''Premier Manager'' is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

management simulator video game for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

, Acorn Archimedes and DOS platforms. It was released in 1992 by Gremlin Interactive. Later the game was converted to the Sega Mega Drive. While the Amiga, Atari and MS-DOS versions were all similar, the Mega Drive version more closely resembled ''

Premier Manager 2 ''Premier Manager 2'' (also known as ''PM2'') is a football management simulator video game for the Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS platforms. It was released in 1993 by Gremlin Interactive. The objective of the game is to manage a football club successf ...

''. The objective of the game is to manage a

football club A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an all- ...

successfully within the top five divisions of the English league system. ''Premier Manager'' is the first game in the ''Premier Manager'' series.

Overview

''Premier Manager'' allows up to four users to play the game as managers of English football conference league

s. The user must manage the team to win football matches and maintain financial stability. There is no set target to the game, but the general aim is to manage teams as successfully as possible, by managing a Premier League team to the championship title and winning the trophy competitions, such as the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup. To win matches, the manager must set formations, pick the team, buy new players, and adequately set coaching schedules to maintain player abilities. To be financially successful, the manager must not spend more than is available. The manager can also raise money by getting loans, selling players, organising sponsorship and ticket sales. The manager can increase revenue from ticket sales by improving the stadium capacity and facilities, and raising ticket prices accordingly. ''Premier Manager'' covers the top five divisions of the

English football league system The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in England, with five teams from Wales, one from Guernsey, one from Jersey and one from the Isl ...

that were known at the time as the Premier League,

Division One The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...

Division Two NCL Division Two The NCL or National Conference League Division Two (known as the Kingstone Press NCL Division Two) League winners {, class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" , - , colspan=4 style="text-align:center;" , NCL DIVISION TWO , ...

, Division Three and Conference League and also a fictitious "Part Time" league, made up of real non-league teams. All the league data and information about players is from the 1992/1993 football season. When using the telephone on the in game menu, if the players dialled the number 781560 all stats on their players would be raised to 99 and they would remain unbeaten. The players could re-enter this number as many times as they wished.

Mega Drive version

The Sega Mega Drive version of ''Premier Manager'' was released in 1995. On the box it had the claim "the First Ever Football Management game for Mega Drive". The design of the game resembled ''

'' more than the original ''Premier Manager'', and allowed just two players instead of four. This version of ''Premier Manager'' has the player start with a Division Three football team, the lower divisions being removed in order to save memory. The cartridge included a battery backed up 32Mb memory chip to allow the player to save games.

Reception

The Amiga version of ''Premier Manager'' was well received by critics. The game received '' Amiga Computing's'' ''Gamer Gold'' award and a rating of 93%. The review highlighted how the well designed interface makes the game easy to play. '' Amiga Action'' also rated the review highly with 90% and their ''Amiga Action Accolade''. ''Premier Manager'' received an average review from ''

The One Amiga ''The One'' was a video game magazine in the United Kingdom which covered 16-bit home gaming during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was first published by EMAP in October 1988 and initially covered computer games aimed at the Atari ST, Amiga ...

''. The magazine said that the design of the game is nice, yet items such as the phone don't add much to the gameplay. ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' in 1993 wrote that "it is a very 'British' game ... What this game does, it does very well".

References

External links

''Premier Manager''
at Hall of Light Amiga database * {{Premier Manager series 1992 video games Acorn Archimedes games Amiga games Association football management video games Atari ST games DOS games Gremlin Interactive games Multiplayer and single-player video games Premier Manager Sega Genesis games Video games scored by Patrick Phelan Video games developed in the United Kingdom