Best Christmas film to watch this year? Home Alone: The Horror of course! Check out the trailer...

I spotted this little piece of YouTube genius courtesy of the guys over at Unilad. It seems that everyone's favourite Christmas film has undergone a bit of a facelift this year and Kevin McCallister could be facing something a little more sinister that bungling burglars on December 24...

The very best of 'If Carlsberg did deluded commentators they'd be Liverpool fans' YouTube clips

So at a time when my team Everton seem to be doing their utmost to ruin Christmas for me this year, I can always rely on those boys across the park to cheer me up with their equally appalling performances this season. And what makes their plummet all the better to enjoy is that all of those deluded Liverpool fans from last season have gone a little quiet.

 If you cast your memory back to the 2013/14 season, the media were pretty much slobbering over the prospect of Liverpool winning the league, whilst real football fans couldn't imagine anything worse than having to watch Luis Suarez and co get their hands on the Premier League trophy after having to put up with deluded sentences such as 'It's going to be our year' over and over again.

But of course it wasn't to be, much to our delight and the guys over at YNFA.net who caught the mood of most football fans with their brilliant and hilarious series of 'If Carlsberg did deluded commentators they'd be Liverpool fans' YouTube video clips as we all reveled in the plight of those deluded Kopites.

It all started with Steven Gerrard's now infamous 'We don't let this f***ing slip, we go again!' team talk after the Reds had beaten title rivals Man City 3-2...

But we all know that Stevie G's words came back to haunt him in the game against Chelsea although some Liverpool fans couldn't quite accept it...

Which led to a number of memorable and comical memes doing the rounds on the internet like this one...

But even then Liverpool fans remained deluded, even when Willian's second goal confirmed a 2-0 victory for Chelsea...

So of course it was on to Palace where everything was looking rosy until, well, you know...

You'd think they might have learned their lesson but seems like they're still as deluded as ever if this reaction to Phil Jagielka's late goal in the Merseyside derby this season is anything to go by...

And even the sniff of silverware in the Capital Cup didn't quite go according to plan in the semi-final draw...

So if you are in need of a bit of Christmas cheer over the footy festive season, make sure you check out the YNFA.net YouTube page!

"Step on my damn toes...!" The angriest man on the subway?

For those of us who have to endure public transport on our way to and from work, I think we all know how this man feels. You're squashed into a carriage, wishing you could be anywhere else in the world and to make matters worse you have to deal with some serious rush hour rage from some folk. A bit like this guy! I saw this video on Facebook the other day and just had to share. This guys is just too damn funny, but be warned - if you step on this guys toes then he is going to go medieval on yo ass... Whooooooo!!

PS - Is it me, or is this dude a dead ringer for the dad in Friday?!

The greatest Championship/Football Manager players of all time revealed in the ultimate gamers First XI!

After 3 months, 137 players, 2,121 votes and several nostalgic visits back to those playground debates about which players would grace your pixelated onscreen tactics board, it is finally time to reveal the 11 players who made the ultimate FM/CM first XI team of all time!

Back on July 17 I wrote a blog post which outlined my ambition to find out who the best players in the history of this great game are to celebrate the fact that I'd been an avid and addicted player myself for over 20 years. The rules were simple - you were voting on players whose in-game ability by far surpassed the reality. The response was incredible and I have to say a huge thank you to the Sports Interactive Forum community for their votes and feedback.

The voting was so tight and competitive that I have made the decision to create the starting 11 plus 9 substitutes made up of players who finished runners-up in the nine different position categories. So without further ado, here is the players who made the final cut...

Click the image to enlarge the picture to see the greatest CM/FM First XI in all its glory!

