I decided to put the ebook on sale at 60% off for this weekend. I expect it’ll be a while before I discount it again, so if you haven’t bought it yet this is your chance to save a few bucks and still help me out.
That link again: http://gum.co/fmonedayatatime
If you’ve enjoyed this series, please do try to spread the word. The more people who read it, the more I’ll be encouraged to try other big blogging projects in future.
Saturday, 16 March 2013
Monday, 11 March 2013
Now Remastered in Ebook Format
I finished it. For the past two months, I’ve been plugging away at a thoroughly-edited, revised, expanded, prettified, remastered version of the blog. And now you can read it.
I did custom layouts for every page, doing my best to make it a great magazine-like experience. I hope the results speak for themselves. I’ve linked to a sample version below, which is just the first month. Scroll to the bottom of the post for screenshots.
I’m charging$5 $2 (AUD) for it, so that I can make back at least some money for the huge time investment this thing turned out to be. If you don’t want to or can’t afford to pay, no worries—the blog isn’t going anywhere. But if you want a good experience as you read through this enormous project, you’ll need to pony up the cash. And if you want to pay more than $2, be my guest—it’s just the minimum, so you can pay $500 if you’re so inclined.
So what do you get?
You’ll receive a zip file (~120MB) containing PDF, ePub, Kindle, and HTML formatted versions of the ebook. They all have the same text, although only the PDF has custom layouts and lots of images. I recommend the PDF version, read on an iPad or Android tablet. But the other options are there.
If you need any help reading any of these, or putting them on your device of choice, hit me up and I’ll walk you through it as best I can.
The whole thing is around 91,000 words, of which close to a tenth is explicit fourth-wall-breaking criticism about the game and the nature and appeal of virtual football management (the rest is a diary in Juan Day’s voice).
I believe this is the first time that anyone has written at length about the nature of football management games, and the strange ways in which they simulate reality. I hope you enjoy reading!
Click here to make your purchase.
Here's a sample PDF with the first three weeks.
I did custom layouts for every page, doing my best to make it a great magazine-like experience. I hope the results speak for themselves. I’ve linked to a sample version below, which is just the first month. Scroll to the bottom of the post for screenshots.
I’m charging
So what do you get?
You’ll receive a zip file (~120MB) containing PDF, ePub, Kindle, and HTML formatted versions of the ebook. They all have the same text, although only the PDF has custom layouts and lots of images. I recommend the PDF version, read on an iPad or Android tablet. But the other options are there.
If you need any help reading any of these, or putting them on your device of choice, hit me up and I’ll walk you through it as best I can.
The whole thing is around 91,000 words, of which close to a tenth is explicit fourth-wall-breaking criticism about the game and the nature and appeal of virtual football management (the rest is a diary in Juan Day’s voice).
I believe this is the first time that anyone has written at length about the nature of football management games, and the strange ways in which they simulate reality. I hope you enjoy reading!
Click here to make your purchase.
Here's a sample PDF with the first three weeks.
Friday, 8 March 2013
Final-ish Thoughts
Okay, so here we go. Final-ish thoughts below. Special ebook version and more words to come shortly.
I don’t think I realised quite what I was getting myself into, and I certainly never thought I’d last a full season. Yet here I am, nearly 11 months after I started, signing off at last.
My greatest appreciation: Simulation is not the goal, but merely a by-product. The goal seems so obvious when you say it, yet you’d be forgiven for never having thought of it. You see, Football Manager—and every other game of its kind—exists to approximate the glories, successes, and failures of controlling a professional or semi-professional football team.
It’s not about simulating the life of a football manager, or the lives of his players, or even the beautiful game. These things all happen to some extent, in that all are imitated and modelled by the program, but they are neither the focus nor the core appeal.
Football Manager does not seek realism insofar as it strives for authenticity. Its internal logic and the drama that unfolds must be perceived to be occuring naturally, by way of the ideology within and the interplay of millions of variables. The inauthentic seems contrived, projected according to some external value system—whereby outside expectations determine behaviour.
The real is not always authentic, just as the authentic is not always real. But Football Manager depends upon you believing it to be so, for without authenticity it’s just a really sophisticated spreadsheet that purports to represent the complex interactions between real-world players, clubs, and leagues. With authenticity, however, it’s the best thing on the market for pretending you’re an insider of the world of professional football.
