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Johnny Cooper - Championship Manager: The Story of Mansfield Town FC 99/00
If you spent hours, months, even years of your life playing Championship Manager and/or Football Manager, then this book is for you! Johnny Cooper - Championship Manager is a totally made up diary of Mansfield Town FC's 99/00 season, using the legendary computer game, Championship Manager, to dictate the events. Can Johnny, in his first managerial role, lead the Town to promotion in his first season? Sit back and let him guide you through the ups and downs, the highs and lows, the believable and the totally unbelievable of the 1999/2000 season according to Championship Manager.
140 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 4, 2016
Chris Darwen's "Johnny Cooper Championship Manager" is one of the better football manager/Champman fan fiction offerings out there. In it, he imagines the life of Johnny Cooper, former footballer who finds himself in charge of struggling Mansfield town football club, as they try and gain promotion.
A must read for anyone who loves the franchise, or simply has a soft spot for Mansfield town like me. I wish I could find a player like Onesimo, any chance of a loan deal Chris? :)
A must read for anyone who loves the franchise, or simply has a soft spot for Mansfield town like me. I wish I could find a player like Onesimo, any chance of a loan deal Chris? :)
January 19, 2019
This is a write-up, in journal form, of Mansfield Town's fictional 1999-2000 season, played out through the football simulator Championship Manager.
In order to appreciate this book, one must be a fan of the CM/FM series, especially the earlier versions. I cut my teeth on the 99/00, 00/01 and 01/02 versions of CM, so I took a particular interest in this book for the nostalgia trip. Therefore, similar CM/FM addicts will find this book worthwhile in some sense.
What is typical of a season summary in the CM universe is repetitive writing (game, incoming news, game, incoming news...). This can be overcome by providing the reader with a team to support and empathise with through the fleshing out of players' personalities and elaborating upon results.
However, I could not identify with any of the players, simply because I didn't know who they were. Most players were simply referred to by their nicknames (Chrissy G, Lins, Bowler, Clarkey...), and featured minimally outside of match play. Asides with staff members were a tad hackneyed, and the anecdotes with 'Leathers' were repetitive and unnecessary. Also, early pages had an overabundance of prophetic quips regarding some players ("Wenger has bought that French lad, Pires...doubt he'll do anything over here" and "Graham Barrett. What a talent, if he doesn't play 100 times for Ireland I know nothing") that become tired.
All this contributes to the often uninspiring writing which is typified by the Mansfield Town chairman 'Hazza' frequently uttering "Absolutely delighted!" after a good win (CM fans will understand this reference, though it gets tiresome quickly).
Fans will, however, get something out of this. Cooper's blokey, jocular voice is well suited to this story, and his love of Onesimo (a CM legend) will resonate with long-time CM addicts. Brief allusions to Cooper's playing history with Wimbledon and Nottingham Forest allows him to name-drop some blasts from the past, proving his managerial bona fides. Finally, I felt a sense of vicarious satisfaction when Cooper's scouts discovered an 'excellent prospect' in deep Scandinavia and South America; or when Cooper haggled with rival managers over the price of a Mansfield Town player.
This is a light and breezy read that won't even take half a day to read. For avid CM/FM players only!
STARS: 2/5
FULL TIME SCORE: A dead-rubber 0-0 draw, both sides parking the bus.
In order to appreciate this book, one must be a fan of the CM/FM series, especially the earlier versions. I cut my teeth on the 99/00, 00/01 and 01/02 versions of CM, so I took a particular interest in this book for the nostalgia trip. Therefore, similar CM/FM addicts will find this book worthwhile in some sense.
What is typical of a season summary in the CM universe is repetitive writing (game, incoming news, game, incoming news...). This can be overcome by providing the reader with a team to support and empathise with through the fleshing out of players' personalities and elaborating upon results.
However, I could not identify with any of the players, simply because I didn't know who they were. Most players were simply referred to by their nicknames (Chrissy G, Lins, Bowler, Clarkey...), and featured minimally outside of match play. Asides with staff members were a tad hackneyed, and the anecdotes with 'Leathers' were repetitive and unnecessary. Also, early pages had an overabundance of prophetic quips regarding some players ("Wenger has bought that French lad, Pires...doubt he'll do anything over here" and "Graham Barrett. What a talent, if he doesn't play 100 times for Ireland I know nothing") that become tired.
