History of TITLE CHASE

At 11 years old, Michael Nottley invented a football game based on fixtures and matches that he would play out of the back of a school exercise book. Back then,he had no idea what lay ahead for his childhood pastime. “The childhood memories I have are of playing games with my family and friends,” he recalls. “The human interaction was fun and rewarding and, due to my competitive streak, I used to revel in the satisfaction of winning against my sisters and friends, even if I did have to cheat now and then!” Like a lot of young boys, when Michael was at school, he was obsessed with football. His father used to take him to local and national football matches and he was a dedicated fan of Tottenham Hotspur. Unusually, it was also the management involved in the sport that captured his imagination. “I was always aware of the management of teams and clubs and would often dream of being the football manager that led Tottenham Hotspur to the top of the league.” he says. “I remember when I was about 15 years old, a football management boardgame was released, I couldn’t wait to rush out and buy a copy.

When I finished the game, I thought, brilliant this is what I want to do. I want to create a game based on my idea where you get to play the matches, score some goals and manage your team your way, something that felt like a real football game. From that moment, my dream was to make a game that I, and every kid like me, would want to play.”

Michael left school at 16 years old with his GCSE’s and carried on his studies part-time whilst working for a well known bank. After completing his A-levels, he worked for the next ten years in a variety of roles at a national supermarket chain, where responsibilities included customer service, general assistant duties and stock control. However, the football game kept nagging at the back of Michael’s mind and he would work on this idea in his spare time.

The mission was clear – to create a football management game that kept the true spirit of the sport with the fun of competition, playing matches and winning points. Michael would develop a multiplayer board game where players got to manage their favourite teams through the realistic simulation of a true football season. He stated, “I wanted to somehow manage the team, play all the football matches, buy players and be in control of the income as well. But I wasn’t sure whether or not this could be done with a board game, sure it had been done with computer games with great success but they always seemed to lack the ‘hands on’ human interaction and atmosphere.”

The first draft was really quite simple and compromised of roughly drawn components of the game. Michael drew a basic board design and made the game dice and match dice by sticking numbers over dice borrowed from other games. Next came the star player cards, the yellow and red cards, the cup cards, the team strips and the token money which was made by using his computer at home. Using the same method he put together a fixture list, a league table and a saved game sheet and also set about writing a rough guide to the rules.

The board took shape and Michael decided to play the league matches over the course of the season with the board leading the players from start to finish. At regular intervals there would be league matches and sometimes cup matches too. Also on the board were yellow and red cards which he wanted to surprise the players with, these would either turn out to be an advantage or disadvantage depending on the card picked up. Players would be able to buy star players before matches to add to their teams score but would lose them if they lost the match. The score would be decided by dice thrown by each player and then written on the fixture list. The winner would be whoever finished highest in the league at the end of the season. At first Michael would only test the game in private – for some reason he felt more comfortable working on his own and in private. 1998 was a significant year for Michael, he secured the copyright to the game and found a new energy, direction and focus. He had done his research and knew there was nothing else on the market that even came close to the game. He decided to go for it and see if anybody took him seriously. The first step was to be sure his dream could be a reality, “I had to believe that the time, effort and money I would need to invest would be justified, but then I thought of how much I really enjoyed playing the game. I knew that if I wanted to play it, others would too and that has been my philosophy ever since.’’ recalls Michael.

Not long after this Michael gathered his sister and the same group of friends he played the original game with at 11, and invited them to play with the prototype of TITLE CHASE he had created. He remembers their surprised faces, “They couldn’t believe that I had taken the game to such a level. They sat down to play and told me after they had finished that they loved it. Such a positive reaction gave me an absolute high!”

However, Michael knew that he could not rely on my loved ones for an unbiased opinion. So over the next few months he held trails with work colleagues, friends and children, using their feedback to improve the game. He states, “At first, it was strange to see the game in action, but when people told me it was the best board game they had ever played, my confidence grew. It was fantastic to see people enjoying the sociability and atmosphere of a board game. The banter and interaction created an atmosphere that was so much more satisfying than trying to outwit a machine on a computer screen. I felt I had something really special.”

In 2001, Michael wrote comprehensive rules and continued to improve the game. He also undertook extensive research into the games industry and marketplace and three years later at 30 years of age, he founded ‘Next Level Games Limited’, a company to manage the development of TITLE CHASE. He decided to leave his job to devote himself to the game full time. After overcoming the inevitable fear of no longer having the guaranteed income of a job, he secured finance for the project and decided to simply ‘go for it’!

Michael recalls the nervous moment of telling his family and friends, “It has always been an ambition of mine to have my own company and I chose not to seek outside funding so that I could retain full creative input. I was nervous when I announced my intentions to family and friends, I was worried that they would think I had gone insane! However, they thought it was a brilliant move and were 100% supportive. It was the biggest decision of my life, although I’m pretty sure deep down, my mum thought I was mad and had booked my place at an asylum.”

He found the initial challenge was finding his feet in a highly competitive industry. However the years of research paid off and, after filtering through an immense amount of information, Michael found advice and support in the early decisions from Business Link. The organisation also assisted him with the patent administration and gave him the right contacts to speak to. Looking back, he states, “It felt like the beginning of a long road, but I have never been afraid to ask for help and advice in order to get the answers to my questions. I now have a great team around me, including a business mentor, a marketing and PR consultant and graphic design team.”

TITLE CHASE will be launched at the first ‘TITLE CHASE Tournament’ in Michael’s hometown of Dorchester in the autumn of 2005. Plans have already been made to roll out the tournaments on a regional, then national scale and Next Level Games is developing versions of TITLE CHASE for both rugby and American football.

When asked about the future, he says, “My ultimate goal is for TITLE CHASE to be no.1 in its games’ niche and in a few years I hope Next level Games will be offering at least a dozen different games. The secret of my success so far is determination and self belief. You really can’t ever take ‘no’ for an answer or let anyone tell you that it can’t be done. It’s about breaking the mould and being creative. My ambition is my driving force – the thought of people playing TITLE CHASE across the UK.”

The final monumental event to the story so far was in May 2005. Not only did he receive interest in his game from a major high street store, but Michael Nottley finally beat his opponents while playing the game of his invention. “I am embarrassed to say that whenever I played TITLE CHASE with friends and family, they beat me! For years I had never won at my own game, much to the amusement of all my mates – now, at last, I have!”