Josh Widdicombe: "I gave myself 20 for EVERYTHING"

Last Match Then Bed

In the debut episode of Last Match Then Bed, host Tom Crane is joined by guest Josh Widdicombe to launch a new journey through Championship Ma

Key takeaways

• Josh Widdicombe recalls playing Championship Manager on his laptop during family trips to Cornwall.
• The duo discusses how CM 97-98 allowed for a 'vibing' approach to player stats rather than just reading numbers.

Main topics

• Championship Manager 97-98 nostalgia
• Retro gaming mechanics

Notable quotes

The players we wanted were the players we discovered for ourselves.

Conclusion

A nostalgic and humorous introduction to a new series that invites lis

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) Hello and welcome to Last Match Then Bed. This is the podcast that celebrates the game that stole your youth, Championship Manager. I am Tom Crane and thank you so much for clicking on our very first episode. I'm so glad you're here because this is a show I've wanted to make for ages and I also think it'll be really fun. It's a show where you, each week, will get to follow, and here's the exciting part, be involved in the story of a hopefully successful team on Championship Manager 97-98. Now... For context, the reason I say hopefully in that way is because I recently loaded up the game. I tried to do a career as Aston Villa and I got sacked by Christmas. So I do need your help. I really do need your help. And with that help and the help of a new guest assistant manager each week, we are going to see if we can build an unstoppable football dynasty. Dynasty, whichever is correct. Over the coming weeks, we'll be joined by the likes of Ellis James, Alex Brooker, Nish Kumar, Maisie Adam. Many, many wonderful names will be filling the dugout with me. And today we kick off with the fantastic Josh Widdicombe, who later in this episode will be tasked with a huge decision. This is a big one and one that will affect all of us. Namely, which team are we going to manage? No pressure, Josh. If this sounds like your thing. then hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you'd like a video episode so you can see the game as we're discussing it, then you can go to patreon.com forward slash lastmatchthenbed. Loads of other benefits there as well. And I'd also love to hear from all of you, your champ man memories, stories of your greatest ever save games, the time you dressed up in your dad's suit for the Coca-Cola Cup final, tales of your addiction, and also crucially... tips on who we should sign, what tactics we should use during this game, and also who we should dump on the free transfer list. You can email hello at lastmatchthenbed.com. That's hello at lastmatchthenbed.com. Or you can DM us on Instagram if you're feeling hip, young, and cool. Right, here we go. Let's get into it. Over to the wonderful Josh Widdicombe. Speaker 1 (2:19) Hey, Josh, how are you? I'm excited. This is exactly my scene. Speaker 2 (2:23) Now, the reason I thought you'd be the perfect first guest, first of all, it was the fact that my wife, Claire, reminded me of something. We went to Cornwall. Do you remember this? A few years ago, we went on holiday to Cornwall together, and I had got into Championship Manager in 97, 98, because I'd found a copy online yet again, exactly. I'd relapsed. I think that's the phrase, isn't it? Speaker 1 (2:46) Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:48) When you found out I had this on my laptop, I've never seen you look more excited. Speaker 1 (2:52) Yeah, it's thrilling. It's utterly thrilling. It talks to how much spare time I had in my teenage years. Speaker 2 (2:59) Yes. Now, we will get into that. The reason I know it'll be all-consuming for you is because on this trip to Cornwall, when we both had quite young children, apparently if there was any opportunity for us to go into a big shop... go and pick up a takeaway, like anything in your car, we'd go like, we'll do it. And then Claire would see me leave with my laptop under arm. Speaker 1 (3:19) And Speaker 2 (3:20) then we'd get into my car and we'd boot up my game and we'd drive to wherever it was in the middle of Cornwall and we'd be playing Championship Manager. Speaker 1 (3:26) It's making me want to play it now, which is, it's really bad because it's a great game because I think not to go too deep on it too early on. Speaker 2 (3:37) No, do, absolutely, go deep. Speaker 1 (3:39) You're living in a cosy... It's not just nostalgic because it wasn't nostalgic at the time, but obviously now it's got the added nostalgia. But you are living in a... It is a complete transportation into a fantasy world. Speaker 2 (3:54) Yes, I completely agree. Speaker 1 (3:56) Of which you have control. I Speaker 2 (3:58) think that's exactly it. I think not only do you have control, there are so... It's infinite permutations