Good morning! Next up in our series of CM9798 listing is my take on what I would class as frauds.These are players who basically whenever I have them in my ranks they are dreadful. Put them in an AI team though and they are unstoppable. Somebody smarter than me might do the research on why that is one day, but until then, here we go…
Continue readingHello there! Throughout January I will be looking back over 10 years of running this very blog. Last week we started with my ten favourite blog saves and this week we’ve moved on to my top 10 cult heroes.
A cult hero is somewhat of an unlikely hero, so you won’t see Ronaldo or Zidane on this list but more people who have given us some laughs and unlikely successes.
Let’s get down to business…
Continue readingHello to you! As I may have mentioned, January 2025 signals the 10 year anniversary of this very blog. We love a milestone on here, and why the heck not. Back in 2015 I thought it might be a laugh to play and blog this wonderful game from start to finish, which is the end of the 29th season. I didn’t really expect it to get the traction it did and I’ll always be grateful for the doors this whole experience has opened for me, and of course to you for engaging with this tomfoolery.
Over the next few weeks I’m going to produce some top 10 lists of things about the game, such as bargain signings, cult heroes, fraud players and this week – blog saves!
Continue readingHello and welcome to the 2024 CM Cup! As ever, I’m not certain how much interest there is to anybody outside of the 23 participants so we’re sticking with the presentation from last year. Thank you to everybody who took part, the format was very different this year but hopefully it didn’t detract too much from the competition.
2024 CM Cup
The 2024 CM Cup is the 8th edition of the Championship Manager Cup, more commonly known as the CM Cup. Matches were played out on Zoom in December 2024 because Dave is an unorganised fool and left it too late.
The 2024 edition saw a format change away from the usual Group Stage into Knockout tournament. Instead, all 23 players were randomly assigned an entrance number and a team. The players drawing one and two would play each other, with the winner staying on and playing participant 3, so on and so forth.
The last surviving team will play a one off final against the team that clocked up the most eliminations to determine the 2024 champions.
Continue readingHello! It must be winter as it is time for our annual visit to what has become a much trickier article to write in recent times. Managers are getting younger, one of these years we will have a manager not born in 1997. Anyway, let’s take a look where the current Premier League managers can be found in CM9798 and see just how small the list of players still playing is.
Also, Bluesky is taking off. I can be found on there under cm9798dave.bluesky.social – I still plan to post on X/Twitter (CM9798) too but I do fear one day I will wake up and it just won’t be there anymore…
Continue readingGood day to you and welcome back to part 3 of this short challenge. Can you turn Blackburn Rovers into Premier League challengers in the first season? Well, yes. Whether they will be challengers or the real deal remains to be seen, but here we are with 15 games remaining and a 4 goal lead. 15 cup finals await.
Well hello there! Welcome back to my latest short story challenge, inventively named “Win the Premier League with Blackburn Rovers” which is exactly what we’re trying to do. Nobody can get near Man Utd in season 1, usually, and if anybody does it certainly isn’t Blackburn Rovers. Here we are though, top of the pile after 8 games. 30 to go…
You can catch up with part 1 here.
Also, CM9798 turned 27 on Thursday. You can take our anniversary quiz here if you so desire.
Good day! Halloween was the release date of our beloved game, so whilst many kids were out “trick or treating” many more of us were waiting for the first ever 3 nation save to create in a swift 45 minutes. I wouldn’t change anything.
Life has changed a lot for me since I started this blog (10 years ago in January!!) so whilst I’m not a prolific poster anymore, I still like to think we’re the best site out there for catching the memories of this great game.
Anyway, I’ve developed a quiz for this year for you. Share your results on X/Twitter please, I like to know somebody is reading this still
Continue readingGood day to you. Firstly, how good are Nick and Matt’s blogs at the moment? Top reads, check them out if you haven’t already.
I was devastated by Doncaster’s 5th round defeat at Old Trafford. A fun challenge though and I got more into it than most saves in recent memory. So, let’s have another short term challenge.
In 1995, Blackburn Rovers won the Premier League. If you are lucky enough to be too young to recall that, they basically bought Alan Shearer, Chris Sutton, Stuart Ripley, Tim Sherwood and Tim Flowers in the years preceding their glory, put Kenny Dalglish in charge and let the good times roll. Those players were some of the best young players in the country, at a time where not that many players were imported.
It was a short lived success. Dalglish left following their last day title win and moved “upstairs” and assistant Ray Harford took over. The 95/96 season wasn’t the best – the Champions League campaign fell at the group stage and several key players missed time through injury. Harford resigned after a poor start to 96/97, Dalglish also left his role and this resulted in Roy Hodgson being appointed. Alan Shearer had departed in the summer of 96 but no real replacement had been identified, with Sutton still around to lead the line.
In game, Blackburn start with £20m in the bank but a very average reputation and the need to find a striker to try and come close to filling Big Al’s boots. I’ve given myself two seasons to win the Premier League. Get me Mick Quinn’s number.
Continue readingHello and welcome back to one of the more ambitious challenges we’ve undertaken on this blog, which I might add will be 10 years old in January. Crikey. As the title gives away, the aim of the game is to win the FA Cup with Doncaster. Yes, Doncaster are in the Third Division and absolutely hopeless but a challenge is a challenge. I fully expect this to be the final part of the series, as the original challenge said win the FA Cup and then the Cup Winners Cup in season 2. Good one. In the immediate future, we have to topple Division 2 Walsall. You can catch up with part 1 here.
