The FM Library

Next up in our series of Introducing, we meet someone who claims to be Madd.. He’s a Newcastle United fan, so might have a point… Let’s find out as we meet MaddFM

• Creator Name & what made you choose it: MaddFM – surname is Madden and FM makes you Maddddddddd 😄
• Real Name: Paul
• Football Team: Newcastle United #toonarmy
• Talk me through your FM journey – where does it start? When was the moment that you first clicked on that little icon – and when did you realise that you couldn’t stop! I discovered the game by chance at a friend’s birthday party aged 9 or 10, and after a long period of negotiating (which involved swapping my Sensible Soccer 95/96 for his Championship Manager 2) I brought the game home, never returned it and the rest as we know is history…I have bought, played and obsessed over every version of the game since and here I sit (aged 33 years and 2 months old) playing and writing about it with the same passion and enthusiasm I held all those years ago.
• Ok, you’ve been playing the game, what made you jump from “player” to “creator” and how have you found the journey? After competing at FMWEC 18 and meeting loads of creators (not really knowing how big the community was), I found myself drifting more and more towards the online aspect of FM and wanting to take the jump from playing solo to sharing the experience with others (and vice versa). I’ve always been pretty good at writing and talking shite, so I guess that naturally led to blogging about FM in addition to playing it! It has been a cracking experience over the past year or so, gives a whole new dimension to the game and big shout out to Joe (FridayNightFM) who helped me raise the stakes by inviting me to blog for WeStreamFM too – lots more to come for FM20  🔥  
• What’s your style of play? Within the library we have a couple of guys who plough through seasons letting the Assistant Manager’s do the vast majority of stuff, mainly getting into the late 2060’s trying to complete bizarre and random challenges, but we also have guys who are very much into the finite detail and will manage every aspect and would consider a save done after 5 or 6 seasons. Where do you fit within the scale? There is of course, no incorrect answer.. I’m generally a 1 club save man for each version of FM, I love to get completely immersed into a specific club, create a storyline around them and try to take them from some kind of mediocrity to as high as possible!! All about realism for me too, I usually will go around 7 or 8 seasons in until it becomes dominated by Newgens (you heard me, it’s not regens  😄). I’m probably one of the slower players out there too – Day 1 usually takes me around 4 or 5 hours before hitting Continue!
• Favourite version/save? Any particular bittersweet/comic/down right depressing memories? Loved CM4 when it came out, that’s when it went from a game to an institution! Favourite saves have usually been with Newcastle, FM13 and FM17 also stand out – unfortunately as a Toon fan, FM is the only outlet for success of late 😩 Best save so far was last year (FM19) with CD Tenerife as I blogged it the whole way through 7 seasons and 30 odd posts, was hard to say goodbye!
• Which bloggers do you always make sure that you read? FridayNightFM always writes cracking stuff as does FMGrasshopper and Inverted Wingbacks – more recently I’ve also enjoyed the likes of FMWayofLife, FMStag, LutterworthFox and Blackcaesar_a5. Waiting for DazzaFM to make a comeback this year too!
• Who within the community, seriously impresses you – produces the type of content that you just think “Wow, I couldn’t even contemplate producing stuff to at that level – for me it’s Laura/Chilled Moose and the face packs that she produces – some serious design talent there. This can be across any format of creation. Find me someone more creative, hilarious, unique, brave and genuinely sound than @DatGuyJayCee and I’ll subscribe on the spot 😄
• What puts you off reading other creators blogs – what makes you click that “X” button in the top right of the page. For me it’s using the correct grammar for team names – I saw a blog about 18 months ago where the blogger named his opponent as oxford united and not Oxford United – I’m still angry about this… The main thing for me is that the blog is well laid out especially so that previous and next posts are easily accessible. Sometimes you open a blog post it only displays the most recent one, then you have to go out of your way to find the previous or next update..create a good menu for FM’s sake!!
• Ok, final question.. I have 5 minutes and I have a list of blogs in front of me – In 100 words, why should I click on your blog… To be honest I mainly write what I myself would like to read! I try to keep it both humorous and insightful and illustrate my emotions as I write – I also have a huge fondness for some CM/FM nostalgia, if I can somehow link a post to a CM, FM or IRL legend/story then I find I enjoy writing it a lot more – hopefully others can relate! This year my main FM20 blog is “Better Call Sol” which will document Sol Campbell’s fictional adventures at Southend Utd, entertainment guaranteed!

Yeah, he’s Madd, but he produces great content, and in our eyes that is all that matters.