of the way in which you fashion that world. Every transfer, every person you release, everything makes your game specific to your choices. And that was what so, well, I think that's why it felt so personal. Every game mattered. Speaker 1 (4:18) The players are just dealt with in names and numbers. So you don't know what they look like. Yeah. And the match is dealt with in just commentary. So you don't really know what it looks like. The genius championship manager, the players numbers. Before that, you had stuff like premier manager, where it would have a literal score midfield or passing 78. But because it was kind of ethereal and there was a slight... Dealing with the unknown. Unknown, and there was a slight feeling of trying to guess, guess what, like real players. There Speaker 2 (4:52) was a chance that your striker from Gabon, who had 20 for everything, would still be rubbish. Speaker 1 (4:57) Yeah, exactly. Because that didn't make sense in the same way that, you know, a player could have all the attributes, I suppose, at youth level or whatever. in real life. But it made you fill in all the details yourself. Absolutely. And so you imagined who all the players were. You imagined all of these scenarios. And so... It's just like a child playing with Lego and constructing a world. That is what you're doing. That's what I believe it was. Speaker 2 (5:27) Now, you can see on the screen, anyone who is watching the video version of this show can see we have the game in front of us here, Championship Manager 97-98. I'm going to load up the first ever save here. We go restore game. I've called it Last Match Then Bed. You know, it's very functional. Speaker 1 (5:41) So you've already saved a game? Speaker 2 (5:43) I have saved a game, absolutely. So we're ready to get up and running. What does that... make you think as you look at that screen there with the seven boxes done well it actually feels incredibly familiar Speaker 1 (5:54) yes it feels so you've got done which is a classic done it's Speaker 2 (6:00) actually quite a loveless word that isn't it Speaker 1 (6:02) yeah done um which you go on to the next turn yeah um and then you've got squad details which you'd use a lot to look at your squad yeah and player search and transfers which is obviously the best bit oh Speaker 2 (6:15) yeah that's the i think Speaker 1 (6:17) There are many things that make me have zero interest in the modern football manager games. A, they got far too complicated. So complicated. I'm just not interested. Yeah. I like to think of myself when I'm playing championship manager, 97, 98, you know, like Brian Clough would pick his team and he'd send them out. Speaker 2 (6:38) Yes. Speaker 1 (6:39) Also now it's like, oh, is this player going to play more balls down the left? Blah, blah, blah. All that kind of crap. Speaker 1 (6:48) It feels to me like it's just tricking you into getting something wrong because really you're just playing with an algorithm. Yes. I just want to be Brian Clough, pick my team, put them on the pitch and send them out. That's really what this was. And then buy and sell. But the other thing is this was pre-transfer deadline. So you are doing transfers all the way up to, I think, the transfer deadline incredibly. It was the end of March. Speaker 2 (7:13) Yes, that's right. Which Speaker 1 (7:15) is so weird. Why bother? Speaker 2 (7:19) What is the reason for that? We need to have a month and a half of downtime, the people who deal with the contracts. I'm exhausted. Speaker 1 (7:25) Yeah, I don't know, but it meant that you were able to wheel and deal your whole way through the season. Speaker 2 (7:31) Take me back then to when you first started playing this game. So when did you first get into this game? What are your first memories of it? And how did you play it as well? I suppose that's kind of a big question. Speaker 1 (7:40) So I had a premier manager initially on the Amiga, where players had four stats. Handling, meaning goalkeeping. Tackling meaning how good they were as a defender. Passing midfield. Shooting attack, which obviously... That's not enough detail, is it? Not enough detail. Especially if Speaker 2 (7:57) an outfield player has lost... A quarter of the stats have absolutely no bearing. The handling is completely pointless. Speaker 1 (8:03) Yeah, the whole thing was pointless. So I played that for a bit. And then I got Championship Manager Italia. Speaker 2 (8:11) Okay. Speaker 1 (8:12) For a fiver. Who did you? For a fiver on the Amiga. So this was about 93, 94. Okay, yeah. And it was just an Italian version of the game because obviously they only had one league. I'm Speaker 2 (8:23) really imagining you as a 10-year-old with a small espresso, that massive pink paper that James Richardson used. Speaker 1 (8:28) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, obviously I was hugely into