In the beginning there was only Tash... (or Epilogue)

So, I guess it all started in 1997/8 (I, like many football fans work in seasons, not calendar years) when a friend of friend got himself a copy of CM97/98. This was back in the day when you could just get a game once between all your friends and all install it off the same CD, which you didn't need to run the game. Or as I like to call it, the golden age. Anyhow, I digress. This was THE turning point in my life. From "straight A's" and in bed by 10, maybe 11 if something good was on TV, to scraping by in school and staying up well into the next day. This transition occurred in about 2 days. I loved that game. The only thing I've ever loved more is CM01/02 - THE BEST GAME EVER. And this is where Fantashtico was born.

It was 2003/4 and as a very poor student (both monetarily and academically) I had a lot of spare time on my hands. Between the 2 lectures a week I regularly attended and enjoyed, and football on sunday morning, I had a huge chasm of time to fill. CM01/02 fit the bill perfectly. With a computer that took an age to load, a SNES for the particularly long waits between seasons and a good friend who would come to share my obsession, I was set.

When it comes to CM, I'm a fan of taking a lowly club to great heights over a longish period of time. Hence, I chose to manage Foggia, a club with a decent history in Italian football and good facilities for a club languishing in Serie C2C (the equivalent of Coca-Cola League 2, assuming they haven't renamed it again when you read this). Then came the moment, the birth of Fantashtico. My friend decided to join the game, naming his character Salvatore Fantashtico and taking the reigns of fellow Serie C2C club Sant'Anastasia. If Foggia were the Man Utd of Serie C2C, then Sant'Anastasia were the Watford, namely, they weren't gonna be there long without some damn fine management. As you can probably imagine, the combination of a slow computer and two dorks with overactive imaginations resulted in some ludicrous back stories being invented surrounding our respective characters, which make me chuckle to this day and have resulted in me using the Tash character as my CM name of choice since then.

I'm not going to regale you with the entire history of this game. Needless to say the 12 year plan I enacted at the start of the game was a success. Season 12 resulted in Foggia lifting the Champions League and me quitting Foggia due to the boards total incompetence. This success came via me bankrupting Foggia 3 times, and did not include a Serie A title after being ripped off by Roma in a play-off.

Perhaps the stand-out event of this era was in season 1 as 5 weeks of the game were lost to a computer crash. After replaying those 5 weeks again, Foggia remained top of the league. Unfortunately, Sant'Anastasia were 2 positions lower and struggling to reach the play-offs. Cue Sant'Anastasia vs Foggia. Now, being assured of the title, and a thoroughly good friend to boot, I gave Tash the edge by playing my reserve team [useless cretins one and all] in order to redress the balance following the crash. I got battered 4-0 with 2 ex-players scoring against me, including the ridiculously poor Faveo. I have still not been allowed to live this result down. The name Faveo still haunts me to this day.

Miraculously, Fantashtico eventually led his team to Serie A and a couple of extremely respectable mid-table finishes before becoming manager of Italy, for a more laid back lifestyle and much, much bigger wage.

12 years of Foggia wasn't the end for me. Taking over a Fiorentina side completely bereft of any good players, bottom of Serie A in December and low on funds may seem a strange choice of follow up jobs, but a mere 6 months later, Fiorentina were lifting the title [my first Serie A trophy] in the most stunning turnaround ever. How was it done? Stealing many of my old players from Foggia who were deemed surplus to requirements by whatever joker they got in to replace me [they were relegated 2 seasons later] was the main reason. 5 successive Serie A's and 4 Champions Leagues later, I was bored and began to repeat the story at Bologna.

Meanwhile, Fantashtico was leading repeatedly cataclysmic attempts by Italy to earn some silverware for the national team. Always blaming me for not having any Italian players in my squad, rather like England being crap is allegedly Arsene Wenger's fault.

The culmination of our endevours was a 20 season epic game which, due to the useless computer we were using, took 45 days of ACTUAL time to play. Or just over 6 weeks of game time in a period of about 8 months calendar time. Wow. So that's why my degree is none too impressive, although that I got one at all is a surprise to many. But I'll never forget those glorius days in front of the PC.

So, this blog. Basically, I will be writing the summarized events of a new game of CM01/02 in order to see just how much I'll play with a faster computer. Although, now I have a job and a relationship too, so perhaps this is a bad idea... Screw it, I love this game. All I have to do now is wait for my CD to arrive in the post after a purchase from eBay. Being in the USA certainly makes it hard to obtain this game. Also, I guess I need to think about who will be blessed with the mighty Tash as their new manager. Gotta be a Serie C2 team of some description, perhaps Foggia again? Stay tuned...