IT’S finally time for all you Sheffield United fans out there to rejoice.
Unfortunately for you West Ham are still living it up in the Premier League while you languish in the lower divisions, throwing darts at Carlos Tevez posters and cursing the fact (spoiler alert) Sean Bean (below) only lasted one series of Game of Thrones.
But here’s the next best thing. Over the next thousand years, your Blades are going to win the English title more than anyone else. So says a computer game.
A person – let’s be honest here, a hero – simulated a millennium of life enhancer/ruiner Football Manager action and posted his results online this week. And they make for some great reading at Bramall Lane.
It took 58 days to get through 1000 years – time well spent – and the upshot was that Sheffield United finished top of the heap in England 167 times. They also managed 41 Champions League titles, though they weren’t the most successful English club on the continent with Burnley adding 42 European Cups to their 138 English crowns. Poor old Chelsea, meanwhile, only managed one more title over the course of the millennium. Shame.
Real Madrid maintained their love affair with the Champions League, picking up 108 titles, but Celtic achieved what appears to be the most impressive feat – averaging home crowds of 576,199 for their 2987/’88 Champions League campaign. Which probably saw them knocked out at the group stage after losing all their away matches.
The future news – and if this isn’t news, what is? – comes hot on the heels of the retirement of Cherno Samba.
The former England U20 international, forced to retire through injury at 29, may not have set the real world alight, but anyone who played the 2001/02 edition of Football Manager’s predecessor Championship Manager knows just how astonishingly good he was.
“I had to order a new phone from my network provider,” said Samba. “I rang them up to get it ordered and was told to wait two to three months for it to arrive. I thought: ‘No problem’.
“The guy then asked my name and I said: ‘Cherno Samba’. With surprise, he asked: ‘The one from Championship Manager? You’ll get it the next day’.”
Just right too.