It resembles football in such a way that you feel like it could represent its approximated slice of reality. That’s all most of us need to buy in to the fantasy that we just signed Sergio Aguero for Weymouth FC. There’s no way Weymouth will be playing in the Champions League ten years from now, but Football Manager affords us this reality by mimicking just enough real-world economics that a crafty manager can guide his unknown team up through the leagues in record time with complete plausibility.
That is why we play—because the impossible becomes the plausible. That obscure Slovenian club you picked at random, just for kicks, can grow into the best team in the world. Mega-giants like Barcelona and Manchester United can inexplicably go from champions to relegation fodder in two seasons without a financial crisis. And a club other than Celtic or Rangers can actually win the Scottish Premier League.
The remainder of my closing remarks (yeah, I still have more to talk about) will be published in the ebook edition,to be available as soon as I finish it (but hopefully within a few hours of this post). available here.
I don’t think I realised quite what I was getting myself into, and I certainly never thought I’d last a full season. Yet here I am, nearly 11 months after I started, signing off at last.
My greatest appreciation: Simulation is not the goal, but merely a by-product. The goal seems so obvious when you say it, yet you’d be forgiven for never having thought of it. You see, Football Manager—and every other game of its kind—exists to approximate the glories, successes, and failures of controlling a professional or semi-professional football team.
It’s not about simulating the life of a football manager, or the lives of his players, or even the beautiful game. These things all happen to some extent, in that all are imitated and modelled by the program, but they are neither the focus nor the core appeal.
Football Manager does not seek realism insofar as it strives for authenticity. Its internal logic and the drama that unfolds must be perceived to be occuring naturally, by way of the ideology within and the interplay of millions of variables. The inauthentic seems contrived, projected according to some external value system—whereby outside expectations determine behaviour.
The real is not always authentic, just as the authentic is not always real. But Football Manager depends upon you believing it to be so, for without authenticity it’s just a really sophisticated spreadsheet that purports to represent the complex interactions between real-world players, clubs, and leagues. With authenticity, however, it’s the best thing on the market for pretending you’re an insider of the world of professional football.
It resembles football in such a way that you feel like it could represent its approximated slice of reality. That’s all most of us need to buy in to the fantasy that we just signed Sergio Aguero for Weymouth FC. There’s no way Weymouth will be playing in the Champions League ten years from now, but Football Manager affords us this reality by mimicking just enough real-world economics that a crafty manager can guide his unknown team up through the leagues in record time with complete plausibility.
That is why we play—because the impossible becomes the plausible. That obscure Slovenian club you picked at random, just for kicks, can grow into the best team in the world. Mega-giants like Barcelona and Manchester United can inexplicably go from champions to relegation fodder in two seasons without a financial crisis. And a club other than Celtic or Rangers can actually win the Scottish Premier League.
The remainder of my closing remarks (yeah, I still have more to talk about) will be published in the ebook edition,
Monday, 4 March 2013
Sorry about the holdup; more to come soon
Well, as such things are wont to do, my plans for getting these final thoughts written up and finishing my something extra got thrown to the wind by the ravages of real life. Deadlines. Bloody deadlines.
Anyway, my new schedule is that the extra thing—which I’ll now admit is a thoroughly-edited, repackaged, expanded, prettified ebook version of this blog—will be done by the end of the week. The Final Thoughts post will come a day or two before that, hopefully. I’m working on it now, but it’s not easy reflecting on and articulating my thoughts about such a mammoth undertaking.
Anyway, my new schedule is that the extra thing—which I’ll now admit is a thoroughly-edited, repackaged, expanded, prettified ebook version of this blog—will be done by the end of the week. The Final Thoughts post will come a day or two before that, hopefully. I’m working on it now, but it’s not easy reflecting on and articulating my thoughts about such a mammoth undertaking.
Friday, 22 February 2013
Day 309
I picked it—Gateshead and Mansfield won comfortably in the Playoff Semi Final Second Leg this evening. They’ll face off in the final on the 19th of May—about a week and a half from now—to decide who gets promoted with me. My money’s still on Mansfield, but it could be a tight game.
Meanwhile, Crewe and Hereford are dropping down from League 2 to take our place. I’m so excited about next season; it’ll be such a fantastic new adventure, whether it goes well or poorly for me and Lincoln.
