☆My Retrogaming Football Management Obsession☆ @KevinToms #Retrogaming #GamersUnite

Football Management Simulations have been an obsession of mine since I was first introduced to Football Manager 2 on the Amstrad CPC.

Ever since that moment I have searched for the perfect footy manager sim.

Ironically in a day and age when we do have the perfect football manager sim in the form of the current Football Manager series, I no longer obsess over footy manager sims as much as I did back then.

The last football manager sim I bought was Football Manager 2012 and it turned me off footy manager games because of all the time and effort that you had to plough in just to pick a team and set up tactics. 

In my opinion the detailed nature of this generation of manager sims take away the fun of the older sims.

It's with that sentiment in mind that I started to compile my own list of football management simulations that I feel have had the biggest say in my life as a virtual football manager.

Looking at the list you will see a lot of Amiga games as the machine had such an array of great footy manager sims on it. 

Let us get started with the grandaddy of all football manager simulations........

1. Football Manager 2 (Amstrad CPC)

Football Manager 2 was where the obsession started for me......a game where I could watch the highlights of my team as they played out matches against english football's elite. One rating for each player was all you needed to make decisions and I loved it. Kevin Toms you are a legend for making this awesome game!

2. World Soccer Manager (Atari 800 XE/XL)

I played this game endlessly on the Atari 800 as it was the only decent management sim I could find. It wasn't a great game by FM2 standards but I did enjoy ploughing my time into it. This game also had a kind of European Super League composition of teams that were super exotic sounding back in the 80's. Teams such as Osasuna were to become a household name for me as I took them on in World Soccer Manager

3. Championship Manager 93 (Amiga)

For me this was the perfect football manager sim at the time as it struck the balance between detail and gameplay just right. There was enough tactics to get stuck into without ever feeling like you were being bogged down by it all. Playing this in two player hot seat mode was one of the most satisfying local multiplayer experiences that there has ever been. "O.k. you've got 10 minutes to do your transfers and pick your team and then it's my turn" Marvellously simple yet totally addictive manager game.

4. Ultimate Soccer Manager 2 (PC)

I love a football stadium and this game was all about the the football stadium editor for me. The graphical user interface was like nothing else i'd seen before and it felt removed from the spreadsheet style of Championhip Manager. I payed this game as a nice looking alternative to CM although it never really had the depth of CM.

5. Premier Manager 2 (Amiga)

Premier Manager had a style of its own and it was a tough game to master as it made you start in the Football Conference. Again it didn't have the addictive nature of CM but it did feel different from other games i'd played so it kept me amused. I especially likes the dot matrix style scoreboard animations that came up when match events occurred.

6. 1st Division Manager (Amiga)

I'm not sure why I put some much time into this game. It was a tidy game but it did feel just a bit too easy. It also had an interesting feature of being able to allocate a hatchet man to injure the oppo star player! Only thing was that it was a guaranteed red card for the Hatchet man. I also liked the top down highlights style, very cool indeed.

7. LMA Manager (Playstation 1)

LMA felt fresh and exciting with a very graphical nature to all it did. The match engine was 3 d, it had commentary from the Match Of The Day team and the Stadium editor was awesome! I played this game a lot in an attempt to create the perfect stadia. Great game to play with mates.

8. Football Tactician 2 (Amiga)

My friend and I went halves on this game so we could use it to create our own play by mail league. The game was ultra detailed for the time and was a great play for a serious football manager geek like me. We would ask the managers at school to pick their teams via the teamsheet we'd send out. Then we'd enter in their selections and play the matches for them. Once a result was reached we'd print all the stats off and send the packs out to the managers. For all this we charged £2 a week. A brilliant sim with brilliant memories.

9. Sensible World Of Soccer (Amiga)

For me maybe it's a push to call it a football management sim as it doesn't have the full depth of a footy management game, but whatever it does it does super well. It's got enough management options for a footy manager kind of guy but then it packs a real punch with the fact that you are playing a suped up verion of Sensible Soccer. It's still great today as I recently downloaded it for PC through Good Old Games.

10. The Manager (Amiga)

The manager, simply titled and a little different from the other games i'd played. You could choose your manager avatar at the start of the game and it had a graphical interface that made it seem fresh. The thing with this game is that it felt a little too easy. Again though, if you and a friend played it it was awesome fun.

So that's my ten favourite footy manager games of all time.

How Many Of These Have YOU Played?

What Is YOUR Fave Footy Sim Of All time?