Some of those who are friends on my facebook account, will have noticed my new addiction to the Football Manager 2013 Handheld series. It would probably come to know surprise to say, I'm a big football gamer and I've played the original PC series for years. I actually manage Brighton on my laptop.

Yet it's the handheld version which I find most compelling.

The reason is, I'm not bogged down with some of the features they've bloated the actual game with and I am able to play much quicker. It's nice, when you're on limited time.

I started off as Notts County and it's who I still manage. Yay!! I haven't been sacked. It's fairly easy, yet this doesn't stop the joy because you can still get beaten by a team like Portsmouth (Yes I really did).

First thing I was greeted with was Alan Judge requesting to move on, none the less I offered him a contact and a few days later he rejected. I decided to play a couple of games and in came an offer, so I though what the hell, he's leaving and 2million is more than enough to win this league win. So I sold him

Now, I don't often regret selling a player on a game. I do, take it seriously, as I feel I am playing with my time - why shouldn't I? After all if I just played and it meant nothing, I would be wasting time!

I played upto 9 games, I had won 6, drawn 2 and lost 1. Sitting on joint top of the league with 20 points, Preston being the side I shared this with but Coventry had a game in hand, who had 19 points. At this point I didn't feel like I had lost a goal scorer, or a player who would have changed games, so lucky me!

I received Manager of the Month, so things were defiantly becoming addictive. At 17 games in, I sat top still and shared the position this time with Doncaster Rovers, however Notts had a game in hand.

I also won yet again the Manager of the Month award. Things looking quite promising huh? Well with that said things started to unwind and I realized that my squad had an issue with midfielders and I needed a new striker (when doesn't Notts need a striker???).

26 games into the first season, Notts had won 15, drawn 7 and lost 4. Coventry City, whom were top had a 4 point advantage and we had hit a spell draws, with the odd loss.

Fulham then strangely approached me, as if it's not enough the game refuses to allow Alan Judge to remain with us. It knew that Jeff Hughes also wanted to part, so I sold him for a nice figure 650k.

By this point I had strengthened the squad, so it wasn't really all that much of a loss. I had signed Leon Clarke, Matt Thornhill and another two players which my memory fails to recall.

Our league performances was still leaving questions, I can honestly say it's this point I felt in real life that some fans would have been calling for my head! with this in mind, I came up with a cunning plan and that was to do the unthinkable. Yes, I planned to attempt to win the F.A Cup or at least throw these discontent fans off my tracks for a little bit.

In the dugout, against Wolves (which the game tells me is a big team). I sit and watch the Notts players have fun, we score and if it wasn't for Matt Thornhill, all the talk would have been for hat-trick hero Danny Webber. Bishop, Zoko, Showunmi and Clarke also got on the score sheet. Can you see what happened here? Yes, 6 of the 8 goals was scored by a striker! More importantly, we had won in the 4th round of the F.A Cup (I told you take these things seriously, didn't I?).

The Quarter Final - Notts were drawn against no other than Manchester United. I had hoped for a less appealing fixture, as I could tell my plan was unraveling, which by half time United was 2-0 up. Yet, a lovely strike from Alan Sheehan meant we had every chance to get back into the game. We controlled spells of play, yet the better chances fell to United obviously and in the 80th minuted Shrek scored against us. Pleasingly, in the 90th minute a certain Neal Bishop decided to popup and give us hope.

It finished 2-3. Not bad!

By this point, I was making a tactical push to get back up and for a short period I actually felt I could pinch back the first position. We remained 2nd for a fair amount of time, which I would have been happy with but we went on a losing streak and ended up finishing inside the play-off spots. 4th isn't that bad really, when you consider how I tried to do a Keith Curle (obviously that was joke).

We storm through the play offs, we drawn Yeovil and any one from Nottingham would probably say luck would be on their side. Yet it wasn't, we beat them easily by 2 goals and in the second leg. We beat them by 5 goals, a Webber and Clarke finale.

This meant we had to face a side we beat both times in the season, you can already guess how this going to turn out. A early goal, seen Notts decide to park the bus (despite me shouting from the touchline and dipping my head). They snatched two goals fairly late on and that sealed their promotion to the Championship.

With the season over, I decided to sort out the areas where I felt we was weak and could do with improving. I won't go into too much detail, I hope to install you all with another addition but let me tell you it was no easy task. Firstly no left sided midfielder wanted to talk contracts and I had the annoying issue of getting players to resign deals. Yet, I did manage to make myself happy and so...

Thank you for reading my blog about a mobile game, which I am rather addicted too. I hope this is of some interest, you never know! I also hope it made you laugh at times. well okay, spoil sport.

Over and out,

Joe