Goalkeeper: Igor Akinfeev (28%)
Runners-up: Sebastien Frey (12%), Vincent Enyeama (7%), Dionisis Chiotis (6%)
CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL POST 

Right-back: Anthony Vanden Borre (33%)
Runners-up: Darijo Srna (24%), Mike Duff (12%), Šime Vrsaljko (6%)
CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL POST

Centre-back: Taribo West (19%) & Philippe Mexès (19%)
Runners-up: Mamadou Sakho (12%), Kyriakos Papadopoulos (10%), Kevin Hofland (8%)
CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL POST

Left-back: Razvan Rat (13%)
Runners-up: Joe Mattock (12%), Isaac Okoronkwo (12%), Juan Manuel Vargas (11%)
CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL POST

Defensive Midfielder: Mark Kerr (23%)
Runners-up: Fredy Guarin (18%), Miguel Veloso (15%), Tommy Svindal Larsen (7%)
CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL POST

Right Winger: Kennedy Bakircioglu (22%)
Runners-up: Julius Aghahowa (15%), Mads Jørgensen (13%), Sherman Cardenas (8%), Georginio Wijnaldum (8%)
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Attacking Midfielder: Tonton Zola Moukoko (22%)
Runners-up: Kim Kallstrom (19%), Nii Lamptey (11%), Andres D'Alessandro (11%)
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Left Winger: Freddy Adu (31%)
Runners-up: Alexander Farnerud (14%), Mika Ääritalo (12%), Henri Saivet (10%)
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Striker: Cherno Samba (14%) & Andri Sigporsson (14%)
Runners-up: Maxim Tsigalko (13%), Tó Madeira (12%), Javier Saviola (12%)
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So there you have it folks! The search for two decades worth of football management simulation superstars has come to an end and as this wonderful game continues to go from strength to strength, stealing more hours from our lives and generally leaving our loved ones wondering what the hell we are doing staying up until 3am in the morning, I for one can't wait to unearth the next wonderkid who will break scoring records on my laptop despite ending up plugging away with a mid-table Conference team in real life.

Football/Championship Manager - I salute you, we all salute you!

50 Things that happened in the 90s that will make you feel old! Part 2...

25. It's been nearly a quarter of a century since Nigel Benn fought Chris Eubank...

Just as this generation will look back on the Carl Froch and George Groves fights, we can say we were there when the original British grudge match took place... in 1990!

24. If Neil and Tony still lived together it wouldn't be funny anymore...
It would just be weird that two 52-year-old men were still roommates. That's right, Men Behaving Badly first hit our screens in 1992.

23. Even after 25 years we still love this scene...

Funny how? Like I'm a clown? I amuse you? This menacing scene from Goodfellas still has us lads quoting Joe Pesci's famous line.

22. Fanny packs were cool...
Or so we were led to believe. Even Dwayne Johnson struggles to "Rock" this look! See what I did there? Did you see? Oh shut up, you probably owned a fanny pack!

21. We shaved logos and brands into our hair...
I'm not sure how the craze got started, but it wasn't an uncommon sight in the early 90s to see someone with Nike or Adidas shaved into the back of their hair. Personally I went for WWF, although it was in a barbers so it looked pretty shit and the other kids teased me asking why I had World Wildlife Fund shaved onto my bonce. Sigh.

20. We were there when the East Coast - West Coast beef kicked off...
And it is testament to the music that there are kids born in the 90s who are still listening to 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G. songs today even though they were both murdered over 15 years ago and both cases remain unsolved.

19. Your bedroom probably looked like this...
We were all raving in the 90s. Well, that's when we wasn't at school of course. And just because we couldn't go to all night illegal field raves, it didn't stop us sticking flyers all over our bedrooms walls. Everybody had the Dreamscape: Woodstock 2 flyer on their wall. Everybody.

18. And it's likely you owned a Fantazia bomber jacket...
Or something similar. In order to keep in with the cool crowd you convinced your parents that £70 for this item of clothing was essential. Then you'd go home and listen to a pirate radio station like Touchdown FM where they'd play music like...

17. I'm Raving, I'm Raving...
In my bedroom. With my flyers on the wall. And my Fantazia jacket on. Again, I can't stress the importance that you weren't actually at a rave (after all, you were 14), but once that piano rift hit... forget about it!

16. We must just be the only generation to got to drink transparent Coca-Cola...
22 years ago Coca-Cola brought us clear cola when Tab Clear hit our fridges. The fad didn't last long as by 1994 it was no longer being sold, mainly because it tasted pretty rank. But hey, they tried!

15. They are now remaking shows from our era...
You know you're getting old when this happens. The rich kids of Beverly Hills 90210 first hit our screens in 1990! That means most of the cast are now in their 40s, apart from Luke Perry. He was 40 when they made the show.

