Buy Retro Football Boss PC key

Retro Football Boss is a historical football management simulation covering the English professional leagues from 1888 to 1998. You choose when and with which team to begin a career, manage the club and its finances, scout players, and shape your team as football changes over time.

Clubs and competitions

The database includes over 40,000 players: every player to have appeared in a League match, more than a thousand who did not, and top foreign stars. You can choose from over 130 teams across 110 years, including short-lived clubs such as New Brighton Tower, Loughborough and Nelson, or try to save Barrow, Northwich Victoria and Gateshead from non-league oblivion. There are over 8,000 possible combinations of starting time and club.

Senior competitions range from the Third Division North to the old European Cup, as well as shorter-lived tournaments such as the Watney and Anglo-Scottish cups. Reserve leagues run alongside them to keep young and fringe players match-fit.

Managing through history

Club finances—including gate receipts, wages, transfer fees and running costs—are modelled against historical accounts going back to 1910. Player wages range from £2 a week in 1888 (£1 in summer) to more than £4,000 a week in 1992. The game also models rules such as maximum and minimum wages, the retain-and-transfer system, and the transfer tribunals that later replaced it.

Tactics and player positions change over time too. Until the mid-1960s, you work with wing-halves and inside-forwards rather than wing-backs or false nines, and use five-man forward lines instead of a lone striker and two holding midfielders. The game is designed for short play sessions as well as longer ones, with a simple presentation and detailed management systems.

Scouting and tactics

A fog-of-war scouting system means you need to scout players to uncover their potential and persuade the board to provide the funds to sign them. Scout reports are not always accurate, so a player's prospects may remain uncertain.

Your coaching staff assess your team's strength across six tactical areas. Their feedback helps you see the effects of team selections and tactical changes and plan how to play, though their assessments are not always completely accurate.