In a special feature, fan Phil Clark talks about his experience of managing Bangor 1876 in the Football Manager videogame.

The reason I chose to manage Bangor 1876 in the Football Manager videogame stems from the fact that I was a student at the university many years ago. In fact in my final year, I lived in a house on Deiniol Road which overlooked Bangor City’s Farrar Road ground.

It came to my knowledge that Bangor City were going through a few difficult times and could fold. Along with that, through social media and contacts I still had down there I learned that the fans were putting together a fan owned club and eventually Bangor 1876 were the result and they got their approval to begin in tier 5 of the Welsh league system. Living in the North East of England, the only real way to follow them is via social media and regular emails of the newsletter.

Moving onto Football Manager, I’ve been a player since the very beginning (before the CM split). With the game being available on Steam, it means extra databases can be created and that the leagues available can be extended. Normally you only have access to the top tier in Wales on the game but thanks to an excellent database builder (@TheFMEditor85 on Twitter), it has been expanded to include additional leagues and therefore the Gwynedd League and Bangor1876 are available to manage.

The largest challenges you will face playing as Bangor1876 in Football Manager are to do with their status and their finances within the game. Being an amateur side, you aren’t confined to transfer windows and can just offer contracts but at the same time other sides can do likewise. So, if you sign a great player and another side come in for him, unless he displays loyalty then you can’t do much to stop him leaving. Again, the amateur status means no money to invest in new facilities or to help turn semi-pro. There are always rumours of a takeover coming but so far they have only been rumours and the club remains fan owned.

Here is how my first three seasons managing Bangor 1876 in Football Manager went in a recent save:

Season 1, Gwynedd League. Promoted as Champions. Fairly easy to go up, by far the strongest side in the division. A shaky start but no real issues after that.

Season 2, Welsh Alliance League Division 2. Promoted in 2nd place. Abergele champions, managed to strengthen squad but still being amateur and a relatively new side meant that charming and keeping players wasn’t easy. A new stadium is apparently being built but there is no completion date yet.

Season 3, Welsh Alliance League Division 1. Promoted as Champions. More of a battle this time, went right down to the final day. But we go up to JD Cymru North. Also, due to ground restrictions (and absence of new stadium) we will be playing at Cae Barker near Aberystwyth next season. The club turned semi-pro on 6/6/22.

I started season 4 in JD Cymru North, and one of the star players for Bangor 1876 so far in this Football Manager save has been Dylan Summers-Jones. He has scored 62 goals in 89 games.