Five minutes with the streamer who broke a Football Manager world record at Insomnia for the longest sports video game marathon

Teacher-turned streamer Kevin Chapman, aka Lollujo, broke an official Guinness World Record at Insomnia Gaming Festival 71 in Birmingham last month.

He played Football Manager for a total of 50 hours, 8 minutes and 13 seconds to break the record for the longest video game marathon playing a sports game. It came with an added challenge, as he put himself through the ordeal of managing Spurs. Here, a few weeks later, we ask Kevin what it was like.

Congrats on the world record! How does it feel now, has it fully sunk in yet and what are your thoughts on being a world record holder?

It’s a really surreal thing – it’s not something you expect to do, breaking a world record, especially for doing the thing that I’ve done most days for most of the last 30 years – the thing that my parents always used to nag as me for doing when I was supposed to be doing my homework!

I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to do it, but also very sure that I won’t be tempted to do it again! One world record is enough!

Haha I can imagine! Please tell us about your background in FM and what it is you do.

I’ve been obsessively playing the game since Championship Manager 2 – I clock well over 1,000 hours a year on it. I started making YouTube videos about it back in 2015, and was able to go full time as a YouTuber and streamer in 2017, leaving my previous job as a teacher.

I’ve now been full time for over six years, and my channel is the third most-viewed FM channel ever, and I’m in the top three most viewed English speaking twitch streamers on FM23.

I’ve also won the FM Streamer Showdown a record seven times and have previously been ranked the number one FM PVP player in the world, although I haven’t done any PVP in over a year now so I’m not currently in the rankings.

Tell us about the world record experience, what was the setup like at Insomnia and what was it like being involved in this?

It was bonkers – it was literally a desk in the middle of the show floor next to the LAN area. My friend Matt (Nerdphonic on Twitch) did an incredible job setting up my audio so it was usable on stream, and the guys from Joe.co.uk who arranged the world record event, did a great job sorting me out with a sit/stand desk, a decent chair and some decent lighting.

I also brought a fridge from home to keep all my drinks and snacks in! I was allowed a 10-minute break per hour that I was allowed to save up, but my hotel was a 10-minute walk away from the desk, so I only managed around 90 minutes of sleep across the 50 hours.

What was it like playing almost non-stop for 50+ hours, did you get any strange sleep-deprived symptoms?

It was intense. I wasn’t even allowed to check text messages or Twitter, I had to be fully engaged in FM the whole time. I’ve never played FM like that before, there’s always something on the TV or a podcast on or something.

I actually wasn’t too bad with the sleep deprivation. The two naps helped loads, and I gave up coffee for a few weeks before the event, so if I ever got really tired I’d have a cup of that and it acted like super coffee because I’d lowered my tolerance to it!

The only time I really struggled was the second night, when the room started spinning for a while, but it turned out it was low blood sugar – your body burns more calories staying awake than sleeping – so we fixed that with a midnight turkey sandwich and I was fine from then on!

I could have gone much longer if I’d needed to, but my only concern was getting that record broken. I don’t need to hold it for a long time!

Congrats again on your achievement Lollujo and thanks for talking to me.

Related article: ‘This is the start of Football Manager as an esport’ – interview with i62 winner Dan Fry

Dom Sacco

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.

As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.