Football Manager (1982 series)
[8] Unlike the original BASIC only game, the sequel required machine code, which meant working with a number of developers for various systems.
[9] Unlike the first game that was stagger-released over a period of five years, Football Manager 2 was launched on all formats at the same time in June 1988, although it was available on a much smaller range of systems, including Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, and PC.
[10] Football Manager World Cup Edition was again designed by Toms with various programmers for different systems, including Bedrock Software for all 8-bit versions.
The game was released in Summer 1990 (to tie in with the 1990 Fifa World Cup) on all platforms Football Manager 2 had been as well as the MSX.
The highlights are again shown over three screens, albeit played from top to bottom rather than left to right; there is also the option of watching from an overhead view of the whole pitch.
A graphical screen is shown and the player can choose from a set list of phrases to answer reporters' questions before a game and motivate the team in the dressing room at half time.
It gave a score of 82% concluding "it's slick, well-programmed and it's got more depth than Marianas Trench [sic], but if you don't like management games you'll probably end up using the pictures of Kevin Toms to throw darts at.
[13] Football Manager 3, while already planned when Toms was still working with Prism Leisure on the World Cup Edition, was created without any involvement from the series' creator.
[8] The game was instead developed by Brian Rogers of Bedrock Software who had actually been involved in programming the series since Football Manager 2.
Philip Lindey in Sinclair User suggested it was "difficult to get excited about Football Manager 3", and that it was overpriced, giving an overall score of 73%.
[17] Stuart Campbell in Your Sinclair thought the game was "not quite up to the standard of Football Manager 2, to be honest, with vastly inferior presentation and graphics, and lots of hanging around while the computer thinks and doesn't seem to be working properly", giving a score of 70%.
In August 2015, Toms began rewriting the original 1982 Football Manager game for mobile devices after pitching the idea to his followers, drawing on his work experience of business app development.
