To help us scratch that football itch, a CCFC member has created a patch for Football Manager 2020 – allowing you to try your hand at managing the Tons on Mac or PC.

Here’s what you need to do if you fancy giving it a shot.

Get the patch

First, make sure you have a Steam account and install the Steam application.

Then, get the game. You can play for free until 1 April 2020.

Next, click on the below link:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2035200467

Hit Subscribe.

The next time you open the Steam app, the file should download. You may need to restart the application for this.

If you’re having issues installing via Steam then the file can be downloaded and installed manually here. The file needs to be copied into the Documents/Sport Interactive/Football Manager 2020/editor data folder (if no “editor data” folder exists then create one).

Starting a game

Once FM20 has opened select “Career”:

The next screen is the Career Game Setup:

Don’t worry if most of the screen is blank, this will still work.

Open the Database tab in the top right (highlighted above with the circle) 

***IMPORTANT*** Ensure the Database is set to “Football Manager 2020”  – it may default to a newer update which is incompatible with the Clapton CFC update.

Enable the “England – Clapton CFC Edition” from the Editor Data Section and click Confirm:

Then click “Advanced Setup” in the bottom right of the screen:

The next screen is the Active Leagues screen.  Add or remove whatever leagues you like but you will need to amend the England option which is set by Default to “League 2 and above”.  This should be changed to “Level 11 and above” and needs to be set as Playable.

**If you see an error when trying to select the English League the most likely error is that the wrong database has been selected on the previous page – Restart the game and ensure that “Football Manager 2020” is the selected database**

Before you click “Start Game” make sure that the Game Start Date immediately above is set to “England – Early 20/19/20 Pre-Season”.

If all OK then click Start Game to load it up.

Once you’ve created your manager profile you have to select your team.

Select Middlesex County Premier Division as below:

Then select Clapton CFC and click the Coaching Style button:

You can edit the Coaching Style page however you like. Once completed click Confirm and the game will launch. 

And you are good to go.

Just make sure you don’t have any other responsibilities in your life for the foreseeable future!