Devil In The Details

I'm in a bit of a quandary. I used to be a huge player, addict even, of the Football Manager series (formerly known as Championship Manager until some business feud between the publishers and the developers) until my laptop got too old and crap to play the newer versions. However, now I have access to a modern PC and the lure of the old sweetheart is calling.

My problem is that I now actually have some vestiges of a life, which is always a hindrance to any Football Manager session, as "a quick game" can easily turn into a ten hour session spent painfully altering tactics to hopefully nullify another team's tricky left winger in a crunch cup tie. I'm not sure my friends and good lady would be very understanding of such antics.

The series have long been a part of my gaming life since 1993, when my brother and a couple of friends would engage in epic campaigns that would result in crucial grudge matches that would be talked about for weeks. Yes, pretty tragic for a bunch of teenagers perhaps, but when the alternative was to spend an evening stood around the bus shelter drinking piss labelled as cider, it seemed we had the better deal. After all, it wasn't like we could go out and play actual football, as it was always raining.

My brother managed the very impressive feat of taking the 1995 Blackburn team to a clean sweep of Premiership, FA Cup, League Cup and Champions League titles without losing a game all season. His signing of Uwe Rosler proved key when he went on to score over 70 goals. Stuff like that sticks in both of our memories - my best was a 17 game winning streak with a late 90s Wolves team, driven by Robbie Keane scoring about 20 in that run.

It's something you either get or don't. Love of football isn't a pre-requisite. I know plenty of fans who find it tedious beyond belief to spend hours staring at stats and figures on what is a glorified spreadsheet. Yet, as an admitted geek, it appeals to my love of detail.

So, I can't decide whether to allow myself to be sucked back in. But as my Playstation 3 has just decided to blow it's circuit board, I may have no choice but to submit. If you don't hear from me a while, I'll be querying whether taking a punt on Owen Hargreaves for a free transfer is worth the gamble...