Good day to you all and merry CM9798 birthday. The game we all love was released 24 years ago today (October 31st) and whilst the blog squad continue to bring you great content, I decided to put together a list of things I am frequently asked about the game. Feel free to ask anything else! 24 questions for 24 years.

Q1. How do I get the game to run on a modern laptop?

There’s a whole page dedicated to this available here or at the top of your screen on the menu. It covers not only Windows but also Macs.

Q2. What mobile devices can I play CM9798 on?

All Android devices will support CM9798, you can read the guide here.

Recently, we found a solution to play CM9798 on Apple devices but the app was removed. If you were quick enough to download the app before it was taken away, you can continue to use it. The guide is here.

Q3. What is the best tactic to use in CM9798?

There isn’t one answer to this. I’ve always got on well with the 2-3-1-2-2 but it has flaws for sure. Tactics guru Nikolai has created a load of excellent tactics, some work for a long time and others have more fleeting success. It’s a Nikolai creation I use with the Retirement Academy (2-3-3-2) but as with all formations you need the right players. Take a look at Hints & Tips for some others.

Q4. How do I find the good regens/what is a regen?

A regen is what happens when a player retires. A player with mostly identical stats is created but as a youth player. Their ability starts low but has the potential to go above and beyond the ability of the retired player. I wrote a guide to spotting them yourself here.

If spotting them yourself isn’t your bag then my good friend Dave (yes, another Dave, not me) made a program called the Regen Finder which gives you a list after the season update.

Q5. My game is crashing when I create a new save. Why?

There isn’t one answer to this but here are some of my common suggestions:

• When the game crashes, click done and it’ll kick you back to Dos and give you an error – what is the error?
• Have you been pissing about in the editor? If so, what did you change?
• Sometimes the files are protected and you need to change your administrator settings to allow the game to do it’s thing.
• Download it and start again. You can have multiple Cm9798 folders mounted on doxbox at any one time and they’re like 7mb a pop, so go nuts.

Q6. Why do I only have the Bobby Robson background?

At some point whoever uploaded the game for sharing decided the other backgrounds took up too much space – to be fair, it was probably about 1999 and the internet wasn’t as quick as it is now. The original background pack can be sourced from our friends at cm97-98.eu here.

I also created this guide for making your own background images if that’s something you want to explore.

Q7. The editor looks fun but how do I use it?

There’s a guide for that here. Also in the CM9798 folder there’s a notepad file called “cm2EDITHELP” which tells you how to use the editor and also what a lot of things mean, it’s really useful.

Q8. Can I transfer my saves to a new laptop?

The folder is so small you can transfer the whole folder to a new laptop either by moving it to a USB or external drive or by zipping it up and emailing it to yourself or use dropbox or anything at all really. The answer is yes.

Q9. How can I play any other version of Champ Manager ever?

We’ve created Champmanfans.co.uk with a guide for every game in the series. It’s a work in progress but a lot of them are on there, including getting DOS games working from the CD.

Q10. Is the podcast still a thing?

All previous episodes are available in the podcast page. I think we were the first Championship Manager pod and I’m incredibly proud of the guests we had on but it took a lot of time to put together each month and you start to question your life choices when you’re sat waiting for Tommy Svindal Larsen to sign in to Skype at the agreed time. He didn’t show and has blanked me ever since. Anyway, it will be back when I have time.

Q11. Who are the best players in CM9798?

We made a list of them in the Hints & Tips page. We also had a community vote for the best 11 of all time so that’s a pretty good indicator. KOTR also made a player comparison tool which is available here.

Q12. Do you get paid for running/writing for the website?

No, I don’t get paid for running it so unfortunately I can’t pay anybody for writing for me. It’s just a hobby and an interest, it’s not something I think could ever turn a profit.

Q13. Why do you also have the account CM_9798 on Twitter?

That isn’t me. Another fan of the game set it up, followed everyone that followed my account (CM9798) and started to tweet very similar content to me, so a lot of people think it is me, especially as it was friends and family. I asked in the beginning why they chose to just put an underscore in when the account claims to be a fan of the whole Championship Manager series and they said they couldn’t think of what else to pick. There was some silliness where they started to give negative feedback on podcasts I appeared on so I blocked the account. That was about 4 years ago now and I am too old to get embroiled in such nonsense.

Q14. Are you writing a third book?

Not right now. Since becoming a father I can barely keep my eyes open so at the moment there’s nothing in the pipeline. Maybe again one day. Also buy the first two books here please

Q15. What’s the biggest challenge on CM9798?

The toughest challenge I’ve had was the Retirement Home, limit yourself to signing only over 35s with no money in the bank and you’ll nearly have a breakdown as you’re stuck in Division 2 with a goalkeeper who can’t catch or kick. We got there in the end though. From the conventional game I think starting in Scottish Division 3 and going to the top is always fun, Peter did it as a blog as it was brilliant.

Q16. The game I’ve downloaded is not the same game I played in 1997. What’s happened?

As a child most of us played the out of the box version, for example Asprilla is at Newcastle and you can only name 3 non-EU players in the match day squad. The download is the patched version, which fixed a few bugs but also updated the players to January 1998. So Asprilla’s at Parma, Speed’s at Newcastle, you can have 4 non-EU players and some players have been adjusted. I’m doing a series all about this very soon.

Q17. What is with the “Micker” love in?

Mick “Micker” Quinn became a bit of a cult hero during the Retirement Home save and that has carried over into the Retirement Academy. Unfortunately he’s been negligent of the horses he owns which somebody always points out in the comments so hopefully he has been reprimanded for that.

The “Micker” nickname is stolen from 90s wrestling, like so many of the things I write. There’s an episode of Smackdown where Mankind has been attacked backstage and the Rock walks past him. Mankind (Mick Foley) says “Hey Rock! Win one for the Micker!” and the Rock says “who in the blue hell is the Micker?” and it cracks me up every time. So that’s why.

Q18. Is there a modern database for CM9798?

Yes, our good friends at CM97-98.eu have one, so go and check it out.

Q19. What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen in CM9798? Have you ever seen <insert strange incident here>?

I made a list of things people possibly don’t know about, I think the fact that some stats become zero is probably my pointless answer. For strange results/appointments/general tomfoolery search Twitter for the hashtah #outofcontextchamp

Q20. What’s the biggest win/loss/number of points etc you have ever seen?

A good question, so good I started a hall of fame last year but due to lack of interest it got brushed aside a bit. It’s still there to be edited though.

Q21. Can you alter anything that’s set in the game like the number of leagues or prize money?

If you can work a hex editor most things are alterable. Charlemaagne is creating a new version of CM9798 with 5 playable leagues and an updated database amongst other changes. Nic from the CM0102 forums has also had some success in expanding the game beyond the default 29 seasons.

Q22. Seeing as you mentioned it, what does happen in the end of CM9798?

I made a video of this, it’s not that exciting.

Q23. Why is morale always so bad in my players?

This remains a mystery I’m afraid. It’s like why does 442 only work for the AI. Why is toe sucker Scholes so lethal until you have him? Some things are best left unanswered.

Q24. Are any players from CM9798 still playing today?

I do an article most years counting this down, I think we’re at about 2 now. Buffon and Muira (who is still playing aged 60 odd in Japan, it’s wild). The last count is here.