Watford win European Cup!

And the season before that they did the Premiership and League Cup double. Well, they did on my computer, anyway. I’ve been spending an excessive amount of time recently playing the Excel version of Championship Manager. Someone sent it round the office where I worked a few years ago, and a couple of weeks ago I found it online and downloaded it again.

For those who haven’t seen the game, it’s a far better demonstration of the power of Excel than anything work-related I’ve ever seen. You start off at the bottom of the 4th division and work your way up the leagues, using gate receipts to build up your transfer funds and increase the ratings of your players. But there’s enough randomness build into the program to ensure frustrating defeats to teams with hugely inferior rankings.

It’s not going to keep me occupied much longer: in my ninth season, I’ve already run out of players to buy and won almost everything that’s on offer, though I’m still chasing that elusive quadruple. But if you’re looking for a simple, free game to while away the long summer nights, I recommend it. Just Google ‘Championship Manager Excel’ and you’ll find it.