Offline strategy sports games

Okay, so this game isn't a 'manager' game as such, in that you don't get to pick your team, formation, or other tactics, but you do get to create a fictitious team to play in amongst the real English leagues, from the lower reaches of the Conference North & South, right up to the Premiership, and on to the European cup competitions. The players are fake names, and the league names have been subtly changed (the Conference has been split into 'Non League A, Non League B, and Non League C, in place of Conference National, Conference North, and Conference South, respectively), but don't let that put you off! The teams aside from your own, are not fake! So your created team could end up playing the likes of Manchester United and Bayern Munich (although some of the foreign team names have been simplified, such as Bayern Munich, which has been simplified to just 'Munich')

This game is highly addictive, and you have a fair few decisions to make that a Chairman might have to make, that will ultimately define how successful you are. You have a wage bill (complete with bank overdraught limit), a bank balance, transfers to and from the club based on your manager's reccomendation, loan player system, contract terms to agree, a stadium to build, ticket and food prices to set, managers to hire, sack, and release, training facilities and youth academies to upgrade, and so on and so on.

It certainly fits the bill for picking up for a few minutes and putting it down, or you can literally spend hours due to it's addictive nature. It has a basic commentary engine, which you can speed up a little or slow down...a game generally takes about a minute or so, and you can skip to result if you, like me, get impatient to hear the result.

It's fully accessible with Voice Over in terms of buttons and and functionality. Once you get used to the league tables, the accounts screen, and other list type screens, you'll be able to find your way around very easily...just be a little patient and you'll get there.

If you want to check out accessibility, download the Lite version. The full version is definitely worth the £2.99 price tag, or whatever it is now. There are in-game purchases for game cash, but really, if you're patient, you don't need it. I've steered 3 teams from Non League to Champions league success, and it hasn't cost me a penny. It could take you 30 or 40 seasons to do it, but if you're more impatient than that, then go ahead and pay the small costs for the extra cash. I'd say you'd be missing out on the stress and struggles of a real football team if you do though.

A few hints: Don't read these if you want to enjoy the game to it's fullest and discover what works and what doesn't for yourself. If you're getting frustrated with not getting anywhere, go ahead and read these hints.

1. Watch out for the players who are highly ranked for the league you're in, as, if you're not in the top 3 in that league, they won't want to sign a new contract. Just hypothetically, if you are in say the Championship, and your players ranking rises to say 88 who's contract is up at the end of the season, and you don't finish in the top 3 places, he won't want to renew his contract with you. That's a real stinker because he's probably worth several million that you could seriously do with at that level, and you'll have to fork out a few more million to replace him.

2. There's a Super Stadium (something like The Emirates), that you could buy, with enough in game cash purchases, right from the start of the game...don't be tempted! The running costs will kill your team below the Premiership. Once I got to the Prem, I did a Wenger and invested in young players and raked in the cash when I sold them a few years later. That way you'll soon build up the £250 million you need to get that super stadium. Remember, if you go bust, that's it...all the in game cash purchases will be flitted away!

3. Player's form rankings will be affected by you not agreeing new contract terms, which can have a knock on effect on your teams ranking, which could lose you a match. Also, a player's transfer value will increase if you agree contract terms. If a player is in the last few weeks of his contract, transfer bids for him will be lower...so, if you're looking to sell a player, renew his contract before putting him on the transfer market, if there's less than a year left on it.

4. When you're starting a first season in any division, get the best sponsorship deal you can get. Then, as you finish subsequent seasons higher and higher in that division, your sponsorship deals will get better, so don't commit yourself to a three year deal, just because that's the largest cash amount on offer...remember, if you finish higher the next season, or even get promotion, the sponsorship deals will be far better. Better to go for a one year deal on the basis that you'll get a much better deal the following year.

5. If you get relegated, sell excess players immediately, but keep the core of the team. Use that extra cash to pay those player's wages, because your gate will go down in the lower division. As long as you keep the core of the team, you should go straight back up again.

6. Give professional contracts to most of your youth players, provided they are within about 8 - 10 ranking points of your first team, but make sure you change the contract period to 3 years. The wages of these newly signed youth players are peanuts, and for the two or three years you keep them, they will probably increase in ranking...then you can sell them if they haven't made it into the first team. You'd be surprised how useful the proceeds of their sale is for paying wages!

7. Keep your training ranking at one above your highest ranked player. So, if your highest ranked player is ranked 76, make sure your training facilities are ranked at 77. By doing this your player has a chance of his ranking improving to 77, thus improving both his match potential and his transfer value. As soon as his rank goes to 77, or you have another player ranked that or higher, upgrade your training facilities.

8. When upgrading your stadium, especially in the lower divisions, try to keep at least one lower capacity stand available, in case you want to upgrade mid season. The reason for this is that when you upgrade a stand, it takes anything from around 6 - 14 weeks, and during that time, your stand is out of use. You have four stands in total, so if you have three stands at around 6,000 capacity, but one at say 1,500, you can upgrade the 1,500 stadium, mid season, and only lose 1,500 on your gate for the rebuilding period. If you only had 6,000 seater stadiums available, you'd lose 6,000 on your gate for that same period...a big loss in revenue. At the start of the close season, consider rebuilding larger stands at that point.

There are many more useful tactics when playing this game, but those are a few, and a little thought will help you discover more.

I was a VI beta tester for this app, so if you have any problems or questions, please ask.

I just started playing this game and was wondering where do I see jout?

you find it on the main summary screen of the game, where you also find the training, league, money and so on. You see this screen between every week. The youth is below the training, you can just swipe to the right from there and you'll find it. If you have any questions about this game, just ask.

Hi
this indeed would be very cool i used to play football manager when i could see. I do play www.soccermanager.com on the pc not sure how accessible their ap is i know they are in the process of makinga new stand alone version too

I have also asked the developers if they would consider making Football Manager accessible. As of yet, I have had no response whatsoever. If you are still interested in taking this forward, I would be delighted to help!

I will try this game

About a year ago, I tried a baseball simulation called Out Of The Park. It was the most inaccessible app I ever downloaded. That really disappointed me, because I'm a huge baseball fan. I used to play Diamond Mind Baseball when I was a PC user. I need to find out if they have a Mac version.

Football Manager along with Champ Man are faves of mine and would love to see them made accessible.

Hi! A great alternative Accessible football app. This is more enjoyable to play dun fc pro.