Kevin Toms wrote Football Manager, the 1982 game that put players in the manager’s office instead of on the pitch, and ran Addictive Games, the company that sold it. The idea was older than the computer. In 1985 he told CRASH that it went back eighteen years, to a board game he had made on a cornflakes packet. By then the computer version was on nine machines and had sold more than 100,000 copies, and Addictive marked its third year with a dinner at the Dorchester. CRASH printed a photograph of the football manager Lawrie McMenemy discussing tactics with him.
Fast facts
- Known for: Football Manager (1982), Football Manager 2 (1988) and Football Manager World Cup Edition (1990).
- Company: Addictive Games, which he ran; its advertisements credited the game “Designed by Kevin Toms”.
- Sales: 100,000 copies by June 1985, according to CRASH; half a million in six years, according to Addictive’s 1990 advertising.
- Later games: Kevin Toms Football Star Manager, for mobile devices in 2016 and on Steam in 2025.
Football Manager
Addictive first advertised Football Manager in February 1982, for the ZX81, ZX80, TRS-80 and Video Genie at £9.95 by mail order from Milton Keynes. The Spectrum 48K version followed that September. On the ZX81 there was nothing to watch: you picked the side, played the match and read the result. From the end of 1983 the advertisements listed “Matches in 3D graphics”, the little figures in front of a goal that many players remember, and added in capitals that the 3D graphics were not included in the ZX81 version.
The game was written in BASIC. Your Sinclair recalled in 1990 that it was “Written in 100% Basic” and had a “unique ‘customising’ feature”, which meant players could break into the program and change it. What held people was the season. Toms explained the game’s success to CRASH as “the burst of activity involved in picking a side and arranging transfers, followed by the suspense of awaiting the results”, and said he now saw it as a perennial, like Monopoly. C&VG readers voted it second only to The Hobbit as Best Strategy Game of 1983, and it was the fourth best-selling Spectrum game of 1984.
The face on the box
Football Manager sold its author along with the game. The advertisements read “Designed by Kevin Toms”, and the packaging carried his photograph: Retro Gamer later summed him up as “a bearded man who liked putting his picture on the box of his games”. The magazines teased him about it for years. Your Sinclair remembered Football Manager in 1990 as “the one with mugshots of that cheery bearded bloke all over it”. Amiga Format docked Football Manager World Cup Edition points for “the silly picture of Kevin Toms which appears a few times on the box, on the adverts, and even on the flippin’ Wall Chart”. Your Sinclair’s reviewer called him “Egobeard”: “Not content with having his face all over the box and his name all over the instructions”, Toms was offering an autographed football as a prize. The prizes in another competition included “getting your picture up alongside Kevin Toms on the packaging” of Football Manager 3.
Running Addictive
In November 1984 CRASH reported that Toms was handing day-to-day responsibility for Addictive to its finance director, John Croft, “so that he could concentrate more on the creative side”. At the same time he launched Silicon Joy, a label that its advertisements described as a division of Addictive Games. Its first releases were other people’s programs, which Toms introduced in the advertisements: “many people have sent me the best software that they have written and asked me to publish it for them”. They included Grand Prix Manager, a boxing game and Trio, three games on one cassette.
He stayed at the head of the company. Dragon User described him in 1985 as the man “who runs Addictive” when he converted Football Manager to the Dragon himself. CRASH was still calling him “Managing Director Kevin Toms” in December 1986, when it noticed that the quote praising Addictive’s American football game Headcoach in its advertisements was his own. His strategy game President followed in 1987.
The sequels
Football Manager 2 came out in 1988. Its advertisements billed Toms as “inventor of the world’s best selling football game” and quoted him saying the sequel “beats my best seller — hands down”. Football Manager World Cup Edition followed in 1990, with advertisements that summed up the story so far: “In 1982, Kevin Toms wrote Football Manager, six years (and half a million copies sold) later, Kevin went one better and produced Football Manager 2.” Football Manager 3 (1991) was made without him, Retro Gamer noted, and quoted a lower figure for the first game’s sales: “reportedly selling over 400,000 copies”.
Later work
Toms kept making football management games. In April 2001 PC Zone reported that he was “back with a new game, this time online”, after a decade out of the public eye, and Retro Gamer found him still working on an online management game in 2004. That year the name Football Manager went to Sports Interactive, whose series is not descended from Toms’s game. His own later games carry his name instead: Kevin Toms Football Star Manager appeared for mobile devices in 2016, and a version reached Steam in August 2025.
Sources
- CRASH issue 17, June 1985, p. 77: news item on Football Manager’s third year (over 100,000 copies; nine computers; the Dorchester dinner; the cornflakes-packet board game; Toms on why it succeeded; photograph with Lawrie McMenemy).
- Your Computer, February 1982, p. 53, and September 1982, p. 112: Addictive Games advertisements (first release; Spectrum 48K version).
- Sinclair User issue 21, December 1983, to issue 30, September 1984, and Computer & Video Games issue 26, December 1983: Addictive Games advertisements (“Designed by Kevin Toms”; “Matches in 3D graphics”; the ZX81 exclusion).
- Computer & Video Games issue 29, March 1984, p. 15: Golden Joystick Awards for 1983.
- Personal Computer Games issue 15, February 1985, p. 8: best-selling games of 1984.
- CRASH issue 10, November 1984, p. 40: news item on John Croft and Silicon Joy. The same issue: Silicon Joy advertisement (“A range of software selected by Kevin Toms”; “a division of Addictive Games Ltd”).
- Dragon User, May 1985: news item on the Dragon version.
- CRASH issue 35, December 1986: feature on advertising (Toms’s quote for Headcoach).
- Your Sinclair issue 17, May 1987: President competition.
- Your Sinclair issue 31, July 1988: Football Manager 2 advertisement (“inventor of the world’s best selling football game”).
- Sinclair User issue 99, May 1990, p. 25, and Your Sinclair issue 53, May 1990: Addictive Games advertisement for Football Manager World Cup Edition (“half a million copies sold”).
- Your Sinclair issue 54, June 1990: guide to Spectrum football games (“mugshots of that cheery bearded bloke”; “Written in 100% Basic”; the Football Manager 3 packaging prize).
- Amiga Format issue 12, July 1990, p. 83: Football Manager World Cup Edition review.
- Your Sinclair issue 57, September 1990, p. 27: Football Manager World Cup Edition review (“Egobeard”).
- PC Zone issue 101, April 2001, p. 80: Toms’s online game.
- Retro Gamer issue 4, 2004, pp. 52 and 56: history of football games (the picture on the box; Football Manager 2, World Cup Edition and Football Manager 3; “over 400,000 copies”; Sports Interactive and the Football Manager name).
- Wikipedia, “Football Manager (1982 video game)” (web, secondary): Kevin Toms Football Star Manager on mobile, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Manager_(1982_video_game)
- Steam, “Kevin Toms Football Star Manager” (web, secondary): the 2025 release. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3707550/Kevin_Toms_Football_Star_Manager/