From Pc To Premiership

From PC to Premiership : The Real Football Manager The Idea: I love Football Manager, the game that spawned from the successful Championship Manager series and has every girlfriend and wife cursing that the computer isn’t available for days at a time, hearing those fateful words of ‘let me just finish this month off’ and the gamer being advised to ‘eat’ and ‘change underwear’ at certain points of the game. Now as an idea to follow someone playing this game may be fun, it wouldn’t appeal to very many people, but what if we were to create a real football manager, from humble PC beginnings to the goal every player seeks to achieve, managing in the Premiership. The FA in 2008 outlined their plan in 2008 to create 100,000 coaches with FA Level 1 Qualification, 10,000 coaches with FA Level 2, 2,500 with FA level 3 (UEFA ‘B’ Licence), 100 with FA Level 4 (UEFA ‘A’ Licence) and 40 with FA Level 5 (UEFA ‘Pro’ Licence). This year sees:                 

Nigel Adkins (Scunthorpe United) Frankie Bunn (Coventry City) Julie Chipchase (formerly Leeds Carnegie LFC) Bobby Davison (Ferencváros ) Roberto Di Matteo (West Bromwich Albion) Sean Dyche (Watford) Paul Hart (Portsmouth) Keith Hill (Rochdale) Damien Matthew (Charlton) Eddie Newton (West Bromwich Albion) Thorvaldur Orlygsson (Fram) Tony Parks (Tottenham Hotspur) John Pemberton (Nottingham Forest) Gus Poyet (formerly Tottenham Hotspur) Steve Staunton (Wolverhampton Wanderers) Willum Thor Thorsson Paul Tisdale (Exeter City)

studying for their UEFA ‘Pro’ Licence. So with this in mind and the ambition to become a football manager, the idea will be to follow the journey of myself the Football Manager on the PC becoming Football Manager in the Premiership. Popularity: Football Manager is a series of games developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. Initially starting life back in 1992 as Championship Manager, a split between Sports Interactive and Eidos Interactive led to the rebranding as Football Manager and the partnership with Sega. The first instalment in 2005 went on to become the 5th biggest selling game in the UK, the sequel in 2006 went on to become the 2nd highest selling game of all time. It’s popularity is down to the sense of realism and a great achievement when you take your favourite club (in my case Leicester City) from the lower divisions and find yourself challenging for cup and title honours. The question is, with all the right training and qualifications could you become a real Football Manager?

The Programme: The programme would follow the 5 year progress of myself, starting from the PC game ending with a job in Football Management, if this was to be with Leicester City, that would be a huge bonus, however a role within the top two divisions would be a success. Timescale and Structure: Year 1:    

Attend FA Courses to achieve Levels 1 and 2 qualification (1 day & 7 days respectively) Seek voluntary coaching work with football clubs up and down the country Interview managers to see how they work, a day in their life and understand the preparation involved with players, opponents and press Give feedback from grass roots coaches and managers to see if what the FA is looking to achieve is achievable

Year 2:    

Attend FA Course to achieve Level 3 – UEFA ‘B’ Licence (9 – 12 months to complete) Be employed by a league club in a coaching capacity whilst studying for the level 3 qualification Interviewing senior players to understand their ambitions after football playing career is over and profile players who are looking to get into management Allow the viewer to understand the hard work and efforts required to be a football manager, also stating the reward for the position also.

Year 3:  

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Attend FA Course to achieve Level 4 – UEFA ‘A’ Licence (Part 1 12 months to complete with Preparatory Course) Continued employment with a league club in a coaching capacity, detailing successes and failures in my own coaching techniques, the performances of the club and players and interviewing people to see how I’m doing. Profiling the senior players spoken to in the previous year to see how they are getting on with the training and their success. A look at 2012 Olympics and how a GB team will have a knock down effect throughout the footballing community.

Year 4:  

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Attend FA Course to achieve Level 4 – UEFA ‘A’ Licence ( Part 2 12 months to complete with final assessment) Follow me in my continued coaching role, also looking at applying for managerial positions across the country, attending meetings & interviews and looking towards being appointed manager of a football club. A review of the players and managers spoken to, see where they are now, looking at the advice give and discussing whether the FA’s vision is working, have they achieved the goals set out in 2008? Did I get the manager job?

Year 5:  

Attend FA Course to achieve Level 5 – UEFA ‘Pro’ Licence (12 months to complete) Follow myself and the other 17 managers selected to complete the course.

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Visit European clubs to discuss coaching techniques, what they have adapted from the English game and any adaptations to take back to England. Have a look at my first season in charge of a football club Also I would be one of the youngest managers in the league at 35

Costs: The initial costs would include the FA Courses, general expenses and production. The budget for the series would need to be finalised with contracted production company. The costs for the FA Courses are:     

Level 1 - £130.00 Level 2 - £375.00 Level 3 - £1213.00 Level 4 - £6347.88 Level 5 - £7315.00 Total - £15380.88 + VAT

With the length of the courses and minimum coaching time requirements it is possible to go from start to finish in a period of 60 months. Contact Details: Richard Smith 44 Cambridge Street, Leicester, Le3 0JP. United Kingdom Telephone: 0116 254 8165 Mobile: 07894 499218 Email: [email protected] To Finish: I would like to thank you in advance for your time in looking at this programme idea and would welcome any feedback, constructive criticism and further thoughts should you think that it could be worth pursuing. My personal ambition is to become a football manager, due to poor knees and a broken leg, my playing career in the amateur game was brought to a premature end, however I do think, like many others I suppose, that I have something to offer. In my idea of From PC to Premiership: The Real Football Manager I aim to give the captive audience a sense of ambition, to follow their desire to do something and eradicate the thoughts that because they’ve not played the professional game in any field they can’t go on to be successful.

Kindest Regards

Richard Smith