The journey continues for Juan Day, the Sunday league footballer who made it big on a dream to manage a team professionally, and who against all odds guided his club to promotion at the first attempt, but this story has come to an end.
I can tell you, after jumping ahead to the end of the month, that defender Paul Robson had a change of heart about leaving the club. Day refused to remove him from the transfer list. Forest Green beat Wrexham in the FA Trophy final, winning for the first time in their history.
Gateshead edged out Mansfield 9-8 on penalties in the playoff final, after Mansfield led for most of the match. Jon Shaw broke some hearts, I expect, when he equalised in the fifth minute of stoppage time, forcing extra time and then penalties.
The Lincoln players got £104,650 split amongst them for their league heroics, as per the bonuses agreed on at the beginning of the season. The club, meanwhile, got £138,000 in prize money—not enough to stem the losses, but a handy amount nonetheless.
Ebbsfleet midfielder Michael West won Blue Square Bet Premier Player of the Season. Juan Day felt Barnes-Homer had been shafted, but accepted that West had a stellar season—with an average rating of 7.37 from 46 appearances, coupled with 21 goals and 21 assists.
But little could contain his rage at being rated third best manager of the year. Just two of the 19 managers who voted in the award cast their vote for Juan Day, while a whopping 13 favoured Gateshead manager Ian Bogie. Forest Green manager David Hockaday, of all people, picked up second-place honours—despite his team not even making the playoffs. Interestingly, all three managers led their team to heights far above expectations of a mid-table finish.
Did Day ruffle too many feathers along the way, and miss out because of spiteful voters? Or was Bogie genuinely more deserving? It’s hard to say, from where I’m sitting.
Lincoln City director Stuart Tindall has retired from the world of football after 10 years at the club. No word yet on who’ll replace him.
Our story concludes with what may turn out to be Day’s shrewdest signing yet. Veteran Spanish midfielder Juan Carlos arrived on the 1st of June on a free transfer from Scottish side Dundee. Star winger Salomon Olembé leapt to his manager’s praises, ecstatic at the news.
So that’s it for the diary, and the story of Juan Day’s first season as a professional football manager. I’ll be back next week with some concluding thoughts about the experience of playing Football Manager in this strange “one day at a time” format. Then hopefully by the end of the month I’ll have the surprise addition ready. All I’ll say for now is that if you enjoyed this blog, you’ll likely love it.
Meanwhile, Crewe and Hereford are dropping down from League 2 to take our place. I’m so excited about next season; it’ll be such a fantastic new adventure, whether it goes well or poorly for me and Lincoln.
The journey continues for Juan Day, the Sunday league footballer who made it big on a dream to manage a team professionally, and who against all odds guided his club to promotion at the first attempt, but this story has come to an end.
I can tell you, after jumping ahead to the end of the month, that defender Paul Robson had a change of heart about leaving the club. Day refused to remove him from the transfer list. Forest Green beat Wrexham in the FA Trophy final, winning for the first time in their history.
Gateshead edged out Mansfield 9-8 on penalties in the playoff final, after Mansfield led for most of the match. Jon Shaw broke some hearts, I expect, when he equalised in the fifth minute of stoppage time, forcing extra time and then penalties.
The Lincoln players got £104,650 split amongst them for their league heroics, as per the bonuses agreed on at the beginning of the season. The club, meanwhile, got £138,000 in prize money—not enough to stem the losses, but a handy amount nonetheless.
Ebbsfleet midfielder Michael West won Blue Square Bet Premier Player of the Season. Juan Day felt Barnes-Homer had been shafted, but accepted that West had a stellar season—with an average rating of 7.37 from 46 appearances, coupled with 21 goals and 21 assists.
But little could contain his rage at being rated third best manager of the year. Just two of the 19 managers who voted in the award cast their vote for Juan Day, while a whopping 13 favoured Gateshead manager Ian Bogie. Forest Green manager David Hockaday, of all people, picked up second-place honours—despite his team not even making the playoffs. Interestingly, all three managers led their team to heights far above expectations of a mid-table finish.
Did Day ruffle too many feathers along the way, and miss out because of spiteful voters? Or was Bogie genuinely more deserving? It’s hard to say, from where I’m sitting.
