Championship Manager gameplay stories

[PixelsAtDawn]

For a future article I'm writing, I'd love to get some stories and memories from Amiga users of CM games on the platform. This means the original CM, CM 93/94 and CM Italia. And CM2 if you could actually get it to work

You know what I'm looking for, things like:

• Memories of an epic season or career
• That superb signing that changed your game, or the player you always signed
• Your first experience with a CM game
• How CM impacted your life

Hope folks can help!

[Calabazam]

I did play a lot CM on the Amiga, english championship only.
Some epic seasons, but that was quite simple.
You buy Paul Gascoigne who at the begining of the game is injured in Italy and available for transfers. You make him play behind two forwards in continental style and you win everything, including Europa cups, unless he is injured again.
He is the best player available by far in the game, even Cantona can't match.
Fortunately, in the game Gazza has no alcohol or personal problems and can live up to his full potential.

[lilwshu]

I spent many many hours playing Champ Man Italia - as Inter playing a formation I can't quite remember I ended up being unbeatable. I remember Atalanta having a load of brilliant young players I could get for cheap and Inter were good because they had a lot of free squad slots for signings.

Italia had a bit of a quirk in that transfer windows were in place and getting rid of players was very difficult - in a few seasons all squads were full so signings became almost impossible - you had to make sure any players over 30 were transfer listed without a squad number when the season finishes so they would retire.

It also had odd real world realism in that Canniggia was banned for a season because of a real life drugs ban and Lentini was out for a year having suffered a real life bad car accident.

[sokolovic]

Note that french version was called Guy Roux Manager. I have quite fond memories of this game, even waiting 40mn at the beginning of every Season wasn't a problem.
We were playing with my brother, taking Marseille or Endoume which is a small club in a Downtown neighborhood of Marseille famous for its Di Giovanni stadium. What a wonderful challenge to get them on the top of the french football.

Probably one of the Amiga game we spend together the most time.
I also remember that the french translation was a complete disaster with some very funny expression probably directly translated from the english original. Nowadays we still quote the game when viewing a football match with my brother. Nobody understand the private joke of course.

[Megalomaniac]

I had the version in the World Cup Year '94 Compilation, which didn't have the Mark Collis & Ferrah Orosco that everyone else remembers. It was basically CM94, so you couldn't sign European players but the Expected To Move Abroad bug that the 93 version had was gone. Played it loads at the time, but looking back I think Premier Manager II was the better game, dare I say it? Maybe all those numbers appealed to my inner nerd. Football management games are a very male thing, somehow. Football + tactics + numbers + long-term task.

Still, I managed to win the European Cup with my team Liverpool, and managed to get from Division 3 to qualify for Europe, but never quite managed to turn a Division 3 team into League Champions. Think I used 4-2-1-3, the Support Man made it a lot easier but 3 central midfielders worked too (wingers seemed really ineffectual for some reason, maybe 5-3-2 or 5-2-1-2 worked?