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Introduction: Johnny Karp is the writer behind the popular Football Manager Story blog, he is guest blogging here at Football Manager Fanboys to tell you about his own story and to give the budding story enthusiasts some insight as to how his story has gone global, W.
I've been playing the game since CM 97-98. And I loved it right away and continued to like it ever since, always waiting for the new versions with excitement and impatience. I don't know if it's because an overextended ego or for other reasons but I always liked to tell my friends how the game was going, share my results and squad problems with them. But I never considered sharing my Football Manager experience on the world wide web.
That was until last year, the last days of December. Somehow I managed to get chicken pox and I was forced to stay inside the house for about 10 days. I was happy that I had more time to play my favorite game but it just wasn't enough, still too much time on my hands... "Why not make a blog and write a FM story?", I thought. I had some money in my PayPal account so I went and bought a domain and hosting and there it was, my own Football Manager Story website. The toughest part was still ahead of me, I had to write the stories.
It was easier than I expected though, I saw it as a press conference after each game, I had to tell the people what went well and what didn't, share the strategies and the thoughts about the game we all love. (The press conference feature in the game can't compare with writing a story, that's pretty obvious). At first it was something like a walk in the desert because almost nobody was reading the stories. Once I built up an audience there was another challenge to face, the lads wanted more and more posts, more frequent and more detailed and I didn't always have the time do satisfy them.
Now a whole year has gone by and more than 100 posts between two FM 2009 stories and one FM 2010 story currently unfolding. Fact is that now I just can't imagine playing FM without writing the story, the two go together. My audience is now like the crowd of fans outside the club, they share their thoughts about tactics and transfers, they are happy when we win and disappointed when we lose.
While playing the game I always have a notebook on my desk and when something happens during a game I immediately write down a few lines that would come in handy while writing the story on the blog. I am constantly trying to write better posts but I can say that my efforts were rewarded, I met very interesting people on the blog, huge fans of the game.
They ask me questions about my game and I always try to give them good answers but I feel that I learned more from them that they did from me. And finally, the most important thing... My wife got scared when she heard me shouting around the house after my Blyth Spartans scored in the Champions League final a few months ago. My readers fully understood my reaction
Johnny Karp.
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