Lincoln City director Stuart Tindall has retired from the world of football after 10 years at the club. No word yet on who’ll replace him.
Our story concludes with what may turn out to be Day’s shrewdest signing yet. Veteran Spanish midfielder Juan Carlos arrived on the 1st of June on a free transfer from Scottish side Dundee. Star winger Salomon Olembé leapt to his manager’s praises, ecstatic at the news.
So that’s it for the diary, and the story of Juan Day’s first season as a professional football manager. I’ll be back next week with some concluding thoughts about the experience of playing Football Manager in this strange “one day at a time” format. Then hopefully by the end of the month I’ll have the surprise addition ready. All I’ll say for now is that if you enjoyed this blog, you’ll likely love it.
Thursday, 21 February 2013
Day 308
I’m pleased that my big improvers over the course of the season are Kanouté, Woods, and Billington. All three impressed me with their style and attitude, and of course also performances—especially in the last few months.
Unfortunately Olembé’s declined in the past year. Not much, mind you, but enough that I get a sense he won’t be much use after next season as a regular first-team player. The Cameroonian’s had a stellar career, though, since breaking in to the Nantes team (in France’s top flight) as a teenager. I hope I’ll be able to keep him around to help the younger players, and maybe even join the coaching staff, when he exceeds his usefulness to the first team.
Francis Laurent is sadly a shadow of his former self, judging by the reports I’ve received. The forward was suffering from a severe hamstring injury when I took over at Lincoln. Sometimes players never fully recover from injuries—especially long-term ones. It’s a shame, because by all reports he was quite the footballer, but that is how things happen.
Karlton Watson and Rui Marques vehemently resisted my request that they work together on the training ground, but it turns out forcing them was the best thing possible. They’re friends now, and the youngster seems to have made huge progress as a result. Perhaps he stands a chance of earning a starting berth next season. I’d love to see that.
My entire squad is on holiday now. It’s just me, the scouts, and Martin O’Connor until June 25th. Sure is quiet.
Unfortunately Olembé’s declined in the past year. Not much, mind you, but enough that I get a sense he won’t be much use after next season as a regular first-team player. The Cameroonian’s had a stellar career, though, since breaking in to the Nantes team (in France’s top flight) as a teenager. I hope I’ll be able to keep him around to help the younger players, and maybe even join the coaching staff, when he exceeds his usefulness to the first team.
Francis Laurent is sadly a shadow of his former self, judging by the reports I’ve received. The forward was suffering from a severe hamstring injury when I took over at Lincoln. Sometimes players never fully recover from injuries—especially long-term ones. It’s a shame, because by all reports he was quite the footballer, but that is how things happen.
Karlton Watson and Rui Marques vehemently resisted my request that they work together on the training ground, but it turns out forcing them was the best thing possible. They’re friends now, and the youngster seems to have made huge progress as a result. Perhaps he stands a chance of earning a starting berth next season. I’d love to see that.
My entire squad is on holiday now. It’s just me, the scouts, and Martin O’Connor until June 25th. Sure is quiet.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Day 307
I was pleased to see that coach Grant Brown believes young defender Samba Kanouté has improved as a footballer in the last six months. I have high hopes for the lad’s future, and I consider him integral to our chances of climbing through the leagues.
I realised today that he’s actually our highest-valued player. Kanouté’s £200,000 price tag is more than double fellow youngster Karlton Watson’s £85,000 value. And then it’s another big drop before you hit Woods at a £26,000 valuation, followed by Barnes-Homer at £20,000 and then Birchall and May at £18,000 apiece.
Veterans Olembé and Marques may be my key men, but they’re rated at a measly £12,000 and £4,500, respectively—although these values are most likely reduced because of our low standing as a fifth-tier (soon-to-be-fourth-tier) English club and because both players are over 30.
I realised today that he’s actually our highest-valued player. Kanouté’s £200,000 price tag is more than double fellow youngster Karlton Watson’s £85,000 value. And then it’s another big drop before you hit Woods at a £26,000 valuation, followed by Barnes-Homer at £20,000 and then Birchall and May at £18,000 apiece.
Veterans Olembé and Marques may be my key men, but they’re rated at a measly £12,000 and £4,500, respectively—although these values are most likely reduced because of our low standing as a fifth-tier (soon-to-be-fourth-tier) English club and because both players are over 30.
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