14. It doesn't matter how old you are this is still one of the best things ever...
It's Wrestlemania VI. It's Hulk Hogan vs The Ultimate Warrior. It's 1990 and you're 12-years-old. And now you're 36 and this still gets your excited!

13. Lads mags slowly descended into porn for cowards...
In the 90s our favourite female celebrities started to get their kit off more often to the point where you no longer had to embarassingly hide a copy of a porno mag inside a newspaper, and instead you proudly bought FHM or Loaded because, you know, you liked the articles. Plus that blonde bird from that soap got her baps out.

12. You had a proper computer...
Believe it or not, but that Amiga 500 that you spent countless hours on playing Sensible Soccer or Championship Manager actually stopped being made in 1991, which means it is older than some of the people you work with in your office!

11. We will Never Forget...
Well I won't anyway. If there is one thing we knew how to do in the 1990s it was boy bands. Whether it was five bad boys with the power to rock you or everybody in the house of love, the 90s had it's fair share of all male pop groups. But there was only one group that really mattered and 19 years ago we were all drunkenly singing along at the end of the night to this:

10. Gazza cried in 1990...
And 24 years later we're all still crying. Forget 1966, we were too young for that. But this is the World Cup we will tell our kids about - the one where we nearly made it. And then we lost on penalty's to the Germans.

9. Okay, we might talk about this one as well...
Hey, when you think about it, England were pretty good in the 90s! We made it to two semi-finals, the second at Euro 96 when we bought into the fact that Football Was Coming Home. And then we lost on penalty's to the Germans.

8. Kevin Arnold would be 58-years-old this year...
Was there a better show on TV in the 90s than The Wonder Years? Fred Savage (who happens to be 38 now) played the part of young Kevin, who would now be pushing towards retirement age if the show was still running today.

7. The last time you ate a Marathon was 23 years ago...
It was 1991 when the chocolate bar changed it's name to Snickers and it is 16 years since you had an Opal Fruit (aka Starburst)!

6. Alcoholic Lemonade was the best thing since sliced bread...
Especially if you happened to just reach the legal age to drink alcohol and therefore hadn't quite required the taste for beer yet but were still adamant on getting pissed every Friday. Hooch first launched 19 years ago in 1995.

5. Geri Halliwell's famous Brit appearance was 17 years ago...
And I'm not talking about the Union Jack dress either! While that might remain the iconic image from the 1997 Brit performance, most lads also got pretty excited when Ginger Spice fell out of her dress.

4. You were massively disappointed with this film...
In 1991 you probably felt the title In Bed With Madonna was really misleading but you didn't really have anyone to complain to without coming across like a pervert.

3. The Fun House twins are now 42...
Yep, Melanie and Martina who helped out the mullet-haired Pat Sharpe on the real crazy show where anything goes and you fancied like mad are now in their 40's. Think that's bad, the Alessi Twins from Neighbours are now 48!

2. You have been telling people 'You can't handle the truth' for 22 years...
A truly great film can stand the test of times based on how long people quote that particular movie, and since 1992 we have been quoting Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men.

 

1. No one has had a curtains haircut since 1996... 
And looking at this picture, is there any wonder why? What the hell was I thinking?!

Top 10 #LurkingAshley Pictures

The social media aftermath of Ashley Cole's recent snap of him lurking on the fringes of a team photo with his new colleagues at Roma has been meme-tastic! The hashtag #LurkingAshley quickly started to gather pace over the last couple of days and here are some of the best...

1. Ashley pops in to see Cheryl and her new hubbie

2. Ashley is there to see Tiger Woods tee-off

3. Ashley the dolphin trainer

4. Ashley urges Sonny Liston to get up

5. No Likey, No Lurkey

6. Room for one more at the last supper?

7. Ashley Cole during the Suarez incident

8. Ashley the fifth Beatle 

9. One small step for mankind, one giant leap for Ashley

10. Roy, did you say you'd be needing me or not?

Ashley Cole is settling in nicely at new club Roma

Like going to a new school, the first day at your new football club is always a difficult affair. A new language, a new culture and a new way of life. Luckily you'll always have your new teammates to help you settle in and if this picture is anything to go by, Ashley Cole is fitting in nicely with his new colleagues at Roma...