Italian football because I didn't have Sky. So it was the only football I could really watch live. Speaker 2 (8:36) And Speaker 1 (8:36) it felt really exciting. And then I remember Championship Manager 2 coming out and this is just the next... This is a version of Championship Manager 2, isn't it? Yeah. So I then had Championship Manager 2, which was fucking incredible. And it was just like everything you wanted. And it was essentially Championship Manager 97-98. Yeah. Very different. And then 97-98 was the year after. And that was really the one I got addicted to. And everyone I knew got addicted to, big time. Speaker 2 (9:05) So 97-98 was a big one for you. I've actually got something behind me. I'm intrigued to see. how this sort of triggers emotion for you. I picked up a copy of Championship Manager 97-98, which I'm holding up to the camera here for anyone watching the video version. This is the big whopping green box. I love the fact that computer games used to come in these sort of massive hang size boxes. And they Speaker 1 (9:25) were small discs, weren't they? Because that would have been on a compact disc. Speaker 2 (9:28) Yes, it was. In fact, the compact disc is in here. Let me open this up here. I don't know if you remember this. This is the green CD that came on. Yeah, so Speaker 1 (9:37) it's been put in a box for no reason. I suppose they would argue it was in the box for instructions. Speaker 2 (9:42) Yes. Speaker 1 (9:43) This happened again with so many formats, like the DVD is a good example of this. They obviously felt that the DVD would only fight the video if it could be as fine as the height of a video. The DVD doesn't need to come in those bigger boxes than the CD. Speaker 2 (10:01) Yes. The VHS is actually filling its real estate in a way that it deserves to. Speaker 1 (10:07) Exactly. The video Speaker 2 (10:08) has got nothing to apologise for. No, Speaker 1 (10:10) it's got nothing to apologise for. The Speaker 2 (10:11) DVD has got a lot to apologise for. The DVD Speaker 1 (10:12) is Speaker 2 (10:13) a Speaker 1 (10:13) bit like one of those Amazon packages you get, you know, where they've not been able to find a box that fits the thing, so they've got one that's far too big. Yeah, yeah. That's Speaker 2 (10:23) what Speaker 1 (10:23) the DVD feels like. Speaker 2 (10:24) So I've got a question on that, actually. Do you think... This sort of hard copy era was a more satisfying time. Because I definitely think it is. Because nowadays, with computer games, everything's downloaded. Then you actually own the thing. Speaker 1 (10:34) I think there was something with Championship Manager 97, 98, which I don't know why this was the case. But... You didn't need the disc. Right. You could just upload it onto other people's computers. Speaker 2 (10:48) I didn't. I was such a good little Christian boy. I didn't know that. I had no idea. Speaker 1 (10:52) You Speaker 2 (10:52) could, Speaker 1 (10:52) yeah. But I wonder in the long run if that was like, not intentionally, one of the great guerrilla campaigns. Because it's a bit like the drug dealer giving you your first gram free, isn't it? Speaker 2 (11:09) It's in Miles Jacobson. I think that's the name of the guy who made Jampton Magic. Speaker 1 (11:13) You're Speaker 2 (11:13) saying he's basically a crack dealer. Speaker 1 (11:15) Well, no, what I'm saying is I don't think they've intentionally done it, but I think this one changed a lot because a lot of people wouldn't have bought it. Yeah, Speaker 2 (11:24) they had that first taste and now they're hooked. Speaker 1 (11:26) They ended up copying it from a friend, then they got into it, and now the Football Manager Empire is thus. Speaker 2 (11:34) I'll take you through what it says on the back here. It says, a feast of European football, all the 97, 98, English, Scottish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgium and Spanish leagues featured on one CD. And I think this is the key thing. Tens of thousands of up-to-date, accurate player stats and histories. It's like all these players that you loved, you'd watch on Match of the Day, were there. Speaker 1 (11:52) And Speaker 2 (11:53) I think this is the other thing. So many you didn't know about, whereas now... I actually don't think you ever Speaker 1 (11:57) wanted any of the players that you knew. Yes. There was no real satisfaction. So you know now... God, I sound like an old person. I sound like Stuart Lee being interviewed about comedy in 2026, don't I? I will write you. This Speaker 2 (12:10) is a podcast about Championship Manager in the 90s. It's okay to embrace the fact that we're old. Speaker 1 (12:14) But now, when people are playing FIFA, or it's not called that anymore, whatever it's called, online, and they've got their team that I can't remember the name of, they want Mbappe, and they want Jude Bellingham in their