Was browsing the Football Manager subreddit and just came across this. Don't know what the evidence is, but the amount of upvotes for such a specific, obscure name suggest there's some public truth to it. Thread was originally some random Reddit user mentioning that they'd been put in the FM database as a Stoke U21 recruitment analyst. Now I'm just going to imagine Poya stood on the sidelines shouting "BERATE" when we go 1-0 down after 9 minutes. If you get it you get it
There's still hope for me yet then - the number of hours I've wasted on this game in its various versions is unspeakable.
Mostly play FMM now but fair to say i spend a lot of time on it. Current save is York, who I've taken to the Prem in 10 years.
I've just used strategies that I've learnt over the years to get them promoted really. Rely heavily each year on loans til get to League 1, then start to develop youngsters and keep them until silly money bids come in. I think i've only been relegated once, which was from Championship, but bounced back and year after I think I made it into Prem. Getting bored of it now, might take the next job offered.
Same - I got promoted second season with Barnsley and stayed up comfortably every season since, think that's why I feel it's a little easier. After my 10th year at the club I'm gunna download the lower league database and start over with Penistone Church
Don't know if anyone has found this, but Remy Vita is sh*t hot in this year's game. I'm in 2028, have won Europa, got to UCL final and finishing in the Prem top 6 and he's still my first choice left back.
CM 97/98 was my favourite. I liked it how relatively simple it was, compared to the modern FM games anyway. No unnecessary bells and whistles, no silly press interviews and team talks with the exact same dialogue options every time, no need to set individual training schedules for every single player in your team, that sort of stuff. That all felt like a bit of a chore (I suppose most of it can be automatised, but still) although I suppose it can be very rewarding as well once you really get into the game. I haven't got that much time these days though. Admittedly the 3D match view in the modern games is great, but the good old text commentary was super exciting at the time too. I remember signing some unknown Norwegian striker called Martin Knutsen to my Barnsley team, and with just a little bit of good old-fashioned cheating we won the Premier League with him as the top scorer. I also had Herman Gaviria in my team, a great Colombian midfielder who died in real life only a couple of years later when he was struck by lightning during a training session - I remember feeling a bit sad about it even though I had only ever known him in a computer game! I think CM 97/98 was also the game where you were able to sign Diego Maradona on free for just about any team in the beginning. He was crap and always retired after the first season, but it was still fun to sign him for some small club in the lower divisions.