CM/FM All-Time Best First XI: Striker

This is it! The big one has arrived baby, and when all the dust has cleared this is the vote that matters. The most memorable of all legendary CM/FM players are those who grabbed the headlines with 50+ goals a season; sending you into a Championship and Football Manager wonderland. I had to be strict with this list as at one point I must have had 35 players jotted down. I'm sure some of those players I've cut will have a real sentimental value to some of you, but like a real football manager I had to be ruthless, but I believe this is a strong shortlist of the very best strikers in Champ Man. Let's get cracking and start with a bang in Championship Manager 97/98 where the Didier Drogba of his time was scoring goals for fun. Ibrahima Bakayoko was the Yakubu lookalike from Marseille who practically lived in the back of the net such was his way of driving the ball home. Everton - who a couple of years ago had an agreement in place with Sports Interactive to use the game's database for scouting purposes - brought Bakayoko to the Premier League and he promptly stunk up the place and has since made his way across Europe from Spain to Italy to Greece.

Who is the best CM/FM striker of all time?

In Championship Manager 3 Andri Sigporsson was the Icelandic striker with a killer instinct in front of goal and a ludicrously low price tag for such a goal machine. Despite being part of the Bayern Munich youth set-up, Sigporsson was always going to find it tough to get anywhere near his CM3 goal scoring exploits.

The man they called Zlatan took centre stage in CM 99/01. No, not that Zlatan, I'm talking about Zlatan Muslimovic. The Zlatan we all know and love so much wasn't actually that good on the game so you opted for Muslimovic instead who you could pick up on the cheap from Sweden. To be fair, I guess their names sound similar so it could have been an honest mistake. While one Zlatan went on to play for some of the biggest clubs in the world, our Zlatan seemed to go on loan to nearly every club in Serie A after signing for Udinese, and now plays in China for Guizhou Renhe F.C.

Chucks Nwoko and Javier Saviola were legends in Championship Manager 00/01. You could pick Nwoko up fairly easily from Birkirkara in the Maltese league, but Saviola was a different proposition as Barcelona were not in any mood to let their wonderkid leave. For me, if you had to choose between the two on the game then Saviola would win hands down every time. He was as good as Lionel Messi on the game and scored a bagful of goals. But despite playing at some great clubs across Europe since leaving Barca (Monaco, Real Madrid, Benfica), Saviola has never made it to the next level and is now at Olympiacos. As for Nwoko, the highest profile club he has ever played for is CSKA Sofia on loan.

We were spoilt for choice in Championship Manager 01/02 and no fewer than five strikers make the shortlist from that wonderful game! Here we go: Justin Georcelin, Maxim Tsigalko, Cherno Samba, Tó Madeira and Anastasios Skalidis. Wow, where do you even start with that lot?! Each player has their own fascinating story as to why they never quite lived up to the hype.

At 17, Georcelin was at Northampton Town and many predicted a bright future for the explosive striker. But after falling in with the wrong crowd and developing a £500 crack cocaine addiction, Georcelin was sentenced to prison for his part in a spree of violent attacks and robberies on local taxi drivers.

Tsigalko was voted the best ever player on the game in a poll I posted on my blog recently and it is easy to see why. For the fee of £2m you could buy the Belarus international from Dinamo Minsk and end up with a striker who would easily bag himself close to a 100 goals per season! Of course, the real life version of events was nothing like that and Tsigalko retired at 26 due to injury.

Cherno Samba is a man who needs no introduction to the CM/FM community. The teenage prodigy could be bought from Millwall and scored goals for fun. He's moved around quite a bit in his career and at the age of 28 he is currently without a club.

Madeira was absolutely lethal and completely fictional! The Portuguese goal machine was the brainchild of one of the games researchers who created the player and named him after himself! And Anastasios Skalidis is a player I literally can't find any information on apart from stories from fans about his in-game goal-scoring exploits! I have no idea if he was real or not, although some fans claim he was a 'bug' player. Whatever he was he knew where the back of the net was!

