It might be that soccer football first hooked me in when I was just six years old, reeling away in the consummate glory of having powered that familiar sphere past a hapless keeper for the first time. Perhaps it was seven years later when I stood outside Arsenal’s famous old stadium of Highbury, dreamily soaking in the thunderous elation of 38,000 cheers, all the while crying inside because I was not one of those within. Or maybe it was when I could combine it with my true love; gaming, of course. This is most likely the disheartening truth.

It occurred when a kindly uncle, unaware of the exponential tsunami he was unleashing, bought me Premier Manager 2 as a Christmas present in 1993. The game’s directive was simple, take control of a lowly conference side and rise to the upper echelons of the beautiful game through careful supervision of players, tactics and finances. It may sound dull, but the thing with sports management sims, and the majority of simulation games for that matter, is that they tap into that primordial belief that we can do a better job than the next guy. It’s this unwavering conviction that manifests itself in the bitter shake of the head of every football fan around the globe. We know that the shams we see weekly would never be allowed to transpire under our vigilant watch. It’s games like Premier Manager 2 that give us the chance to prove it.

Such a directive is helped when the game is incredibly easy. I distinctly remember Premier Manager 2’s manual suggesting players take charge of Halifax Town. That proved to be a first-rate tip, as I was able to swiftly guide Halifax from grass roots mediocrity to domestic and European domination on my first go. I eventually elevated the eight or so skills stats for all of my squad’s players to the maximum of 99, making each one of them a Pelé-like god of the game. I even went one season without conceding a single goal. Has anyone achieved so much at the tender age of eleven?

Yet somehow my triumph felt incomplete. I had only defeated the AI, and had not shown that I was the best football manager the world had ever seen. I realized that I needed to demonstrate my skills against my peers, and that’s how fantasy football entered my life. Sadly, this too proved to be inadequate. There was no real strategy to it, just the vague mixture of a touch of football knowledge and a far chunkier dose of pot luck. It was no multiplayer Premier Manager 2, that was for sure. So, enter ‘play by mail’, stage right. No, not e-mail; the Internet was just a thing I used to chat to a cute girl from Norwich (it helps when women can’t see my face). No, play by snail mail – football management sims being played by people across the country, sending in their teamsheets by post and ringing up other would-be Alex Fergusons to negotiate deals. It’s only looking back on it that the whole thing reveals itself as the surreal experience that it was; a massively multiplayer football management game being operated and played through the postal service. For all its weirdness, it was absolutely bags of fun. Unfortunately I completely sucked at it, and after a year of consistent failure I retired to pursue more normal desires for my age like the afore-mentioned cute girl from Norwich.