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Wheel and deal in the football world, matching the cut and thrust on the pitch with the Machiavellian intrigues that lurk in the boardrooms of big-time sport.

As a team manager, you appoint coaches, physiotherapists and scouts, make bids for stars and sell declining players to raise money.

Matches are automatically played between your team and the other sides in your league. After full time a final score is shown, complete with scoring players and score times. The results of other matches in your league are also shown, and with each completed set of fixtures the ever-changing league table showing your position can be called up.

You can also get an update on your squad, telling you the number of goals it 's scored and conceded, the number of games it's played, and whether it's carrying any injuries.

Just as important, of course, is an accurate statement of your financial condition. If your bank balance isn't enough to support all your deals, you can arrange loans, overdrafts and mortgages, or sell shares in your club to cover your financial shortfall.

Remember the bread-and-butter expenses that are incurred every week, such as wage bills and general running costs. Regular income to offset these includes gate money, interest payments from the bank and TV broadcast fees.

There's an active transfer market in which you can boost a flagging team by buying the best players - or raise money by setting them. Bids can fail, though, leaving you intensely disappointed when you're unable to persuade your favoured player to come to you instead of plumping for the exciting football adventure that is Grimsby Town.

Out of all your transfer dealings the government takes a third of the fee, and it takes 15% of any gambling wins you make.

At the end of the season, if not before, your financial decisions can break or make the club you run. So poverty or riches, glory or bust may await you just round the corner...

Joysticks: none
Graphics: text-only game; ugly colour
Sound: minimal FX

'Football Director tries to dominate the Spectrum football market and bury the rival Football Manager for good. It fails dismally. Football Director holds all the features (not attractions) of the old favourite - slow responses, no graphics, glaring colour. And the inlay is extremely uninformative. Football Direct is a slow and poor imitation of a very overrated predecessor. The high price is ten times more surprising than the game.'

'Football Director is the worst game I've seen for months, and is worse than Football Manager. The colour is unattractive, and the black-on-white text could become hard on the eyes - if anyone has the patience/lack of intelligence required to play Football Director for more than half an hour.'

'Get ready, all you intellectuals out there - you'll need an O level in Football Studies just to load this up! Like the other football management games, Football Director is text-only and very boring. You can choose what to call the players and the teams, but that doesn't brighten up this drab simulation.'