Now we move into the final straight with Moses Ashikodi from Championship Manager 4. You'd have thought those guys at Sports Interactive would have learned their lesson with young strikers at Millwall, but they did it again with Ashikodi who was amazing in the game. In real life he has played for far too many clubs for me to list here but his current club is Cray Wanderers which tells its own story really!

Championship Manager 03/04 brought us the talents of Anatoli Todorov and Evandro Roncatto; two players who would lead your line for many a season. Todorov has always played his football in Eastern Europe and Roncatto has played in various minor European and South American leagues.

Nicolas Millan was the 14-year-old sensation from Chile in FM07 and was likened to Cristiano Ronaldo. We all bought him from Colo Colo and watched him blossom into a world class striker, but it was completely opposite in real life and he is now at Curicó Unido in the second tier of Chilean football.

A similar story could be said of Bojan Krkić in FM08 who was destined to be one of the greats with Barcelona. Even though he has one cap to his name for Spain, his career stalled and despite loans spells at Milan and Ajax, he will be turning out next season for Stoke City.

HOUSE RULES
1. PLEASE VOTE ONCE FOR YOUR FAVOURITE CM/FM STRIKER
2. YOUR FAVOURITE PLAYER MIGHT BE MISSING BECAUSE THEY FEATURE IN A DIFFERENT POSITION IN THIS VOTE
3. IF YOU SELECT "OTHER" THEN PLEASE POST THE NAME OF YOUR PLAYER IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW
4. POST YOUR STORIES AND MEMORIES ABOUT YOUR FAVOURITE CM/FM STRIKER
5. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE MAIN CM/FM BEST XI BLOG POST
6. VOTES FOR ALL POSITIONS CLOSE ON OCTOBER 31, 2014 
7. PLEASE HELP PROMOTE THE VOTE BY POSTING THIS LINK IN FORUMS AND ON SOCIAL MEDIA  

Click here to go back to the main page

CM/FM All-Time Best First XI: Left-Wing

A good left peg is a hard thing to find, but when you find it you should cherish it forever. Or something like that, but maybe in a tone which makes me sound a little less weird and obsessive about Football Manager. But I digress. The problem with the AMC/R/L role is that there were so many brilliant players who were inter-changeable across your midfield attack that I’m sure some of the players I’ve already listed in the AMR and AMC votes were the guys you selected to drive your attack down that left flank. But in saying that I believe I’ve put together a list worthy of that left wing position. Way back with Championship Manager 93 there were three stand-out players for me – Joey Beauchamp, Scott Oakes and Mark Pembridge. Back when foreign players in England were still in the minority, signing Beauchamp – a player that could operate centrally or on the left – was a bit like signing a foreigner. Well, he sounded French at least, and you could snap him up from Oxford United. In real life he played at West Ham but eventually ended back at Oxford.

Who is the best CM/FM left winger of all time?

Oakes was a bit of a legend at Luton Town and it was an FA Cup performance against West Ham back in the 90s that caught everyone’s eye. He was a tricky winger and fulfilled his potential in CM93 but after a move to Sheffield Wednesday in 1996 his career took a bit of a nosedive. Pembridge probably had the most successful career out of the three playing for Derby County, Sheffield Wednesday, Benfica, Everton and Fulham, but in CM93 he had his pick of clubs to play for

Both Simon Davies and Gareth Jellyman have already featured in previous votes so it won't come as a total surprise that the final piece of the Championship Manager 3 jigsaw, Matthew Etherington, is in the list for best left winger.Etherington was meant to be the left winger England were crying out for and in the game he filled that role very comfortably. In real life he faced a gambling addiction which couldn't have helped his career which included spells at Tottenham and West Ham, and now Stoke City.

Leeds United were spending money like it was going out of fashion at the end of the 90s and assembled a fantastic squad, which included a number of promising young players. One of those was Stephen McPhail who fulfilled that potential in Championship Manager 99/00 but it wasn't to be back in the real world. After leaving Leeds his career has largely been spent in the Championship with Barnsley, Cardiff City and Sheffield Wednesday.

There must be something Sports Interactive put in the Swedish water because another couple of great CM/FM stars from that region was Alexander Farnerud and Stefan Ishizaki. In Championship Manager 01/02, both were typical Champ Man Scandinavian bargain buys; Farnerud from Landskrona and Ishizaki from AIK. Spells at Stuttgart and Torino was as good as it got for Farnerud, while Ishizaki played in Sweden and Norway, and is now finishing his career at LA Galaxy.

