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There’s a fine line between an enthusiast and an addict. Just ask Football Manager fanatic Tony Jameson, a former college lecturer who once took his laptop to a wedding so he could “finish off” transfer deadline day.
The 39-year-old admits the popular game dominated his life to the point where he celebrated lifting the Champions League with non-league Blyth Spartans by spending the afternoon on a public, open-top bus tour singing ‘We Are The Champions’.
He even memorised every word of Cameroon’s national anthem so he could connect with the fans.
“I had to win over the nation.” he told SPORTbible. “I felt that by learning the national anthem it showed I wasn’t just there for a payday and I was serious about leading the national team.
“Sadly we never achieved what we wanted, and I was eventually sacked.”
But after years of winning silverware in the virtual world, excluding that disastrous spell in charge of the Cameroon national team, his self proclaimed addiction would provide him with the tools to go out and make people laugh for a living.
Jameson, who claims he’s spent approximately 31,760 hours on Football Manager since he first started playing in the 90’s, decided to create a stand-up routine based around his three-and-a-half-years worth of in-game experience.
And that includes the time he bought a real life Blyth Spartans shirt with a regen’s name on the back.
“The club shop were confused as they never had a player called Reynolds,” he says.
“I explained it was from Football Manager, and that he had been a one-club man, breaking the clubs appearance record and being the first man in the club’s history to lift the Premier League and Champions League trophy.
“I think it created more questions than answers.”
He toured the UK for 18 months with his critically-acclaimed show and has since performed pre-tour warm-up shows for Kevin Bridges, Stewart Francis and Frankie Boyle.
