There's something about Football Manager that makes it feel more than the sum of its parts.

At its core it's just a database, a list of names that are assigned numbers which are then dragged and dropped into certain areas of a pitch by those who play it. Yet there's a reason players will don a real suit in preparation for playing in a virtual cup final, scout real-life footballers for a potential in-game transfer and why Sky Sports utilise the game's stats in its Premier League coverage Premier League. For many players, these numbers and names culminate in giving them a sense of unmatched gratification. A large part of Football Manager's appeal is in how it takes you that little bit closer to the environments of masterminds like Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho.

The truth, though, is that despite its ability to be used as an all-encompassing football database with an unimaginable depth of information, it's not a true reflection on what it takes to be an actual coach. Most real coaches spend their Saturday afternoons standing on the sidelines in the pouring rain taking abuse from Dave the double glazier. Football Manager can't hope of coming close to the real thing, in more ways than one.

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In 2008, aged 16, I signed for Lewes FC. The club was in ascendancy: newly promoted to the Conference, we had a new stand at the stadium (later paid for by selling our best players, but that's another story), a new Under 18s coach, brought in from the Brighton and Hove Albion academy just down the road, and a new intake of what was, genuinely, the best squad of non-academy players in the south of England.

Most of them came from professional academies like Brighton, Bournemouth and Southampton, some released at the big jump from Under 16s to Under 18s, others who had the chance to carry on but turned it down (and if you're wondering why they might reject something as fabled as an U18's contract - known as a "scholarship" - at a top club by the way, it's probably because that contract entitles you to the sum total of about 60 a week, mandatory residence in "digs" and a BTEC in Sports Bullshit that you have to take instead of college).

Some, like yours truly, came from non-league clubs, having never quite edged their way in on the ground floor. For four years I road-tripped around half the professional academies in the bottom-right corner of the country; three days a week my poor mum picking me up from school and, instead of heading home, handing me a sandwich, a protein bar and a sports drink and driving me two hours down the coast, or up to London, or sometimes just down the road. For those fours years I'd been consistently rejected. From Portsmouth, for a chap they flew in from Argentina, from Charlton Athletic for a lad from the USA, Fulham for the England U16s goalkeeper and from Brighton - twice - for a boy who, to be fair to him, was about twice my height and really very good. But I got into Lewes.

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When we think of in-game advertising, the first thing that springs to mind is seeing logos for big brands in video games. Adverts for the likes of Coca-Cola, Nike and McDonalds.

What most don't expect to see in their video game is an advert for the NHS.

But that's exactly what Football Manager 2018 players - in Leeds, specifically - are currently seeing after the NHS placed in-game pitch-side hoardings promoting mental health.

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