A couple of months ago we stumbled across a Monday night game across the river at Aveley. The game was in the Championship Manager Cup, a trophy for the Ryman’s League teams. Eidos had kindly sponsored the trophy, which on a good day we see 150 people paying to watch a cup tie.

The cup final, played in March was won by Ryman’s League One side Leatherhead who beat Wealdstone from the league above on penalties. But you may have missed some significance in the whole Championship Manager story. Let me take you back to the beginning. Are you sitting comfortably Then I shall begin.

Once upon a time there was a young man called Kevin Toms. Some of you (probably those over the age of 35) will have known his product very well indeed. To others the name will mean nothing, but I bet if you a) Own a PC, PSP, Playstation, X-Box or Wii, b) love football and c) do not have a demanding wife/partner you will have heard of Championship Manager.  

Probably only rivalled by RedTube.com as the most fun you can have on your own with a PC, Championship Manager gives us all an opportunity to be Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho or Gianfranco Zola (unfortunately the “alleged” nocturnal activities of a certain manager cannot be recreated in the current versions of the game), starting with the lowest of the lows and rising to the top.

My record was taking Grays Athletic to the Champions League final in my 27th year on the game. So who is this Kevin, and what relevance does it have to the game Well, Kevin Toms developed the first ever football manager simulation game for the ZX Spectrum back in the very early 1980’s.  

In the game everyone the opportunity to manager a team, and watch the game unfold in pure two dimensional unadulterated by advertising green graphics. Want to see what kept us in our bedrooms for so long at the time without a staple through their naval Well you can still play a version of the game by clicking here.

And we are very lucky to have tracked Kevin down. In the cyber word it actually wasn’t that hard. A simple Uncle Google search for “Kevin Toms + Football Manager” returned as the top item a blog by the man himself.

So we fired up our old ZX Spectrum with its rubber keys and posed some questions to one of the pioneers of the computer age.

Original Football Manager

Morning Kevin. It’s great to finally meet a man who kept me away from so much of my homework when I was at school. Was Football Manager the best fun a teenage boy could have on their own in the bedroom in the early 80’s

The best pure fun perhaps! I think maybe it did what it was supposed to do, created a world in people’s imagination that they could take part in.

There was really nothing else like it at the time. Flight Simulator was the only real strategy game at the time so what inspired you to write the game in the first place

I loved creating all sorts of games as a kid, and for some reason always wanted to crack creating a football management game. It was not easy.

Bill Gates apparently put little “cookies” or deliberate bugs in some of his earlier coding. Did you put in any little bugs so that people could cheat to win the league

Never, I am too much of a games design purist. I want the game to be a game I can play and enjoy myself, with no significant advantage over other players. That is my ideal.

When did you first realize that you had a hit on your hands

Quite quickly, the first orders came in quickly, but probably when the big chain stores started stocking thousands was the real point that I knew.

There were some other big games out at the same time. Did you ever think about putting Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy in the game as players

No, but who do they play for