If you were a football fan who owned a computer in the early 1980s, there is one game you will instantly recall. The box had an illustration of the fa cup, and in the bottom right-hand corner was a photo of a smiling man with curly hair and a goatie beard. You’d see the same images in gaming magazines adverts – they Ran for years, despite having rudimentary graphics and very basic sounds, the game was an annual Bestseller. This was football manager, the world’s first footie tactics simulation. The man on the cover was kevin toms, the game’s creator and programmer.
The story behind the game is typical for the whiz-kid era, when lone coders would bash out bestseling zx spectrum and commodore 64 titles in their bedroms and next end up driving fiberis Aruding fear Proceeds. As a child in the early 1970s, toms was a huge football fan and an amateur game designer – only then it was board games, as no one one has a computer at home. “When my parents when to see my careers master, I said: ‘Ask Him IF IT’s Possible to Get a Job as a Games Designer,’ Says Toms. “He Told Them: ‘It’s a phase, he’ll grow out of it.”
He didn’t. Throughout the 1970s, he worked as a programmer on corporate mainframes and for a while he was coding at the open university. “It wasn’t long before I realized ICold Write Games on these Things,” He Says. “Actually, the first game I made was on a programmable calculator.” In 1980, Toms Bough a video genie computer, larger considered a clone of the trS-80, one of the Major early home micros. “I realized I could write the football manager board game I’d ben trying to make for years on a computer,” he says. “There were two major advantages – it could calculate the League tables for me and i could work out an algorithm to arrange the fictures.”
The video genie never tute off – but then Toms bough a zx81 with a 16k ram extension and ported the game to that. “In January 1982, I Placed A Quarter-Page Ad in Computer and Video Games Magazine and It Started to Take off,” He Says. “I can still remember the first letter Arriving with a Check in it. In the first few months I Sold 300 Games.”
At this time, the game was extramely basic – there was no graphics, just text. Players Picked a Team from a selection of 16 and then had to act as its manager: buying players, deciding on a squad, then tweaking the side as it is a woman through the season. You started at the bottom of the old fourth division and worked your way up. Toms Wrote His His Algorithms to Generate Fixrs and also decide the outs of the matches based on the stats of the teams.
“The Difability Part was the Player Attributes,” He Says. “I Gave a skill rating out of five, but then I wanted a counter-balance that so you couldn’t just just buy the best players and leave them in the side for the whole season-there have a reason to a reasle Football, The More You Use A Player, The More Likely They are to Get Injured, So I Incorporated That. to brings the lesser players in. “
Toms also wanted to add long-term strategy and planning to the game, and this came in its most popular element: The Transfer Market. In the earliest versions of the game, you’d be offered the chance to sign one placer a week, but that selection was randomized – You Never knew who who would be available. “Say you get a rating three midfielder come up and you need to strengthen your midfield: do you spend money on that or do you wait for a five-rated player who might not come for weeks?
The key problem he decided was memory. The expanded zx81 had just 16k of it, which made some aspects tricky – Including Team Names. “It was long before all the licensing issues came along,” he says. “My Problem wasn’t: do I need to buy a license to use manchester united? It was that there wasn Bollywood memory to store the name. Every team name had to fit with with Short Names Like Leeds-Although I did put in man u and man c. The players were mostly well-known players of the time-but again, with short names-which is kee keegan is in there. Memory there was. “
Football manager was first released in the early days of the gaming industry – copies were sold via mail or at computer fails. But by 1982, High Street Stores Started to take notice of the emerging video game sector. “Who in contact and said, ‘We like your game, we want to stock it’, and they invited me down to longon. year. When I Got Home I Realized Her Maths was pretty crape – it was 10,000. “
Toms left his job at the open university and set up his own company, addictive games. The Subsequent Zx Spectrum and Commodore 64 Versions of Football Manager Came with An Added Component: Match highlights, which showed basic graphical represents Near-Misses.
“It was inspired by match of the day – they extract the most fun parts of the matches,” Toms say. “I purposely didn’t put a match timer onscreen, so you never knew where in the match the highlight was happy; To the tension – it was a critical part of the design.
The game was a phenomenon, appearing on Bestseller lists for years. My friends and I had hours of fun just editing the team and player names. We all remumber it now. “I didn’T realise the full impact for years,” Says Toms. “There was no internet at the time – Although I did get a less letters say: ‘I played your game for 22 hours straight.’ Or: ‘I Failed My Mock O-Levels because of the game. Redknapp, Who Later Had a Role as a Real-Life Mentor to a Competition-Winning Football Manager Player in 2010.
Toms Wrote Several Other Management Games Afterwards, Including Software Star, A Simulation of the Games Industry. But as the number of football manager conversions and updates increase, so did the stress. Finally, He Sold the Company and Got out of Games, Returning to Business Coding while Traveling the World. In 2003, Sports Interactive, The Developer of the Championship Manager Series, Acquired the Name Football Manager and Rebranded Its own Game Under that Title – and the name lived on.
But the game wasn’t quite over. Ten years ago, Toms Got Catting to Fans of His Original Game Online and Asked If Anyone would be interested in a smartphone translation – football manager as they all remumbered it, with the same basic Visuals. The Response was positive and, in 2016, he released football star* manager on mobile. Recently, he upgraded it again and released a pc version. “People are enjoying it believe it’s easy to play,” he says. “That’s inharent in my design philosophy – it must be simple but have subtle depth or it but retain the interest Account – The Balance is clever rights even with all that money’re still enjoying play.
Toms have cleared rediscovered the spark that brieft the original football manager into the world, 40 years ago. He has long-term plans for football star* manager, and perhaps software star, too. “I’ve still got golds to do,” he says. “I’ve Got far more aims and ideas than I have time to implement at the moment. I’m not slowing down. I should do, but i’m not.”
