Football Manager (1982 series)

Football Manager is a video game series published and developed by Addictive Games. The original game in the series, Football Manager, was developed by Kevin Toms for the ZX Spectrum in 1982. The game was to start a whole new genre of computer game, the football management simulation. The game was a huge success and was ported to a wide range of systems from 1984. While some, such as the Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro and Commodore 64 versions, kept or improved all features such as the match highlights graphics, most others (including the Acorn Electron, Atari 8-bit, Commodore Plus/4 and MSX) were text only. The 16-bit versions on the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga added extra features such as memorably using the machines' speech function to read out match results.

Due to the success of the game it was followed by several sequels: Football Manager 2 (1988) and Football Manager World Cup Edition (1990), both written by Kevin Toms, and finally Football Manager 3 (1993), without Toms' involvement. Football Manager 3 was poorly received, and as a result the series came to an end.

Paul Robson developed a remake of the original game. This remake has since been ported to the GP2X and Google Android by Jonn Blanchard.

The Football Manager brand name was revived in 2005 by Sports Interactive as a continuation for their Championship Manager series after they lost the naming rights following a split with their publishers Eidos Interactive