NLFM: A New Kind of Football Manager

If you've followed my Football Manager content before, you'll know I love a non-league save.

I took Cadbury Athletic to the Premier League and Sheffield FC to Champions League glory, both starting from the depths of non-league football. But sometimes, it felt a little too easy.

There were no players trying to balance full-time jobs with training and matches. There was no real risk of clubs disappearing. And more often than not, as you started climbing through the leagues, some random tycoon would swoop in and invest millions into the club.

That's not quite how non-league football works.

So when I saw Non-League Football Manager was in production, I was interested. Very interested.

And now I've been lucky enough to be invited to beta test it!

The game is still in development, so this isn't a review. I've only just started getting stuck into my save, but before I share how my first season goes, I thought I'd take a look at what we know about NLFM so far.

So, what is NLFM?

The obvious comparison is Football Manager and, let's be honest, NLFM is always going to get compared to it. They're both football management games where you're managing a club, building a squad and trying to win football matches.

But NLFM isn't simply trying to be Football Manager with fewer leagues. The whole game is built around one specific part of the football world: English non-league football.

There's one important limit, though. You can only manage clubs up to National League level. So if you take your club all the way through non-league and win promotion to League Two, your journey with that club comes to an end. You can't follow them into the Football League as their manager.

At that point, you'll need to make a choice: start a new game with another non-league club, or simply see where your managerial career goes next.

This is a game where players have jobs. Tuesday night availability matters. Your ground might stop you getting promoted. Money can disappear quickly. Clubs can even fold and new phoenix clubs can eventually emerge.

Players have actual lives

This was one of the biggest things that caught my attention. We're talking about non-league football here, so not every player is a full-time footballer whose biggest concern is whether they should play as an Advanced Forward or a Pressing Forward.

Players have day jobs and other commitments, and those things can affect training, availability and whether they can even make certain matches. Which feels much closer to the football world the game is trying to recreate.

Clubs can actually struggle

Another part of the game that immediately interested me is that clubs aren't guaranteed to survive forever. Financial problems matter, clubs can overspend, enter administration, receive points deductions and, in some cases, things can go very, very wrong.

That's a huge part of non-league football. When you're managing a smaller club, success isn't always just about winning football matches. Sometimes the bigger question is whether the club can actually afford to keep going.

The football world around your save isn't meant to stand still either. Clubs can struggle financially and the consequences can affect the wider pyramid.

Something new can begin

This is probably one of the features I'm most interested in seeing play out over a longer save. We've already established that clubs in NLFM can genuinely struggle financially and, in some cases, disappear altogether.

But when one club disappears, that doesn't necessarily have to be the end of the story.

A phoenix club can reform after another club folds, usually carrying on some part of its identity, community or spirit. In NLFM, those new clubs can reform at the bottom of the pyramid and begin again.

Imagine playing through a long-term save, watching a club struggle and eventually disappear, before seeing a new club emerge from the ashes. A new name, a new identity and a completely fresh story beginning at the bottom of the football pyramid.

And honestly? That sounds like the beginning of an absolutely ridiculous management challenge.

Promotion isn't always enough

Imagine winning the league, celebrating promotion and then finding out your ground doesn't meet the requirements for the next level. That can happen in NLFM.

Your ground needs to meet league grading requirements, which can include things like floodlights, hard standing and covered seating. If the ground isn't ready, promotion isn't happening, regardless of where you finish.

So building a successful club isn't just about improving the squad. You'll need to think about the club itself too, which creates some very different decisions along the way.

I let the game pick my club

When it came to choosing my first club, I had a few ideas. My first thought was Cadbury Athletic, which would have been a nice little throwback to one of my favourite Football Manager saves and felt like the obvious choice for someone who spent far too long taking them all the way to the Premier League.

Unfortunately, Cadbury Athletic are Step 7. And Step 7 isn't playable just yet.

Step 7 is planned to become playable in a future update, though, so let's just say a Cadbury Athletic return hasn't been ruled out... ok, so I may have just found a reason to start another save already.

I also considered Sheffield FC. After all, I've taken them from non-league football all the way to Champions League glory before. But I may have recently upset their chairman slightly after making a comment about their new badge, so that's probably a story for another day.

And that's how I ended up managing Hallam.

Hallam are my local playable club, and for a game built entirely around non-league football, it honestly feels like the perfect way to test it.

One save is never enough

Obviously, I can't start playing a football management game without immediately thinking about all the other saves I could do. One save is never enough when your brain has already started making a list of increasingly unnecessary challenges.

So, what's next?

I'm beta testing the game, which means I'm not going to pretend I already know everything about it. The whole point now is to actually play, find the things that work, find the things that don't, get attached to players and inevitably make at least a few terrible decisions.

I'll be managing Hallam, my local club, and sharing how the save develops as the beta goes on. Hopefully there will be a few wins, some good stories and the occasional sensible managerial decision.

This isn't a finished verdict on Non-League Football Manager. It's the start of seeing what the game can do, how Hallam get on and whether this turns into a brilliant non-league story or another managerial disaster.