It’s October and that means the 20th birthday of CM9798 is upon us. October 31st might be a scary night for some but for me it was the night 20 years ago I convinced my parents to take me to PC World to buy the new release. “It looks no different. You’re wasting your money,” advised my Dad, who to this day doesn’t really get the Championship/Football Manager experience. I would argue that I have had my money’s worth from this game…

Anyway, how to celebrate the 20th anniversary? It’s been in the works for some time and now, finally, the wheels are in motion. We’re going to have a knockout competition between 8 fans of the game to determine our CM9798 champion.

How you ask? Well I’ve taken what I consider the 8 best club sides and randomly assigned them to the 8 victims volunteers. I then gave them two draft picks each to spruce up their squads and drew the teams out. Behold, the CM9798 Cup:

I can confirm there was no expense spared on the graphics. The format is a straight knockout, with the top team in each tie being the home team. For the semis and final, the home team will be decided by a coin flip. Each match will essentially be an arranged friendly, so there’s no restrictions on non-EU players or suspensions. I’ll be hacking out as many injuries as I can to try and give the lads as full strength team as possible, but obviously some injuries occur naturally and that’s just life I’m afraid.

If this proves to be a success I’ll most likely do something on a much larger scale next year. World Cup, anyone?

Although the winner will receive a trophy, the real winner here is YOU. To celebrate 20 years of CM9798, I’ve put together a prize bundle which I’ll be giving away, and it’ll be based around the cup – not necessarily in one go, there will be multiple opportunities for you to win. The prizes range from the sublime to the ridiculous, but one man’s pain is another man’s pleasure, or something like that, so here’s what’s up for grabs:

• £25 shirt voucher courtesy of Classic11.com*
• Mousemat of the 2026 World Cup Final courtesy of P302
• 90s mug courtesy of @90sfootball*
• Peter Beardsley Corinthian figurine (still in box)
• The World According to Championship Manager 97/98 signed by Bjorn Heidenstrom
• Poster of John Curtis
• Packet of Premier League 97/98 stickers
• Footix Tamagotchi
• CM9798.co.uk branded pen
• Footix keyring
• Ibrahima Bakayoko shiny sticker
• All the Goals DVD of World Cup 98
• Three Lions ’98 CD
• Footix that sticks to surfaces and dangles. Yeah.
• Premier League 97/98 Official preview book

*not pictured

There may be more things to come too, without sounding like Harry Redknapp there are still deals in the pipeline for triffic, top top prizes. Incidentally if you want to donate or sell me cool things to include, I’m all ears.

Next week I’ll bring you the first two quarter finals, and we’ll continue with two matches per update until the final. Schedules permitting, I am hoping to record the final with the two participants but I’m not brave enough to broadcast it live.

Let the games begin!