Meet The 53-Year-Old Grandma Who Streams Football Manager On YouTube
She uploads around four times a week to her YouTube channel.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Football Manager fanatic Cait Glasson, a retired 53-year-old grandmother of five who uploads daily content from the popular game to her YouTube channel Old Lady Plays.
"People are consistently surprised when they find out I'm a YouTuber, especially younger folk!" she tells SPORTbible, just hours after posting a 20 minute video about her most recent transfer window.
Cait, a retired translator from Waterloo in Canada, is currently in her 59th episode of a series called Basquing in Glory, where she has taken La Liga side Athletic Bilbao to new heights.
"They have a Basque-only player policy that makes it like playing the game on hard mode," she says about the save. "I've loved the challenge, though after six seasons I've not yet achieved my big goal."
As you can probably tell by now, Cait isn't your typical Football Manager streamer.
This grandmother of five, who is also a former player, referee and coach, has gathered over 1,000 subscribers on YouTube thanks to her consistent and quality content.
She uploads around four times a week after being inspired by one of the most popular streamers in the Football Manager community, Kevin Chapman, who is also known as lollujo.
"I had a laptop with a webcam and mic, so I started out," Cait tells us. "It was pretty terrible at first. I was nervous on camera, my game video was stuttering badly on my underpowered laptop.
"Slowly I improved, but my subscribers stayed small in number."
Cait has gone from strength to strength since posting her first video in late 2017 but it's only until recently that her hard work and dedication have been noticed by a wider audience.
Last week, someone found her content and posted it on Reddit, where it soon received a huge amount of traction from impressed fans. The 53-year-old has picked up almost 900 subscribers since the post went viral.
"It's astonishing," she says, just hours after reaching the 1,000 subs mark.
"My friends have convinced me not to say it's unearned, but it's still luck in action. Of course, my friends also say I earned the boost by promoting and supporting this lovely community. So it's weird but great."
Cait's love for football simulators started way before her YouTube career began. She first started playing in 1998, when a friend gave her a free trial of Premier League Manager 98.
"I was hooked," she admits. "The chance to run the team, pick the players, assemble a squad, keep them happy, and somehow win? The storytelling possibilities are endless.
"I've played thousands, tens of thousands, of hours since. The game gets better every year, and I still love it as much or more as when I started."
Now the 53-year-old wants to continue to grow her YouTube channel, but also wants to promote other Football Manager creators.
"I've actually been very low key about having goals," she says.
"On advice from some bigger creators, I've focused instead on trying to improve my performance in this medium each time out. Better graphics, better presenting, more loose and easy, better editing, there are so many ways to improve.
"I also really love promoting and watching small YouTubers, and that's not going to change. I enjoy watching people's growth as performers.
"I'll still be promoting that guy with 19 subs, trying to get him to 20, then 50, and so on."
In times like these, the work of Cait and her channel Old Lady Plays will help so many. Just go and subscribe; you won't regret it.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Football News, Football Manager, Football, FM
Jack Kenmare