''Premier Manager'' is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

management simulator video game for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

Acorn Archimedes The Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, England. The systems in this family use Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and initially ran the Arthur operating system, with later models ...

, and

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

platforms. It was released in 1992 by

Gremlin Interactive Gremlin Graphics Software Limited, later Gremlin Interactive Limited and ultimately Infogrames Studios Limited, was a British software house based in Sheffield, working mostly in the home computer market. Like many software houses established i ...

. Later the game was converted to the

Sega Mega Drive The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Sys ...

. 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 succ ...

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

football club In association football, a football club (or association football club, alternatively soccer club) is a sports club that acts as an entity through which association football teams organise their sporting activities. The club can exist either as ...

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 football clubs. 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 The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

team to the championship title and winning the trophy competitions, such as the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

and the

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

. To win matches, the

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

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. 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. ''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 ...

that were known at the time as the

, Division One, Division Two,

Division Three The Football League Third Division was the third tier of the English football league system in 1920–21 and again from 1958 until 1992. When the FA Premier League was formed, the Third Division become the fourth tier of English football. In 2 ...

, and Conference League, and also a fictitious "Part Time" league, made up of real

non-league Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is ...

teams. All the league data and information about players is from the 1992/1993 football season.

Mega Drive version

The

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 ''Amiga Computing'' is a discontinued monthly computer magazine Computer magazines are about computers and related subjects, such as networking and the Internet. Most computer magazines offer (or offered) advice, some offer programming ...

''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 ''Amiga Action'' was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Europress (later IDG Media) and ran for 89 full issues, from October 1989 to December 1996. After its closure, it was merged into sister ...

'' also rated the review highly with 90% and their Amiga Action Accolade. ''Premier Manager'' received an average review from ''

The One Amiga ''The One'' is a discontinued video game magazine in the United Kingdom which covers 16-bit home gaming during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was first published by EMAP in October 1988 and started with computer games for the Atari ST, Amig ...

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

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was 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 199 ...

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

References

External links

* * {{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 Realms of Fantasy games Sega Genesis games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games scored by Patrick Phelan