Originally published in October 2013.
I, Mark Farrelly, am a managerial mastermind. Pure and simple. In many ways I felt a lot of pity for David Moyes, stepping into the berth left by Alex Ferguson at Man United. I had gone through the same experience myself in 2003.
In a bizarre coincidence, my last club before I was appointed as United's new manager was also Everton. On FA Premier League Manager 1999-2000, I had managed Everton to Premiership title – a feat made all the more credible by the fact that I'd done so while playing Richard Dunne in goals for most of the season.
So obviously my venture into the much more realistic world of Championship Manager – as it was then called – brought with it a big step up in difficulty.
Back then the game hadn't the option of setting previous experience at the beginning so the fans were on my back straight away. Their mistrust of this completely unknown manager was made all the worse by the fact that I announced Charlton Athletic's Radostin Kishishev as my first signing.
What can I say? You put a 12-year-old in charge of the biggest club in the world then you had better prepare yourself for some teething problems.
I won't lie, our form during my first season in charge was far from exemplary. Often this cruel mistress of a game would seemingly goad me through my mail inbox by describing me as Manchester United's 'beleaguered' manager and touting Kevin Keegan as my possible replacement come the summer. However, United stuck by me after a fourth place finish, I signed two youngsters, namely Diego and Alex, from Brazil and went on to build a dynasty.
The Irishman with the best job in the world
Ten years on and I'm still an addict. Meanwhile, in real life, 33-year-old Dublinman Niall Redmond is actually living the dream. He's a programmer with Sports Interactive, and involved in making the latest edition:
'When I tell lads what I do, the reaction is always great, I may as well be telling them I’m an astronaut. If you had asked me as a 12 year-old what I wanted to do when I grew up, I would have said I wanted to make this game, so I’m extremely lucky I ended up here. There’s not a lot of jobs where talking about football all day, every day is a requirement.'
Not content with merely working on the game, Niall is of course a Football Manager hipster. He has no idea what it's like to manage United on FM nor any other Premier League team for that matter. Instead, he only ever takes charge of Woking: 'They’re always in the conference with limited resources and the challenge of getting them up the leagues is a tough one. I’ve got them to the Champions League a few times but never won it… that’s still the dream'
Football Managers Anonymous
Perhaps 'the dream' is what makes the game so addictive. No matter how successful you are there's always another challenge. We've all heard stories of interventions, divorce cases and grown men crying over the game. For Niall's group of friends it's no different:
'One of my good mates down in Cobh got in trouble with his fiancée over the weekend for disappearing for hours at a time while they had friends over to visit. He tried to explain how important the upcoming Spanish second division fixtures were but I don’t think she bought it.'
In fairness, she got off lightly. For instance, take the example used in the Guardian recently; a journalist's wife awoke one night to find him sitting in the kitchen with his head in hands. When she asked him what was wrong, he exclaimed that he'd been sacked, His wife burst into tears. She was pregnant, they'd just taken out a mortgage, she was terrified for their future. It took him several minutes to clarify that he'd only been sacked on a computer game, not in real life.'
And then of course, there was the incident with Jason Manford and Micah Richards:
When it all gets a little too real
At some stage during our FM careers we've all thought that we could actually offer proper advice to real life clubs regarding undiscovered wonderkids. Well, some of the younger managers around the world really have been consulting the game's database when scouting new talent.
'Everton have a license to use the database as part of their scouting network, and we’re pretty sure many others use it unofficially. Andre Villas-Boas has talked about using the game when he was scouting players for Chelsea, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has mentioned FM in his list of reasons he got into management,' says Niall.
So there you have it folks. If you're good enough at Football Manager you could well be the next AVB.
Within two clicks the FAI are also able to identify which players qualify for Ireland under the Granny Rule. Although, at the moment, Dave Kitson and Will Keane are about the height of it.
Whether you're taking over Ireland or trying to win the Champions League with Woking, wives and girlfriends brace yourselves for absentee loved ones, caught up in a game that Redomond aptly sums up in three words:
'Glorious, Heartbreaking, Compelling.'