The main man of Championship Manager 4 was arguably the Finnish wonderkid Mika Ääritalo. Capable of playing in multiple positions in attack, Ääritalo was available on the cheap from TPS Turku. The player was a must-buy as he would create and score goals at ease and remains an iconic name within the CM/FM community. Aston Villa beat off a host of top clubs to sign him in 2003 but in three years he failed to make a single appearance and was shipped back to TPS Turku.

Three great CM/FM left wingers starred in Championship Manager 03/04. First up is Lionel Morgan who you could sign from Wimbledon, then Norwegian superstar Jan Kristiansen was a steal from Esbjerg, and last by by no means least, US teen sensation Freddy Adu from DC United who would most definitely become of the greatest players in the world.

Injury stopped Morgan's career at the age of 21 and he now runs a management company, Infinite Sports Management, with former teammate Jobi McAnuff. Kristiansen spent a couple of seasons with German outfit FC Nürnberg but is now playing in the Danish league. And then we have Adu, who was dubbed the next Pelé at 14, was unable to cope with the media pressure and could only manage a trial at Manchester United and one season with Benfica before he was forced back to the MLS to rebuild his career and is now playing for Bahia in the Brazilian league.

The final two players come from Football Manager 2008. Henri Saivet was touted as the next Thierry Henry in France and if you could stump up enough cash to get Bordeaux to part with their man, then you had a player who could play in attacking roles down both flanks and through the middle. But he never quite reached the levels of va va voom to the point where he has even decided not to pursue playing international football for France and has since turned out a few times for Senegal (the country of his birth).

Pablo Piatti completes the list. The Argentinean winger with an Italian passport could be signed from Estudiantes and would cause most right-backs havoc. Back in the real world Piatti has carved out a decent career in La Liga, first at Almeria and now at Valencia, but with just one international cap to his name he has a long way to go to match his world class Football Manager status.

HOUSE RULES
1. PLEASE VOTE ONCE FOR YOUR FAVOURITE CM/FM LEFT WINGER
2. YOUR FAVOURITE PLAYER MIGHT BE MISSING BECAUSE THEY FEATURE IN A DIFFERENT POSITION IN THIS VOTE
3. IF YOU SELECT "OTHER" THEN PLEASE POST THE NAME OF YOUR PLAYER IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW
4. POST YOUR STORIES AND MEMORIES ABOUT YOUR FAVOURITE CM/FM LEFT WINGER
5. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE MAIN CM/FM BEST XI BLOG POST
6. VOTES FOR ALL POSITIONS CLOSE ON OCTOBER 31, 2014 
7. PLEASE HELP PROMOTE THE VOTE BY POSTING THIS LINK IN FORUMS AND ON SOCIAL MEDIA 

Click here to vote for your favourite CM/FM  attacking midfielder

Click here to vote for your favouriteCM/FM striker

CM/FM All-Time Best First XI: Attacking Midfielder

As Marcus Burnett said in Bad Boys II - 'Shit just got real!' This might just be the toughest vote of them all. Three or four players in this list could easily make a challenge for the best player in the game ever, never mind having to fight it out over just one position – the AMC role. One of those players who could easily walk into any CM/FM team in any version of the game is Nii Lamptey. Available from the ‘foreign transfer market’ on Championship Manager 93 from Belgium, the 19-year-old from Ghana was so good that he was dubbed the next Pelé, which is fine unless it is Pelé who is doing the endorsing. The Brazilian legend has a knack of getting his predictions wrong (see Freddy Adu). Lamptey was the first real cult hero of CM/FM. After a tough childhood where he was abused and neglected by his parents, Lamptey was then abused by those responsible for guiding his career as agents and money men tossed him around from club to club (including spells in England for Aston Villa and Coventry City) just to line their own pockets.

Who is the best CM/FM attacking midfielder of all time?

Although Lamptey never became Pelé’s ‘natural successor’ he did take the positives from his love of the game to open a school and training academy in his homeland which is now thriving and doing some very good work.