All this contributes to the often uninspiring writing which is typified by the Mansfield Town chairman 'Hazza' frequently uttering "Absolutely delighted!" after a good win (CM fans will understand this reference, though it gets tiresome quickly).
Fans will, however, get something out of this. Cooper's blokey, jocular voice is well suited to this story, and his love of Onesimo (a CM legend) will resonate with long-time CM addicts. Brief allusions to Cooper's playing history with Wimbledon and Nottingham Forest allows him to name-drop some blasts from the past, proving his managerial bona fides. Finally, I felt a sense of vicarious satisfaction when Cooper's scouts discovered an 'excellent prospect' in deep Scandinavia and South America; or when Cooper haggled with rival managers over the price of a Mansfield Town player.
This is a light and breezy read that won't even take half a day to read. For avid CM/FM players only!
STARS: 2/5
FULL TIME SCORE: A dead-rubber 0-0 draw, both sides parking the bus.
March 1, 2020
Typical Mansfield season!
Typical Mansfield season! So inconsistent.
I liked the way that some real players were interspersed with the fictitious ones.
Goes to show that one(sy) man doesn't makes a team
Typical Mansfield season! So inconsistent.
I liked the way that some real players were interspersed with the fictitious ones.
Goes to show that one(sy) man doesn't makes a team
April 18, 2016
The story is presented as a journal kept by Cooper during the competitive season, and in a series of often short entries, he gives a quick recap of that day’s events in the game, including assignments he gives to his staff, events in training, signings, movements of players and managers in the football world, and so on.
Given its style as a day-to-day journal, the entries are written in a very informal style and not filled with the usual literary fluff such as scene descriptions, descriptions of personalities of the players etc. As a book, I want to cut it some slack because that’s how it’s deliberately set up stylistically, but it does make reading it harder to follow. As someone who isn’t familiar with Mansfield Town, I have no reference for comparison, and all I am reading are names in a journal.
The characters are shallow. They have no real depth to them, aside from little nicknames that he’d alternate in and out of using with given names. That’s to be expected, as they aren’t people he’s created himself, but it does affect the read for me, having such detached people clustered together. Perhaps this is just my own particular preference for style coming in with these types of entries, but aside from the cup of tea with “Leathers” and the discussions about humorous events in footballing, there’s no real interaction and connection between this cast of characters.
The book, however, lacks any real investment on my part in what happens with Mansfield during the season. I’m reading the words, but I’m not attached to the world. As in nearly every case of retellings of CM/FM, the attachment comes from the intimacy of doing the save yourself and investing the time yourself in watching the matches and setting up the team, rather than just retelling it in a quick, glossed over paragraph.
CM/FM is very much a “You have to have been there to get it” thing, and with only quick one-liners to recap the facts of the save and no creative story-telling and writing to stitch it together and give it an emotional connection, I find it hard to be truly engaged with the story, despite my enjoyment in reading it.
Still, it’s a decent enough book, and one that could be read in a single day, if you wanted to give it a read. 3/5 stars for me.
Given its style as a day-to-day journal, the entries are written in a very informal style and not filled with the usual literary fluff such as scene descriptions, descriptions of personalities of the players etc. As a book, I want to cut it some slack because that’s how it’s deliberately set up stylistically, but it does make reading it harder to follow. As someone who isn’t familiar with Mansfield Town, I have no reference for comparison, and all I am reading are names in a journal.
The characters are shallow. They have no real depth to them, aside from little nicknames that he’d alternate in and out of using with given names. That’s to be expected, as they aren’t people he’s created himself, but it does affect the read for me, having such detached people clustered together. Perhaps this is just my own particular preference for style coming in with these types of entries, but aside from the cup of tea with “Leathers” and the discussions about humorous events in footballing, there’s no real interaction and connection between this cast of characters.
The book, however, lacks any real investment on my part in what happens with Mansfield during the season. I’m reading the words, but I’m not attached to the world. As in nearly every case of retellings of CM/FM, the attachment comes from the intimacy of doing the save yourself and investing the time yourself in watching the matches and setting up the team, rather than just retelling it in a quick, glossed over paragraph.
CM/FM is very much a “You have to have been there to get it” thing, and with only quick one-liners to recap the facts of the save and no creative story-telling and writing to stitch it together and give it an emotional connection, I find it hard to be truly engaged with the story, despite my enjoyment in reading it.
Still, it’s a decent enough book, and one that could be read in a single day, if you wanted to give it a read. 3/5 stars for me.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews