Book Review:
‘Johnny Cooper Championship Manager, The Story of Mansfield Town 99/00' By Chris Darwen
Win a signed Copy of the Book! For your chance, follow this link - Good Luck!
http://www.chrisdarwen.com/competition.html
For most Championship and Football Manager fans, a season in the virtual world is so much more. Now, in his book ‘Johnny Cooper Championship Manager, The Story of Mansfield Town 99/00’, Chris Darwen brings to life the all-encompassing world that is the mind of a Football Manager addict, a world that is always so much more than, as Darwen’s partner points out in the book’s introduction, “just words on a screen.”
It’s often very difficult for anyone disassociated with football management simulators to truly grasp or comprehend the imagined world that exists in the mind of a Football Manager addict. Yet through ‘Johnny Cooper, Championship Manager’ this world is truly brought to life. Undoubtedly relatable for all those making trips from Carlisle to the south coast, this book is a definite must read, for it helps, above all else, to reinforce what we all already know; it’s definitely not just a game!
Buy your copy today!
Johnny Cooper, Championship Manager: The Story of Mansfield Town FC 99/00 (according to Championship Manager) available in Paperback and on Kindle!
‘Johnny Cooper Championship Manager, The Story of Mansfield Town 99/00' By Chris Darwen
Win a signed Copy of the Book! For your chance, follow this link - Good Luck!
http://www.chrisdarwen.com/competition.html
For most Championship and Football Manager fans, a season in the virtual world is so much more. Now, in his book ‘Johnny Cooper Championship Manager, The Story of Mansfield Town 99/00’, Chris Darwen brings to life the all-encompassing world that is the mind of a Football Manager addict, a world that is always so much more than, as Darwen’s partner points out in the book’s introduction, “just words on a screen.”
An enjoyable, heartening and oh-so relatable book for any
football simulation fan, ‘Johnny Cooper Championship Manager’ follows the
journey of Mansfield’s fictional appointment of one Johnny Cooper, during his
maiden season with the Stags during the 1999/2000 season. Covering the
pre-match dressing room conversations to scampi and chips with the Chairman,
Darwen endeavours to illustrate to the ‘unseeing’ football manager-less public
the world that is envisaged once you step into football simulation. Something
he undoubtedly achieves.
The highs, the lows and the sleepless nights dwelling on a
formation change from a system you’ve used “all your life” are covered here, as
Johnny Cooper seeks to save Manfield from expected relegation before embarking
on a campaign that would surprise even a seasoned football manager veteran.
Cooper’s toils in the transfer market, free transfers,
countless loans and an oversees Thai player who just might make the difference,
sweetened of course by his £90 per week wage, will all be familiar to anyone
who has ever had the chance to take on football management in the virtual
world. The emotional rollercoaster, from the inexplicable defeats, the
incomprehensible missed chances to the incredible performances that come out of
nowhere, will all be familiar to any football manager, both real and virtual,
all of which are found in the tales of Johnny Cooper.
But the book is more than one player’s reflection on a season.
Darwen takes us further, portraying the palpable virtual reality that exists in
the mind of every Football Manager gamer. From seeing his players “sweating
lager from the touchline” to the tightness of the Chairman, affectionately
known as ‘Hazza’, forcing the players to be up at 3:30am for a coach trip to
Torquay, as a reader you get a real sense of the depths the game can take you
to, expanding the virtual into something that is very real.
It would be hard to tell apart this book from that of
memoirs of a professional football manager, in part thanks to the close
affection Cooper feels towards his players. Often, as with the Chairman,
referring to characters by made up nicknames, these virtual icons become that
much more real, to the point in which we learn of the struggles of ‘Leathers’,
whose wife threw him out on Christmas Day, leading to fears of depression. Such
relationships serve to show how real football manager can be made to feel like.
Maintaining the reader’s focus in a book that predominately
recalls results in a 46 game season can become rather disengaging yet on the
whole, Darwen avoids this trap. The book is laced with humorous remarks, none
more obvious to football fans in particular with his downplaying of the likes
of David Moyes, stating “he won’t be long in management” whilst satirising
Arsene Wenger’s missed signing of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, saying “he’d have an
offer on the table before you could say Ibrahimovic” rather than taking the
player on for a trial, something that Zlatan infamously refused. These, as well
as the numerous tales from Leathers, covering Uruguayan Derbies to helmet
stricken linesman, all help to make the book an enjoyable read.
It’s often very difficult for anyone disassociated with football management simulators to truly grasp or comprehend the imagined world that exists in the mind of a Football Manager addict. Yet through ‘Johnny Cooper, Championship Manager’ this world is truly brought to life. Undoubtedly relatable for all those making trips from Carlisle to the south coast, this book is a definite must read, for it helps, above all else, to reinforce what we all already know; it’s definitely not just a game!
Buy your copy today!
Johnny Cooper, Championship Manager: The Story of Mansfield Town FC 99/00 (according to Championship Manager) available in Paperback and on Kindle!
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