Another player from CM93 who seemingly had the world at his feet was Billy Kenny. Dubbed the ‘Goodison Gazza’ by Peter Beardsley after a scintillating performance in the Merseyside Derby, Kenny could have gone all the way and was an excellent midfield general on the computer screen. But his real life demons would wreck his football career as he was sacked from Everton for substance abuse. A brief spell with Oldham Athletic didn't help put him on the straight and narrow and he is commonly recognised as one of the biggest waste of talents in the British game.

Willie Howie was maybe the best player of a randomly superb Partick Thistle team in Championship Manager 3 alongside Alan Archibald and Robert Dunn. Howie was the driving force from midfield, chipping in with goals and assists and generally making your team tick. These days the team he makes tick is called Pollock, which last time I checked was a fish.

A couple of real corkers turned up in Championship Manager 99/00 by the names of Kim Kallstrom and Kevin Street. As fans of CM/FM, for years we have been waiting for Kallstrom to live up to the player we all know so well and then last season he finally arrived in the Premier League with Arsenal and… did very little to be honest. He had a good spell with Lyon, but that doesn’t really compare to the spell he had with Barcelona in the computer game now does it? As for Street, he could be plucked from Crewe Alexandra and become your very own Frank Lampard for many a year. In reality Street dropped down the leagues from Stafford Rangers to Altrincham, and now Alsager Town. 

Next up is a player who needs no introduction other than the fact if I don’t introduce him you won’t know who I’m talking about, so step forward and take a bow Tonton Zola Moukoko, or as he is known in some circles, Mr Championship Manager. You don’t even need to have played Championship Manager 01/02 to know who this guy is. He was quite simply, spectacular.  But in real life he was quite simply, well, not very good. He apparently turned down moves to AC Milan and Juventus to move to Derby County and from there he played for a bunch of teams no one has ever heard of.

Orri Freyr Oskarsson also featured in CM 01/02, but is it even worth me making a case for him after the likes of Lamptey and Moukoko? Okay, I guess I should seeing as this guy’s name crops up a lot on fan forums but the problem is I can’t find much more than that. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page so he must have been really bad in real life! From what I can gather the Icelandic winger was a bargain if you had missed out on Moukoko.

The final player from CM 01/02 was Andres D'Alessandro who was great because you could snap the Argentinean up from River Plate without any work permit issues because of his dual Italian nationality. A gifted midfielder whose real career saw him play in Germany (Wolfsburg), England (Portsmouth) and Spain (Zaragoza) but without any of the success he’d have in CM/FM.

In Championship Manager 4 Jamie McMaster was a top notch midfielder from Leeds, and in the same version you could also pick up the next big thing in French footballer from Le Havre if you signed Anthony Le Tallec (and his partner in crime Florent Sinama-Pongolle). McMaster ended up going back to his homeland in Australia after things didn’t work out in England while Le Tallec (and Sinama-Pongolle) both went to Liverpool and both left without having made an impact in England. Let Tallec now turns out for Valenciennes FC in Ligue 2.

It was a similar story for Giovanni Dos Santos who in Football Manager 2005 was at Barcelona and constantly became one of the greatest players in the game. When things didn’t work out with the Catalan giants he went to Tottenham where he was equally unsuccessful and is now back in La Liga with Villreal.

One of my favourite players in the same edition of FM05 was Lebohang Mokoena. The first thing you’d do is raid Orlando Pirates for Mokoena and defensive midfielder Benedict Vilakazi for an absolute steal at around £2m for both players and you’d dominate European football. In real life Mokoena has never played outside of South Africa and for the past five seasons he has been at Mamelodi Sundowns.

Brazilian Kerlon (FM07) was an attacking midfield maestro; famous for his seal dribble at Cruzeiro where he would run while bouncing the ball on top of his head at the same time. It’s a skill that didn’t really translate onto CM/FM and whenever he did it in real life he tended to get a smack for his efforts. He can now be found doing his showboating in Japan for Fujieda MYFC.

The final name on the list is Rangers hot prospect John Fleck. Well, he was a hot prospect when he first made an appearance in Football Manager 2008. These days he is more of a decent youngster for Coventry City who he joined after Rangers were relegated to the bottom tier of Scottish football for financial irregularities.

HOUSE RULES
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