not-so-young – and have looked […]
Football Manager (And Content Creation) Burnout
Hello, guys. Christopher here. This is not a post I wanted to write, but in light of recent events, there are some things I have to get off my chest. I want to talk about feeling burnt out – both with playing Football Manager, and with creating content about Football Manager. But first, it’s time […]
The Cracovian Chronicles: Chapter 2
“Witamy spowrotem” to my new Football Manager 2024 series in Poland. Kamila Deyna is about to take charge of her first league matches as manager of Wieczysta Kraków. You can read more about the club in the prologue, and you can meet the squad in Chapter 1. Today’s chapter will take us through the first […]
The Cracovian Chronicles: Chapter 1
After months of planning, at long last, it is time to kick off my new Football Manager 2024 story on Fuller FM! It’s been a while since I went off the beaten track and managed an obscure lower-league club on FM. For this challenge, I will start off all the way down in Poland’s fourth […]
The Cracovian Chronicles: Prologue
“Dzień dobry”, and “witam” to the start of a new Football Manager 2024 series here on Fuller FM! After a lengthy break, I am refreshed and raring to go for a new challenge that will hopefully last me for the rest of FM24’s life cycle. This challenge has taken me to Poland – the home […]
CM3 Revisited: Like Father, Like Son
Championship Manager 3 was released in March 1999 – almost 25 years ago – and marked the start of a new generation for the CM series. CM3 was also the first football management game I ever played, when I was about 8 or 9 years old. Over the coming months, I will revisit this game […]
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, […]