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"Yeah, Brian, I was sick as a parrot and over the moon at the same time. I'd been playing for Spurs in Div. One for a few games when I was transferred to Wigan Athletic. OK, I hadn't scored many goals and I had a few words with the ref in our last cup match... but Wigan? Then I realised that my share of the transfer fee would help me buy that Porsche I'd always wanted and I'd be a proper superstar in a team like Wigan!"

Such is the stuff of Gremlin's Footballer Of The Year, the latest in a long line of games based on our national winter sport. Will it challenge Addictive's Football Manager for the computer cup?

Well, now we've seen it. Footballer Of The Year doesn't really set out to compete with the above-mentioned classic. It's a whole different ball game - if you'll pardon the pun.

You don't play to help your team in this game. Your only aim is to claim the Footballer Of The Year title, earning as much cash and getting a good reputation as your career progresses.

You start the game aged 17 with £5,000 and the whole world at your Adidas clad feet. You find yourself in a fourth division team - you can pick which one - and with a burning ambition to make it into division one.

The game is icon-driven from a menu screen. You access the different parts of the game via an arrow cursor and the fire button. Here's a run down of the symbols and what they do.

The Globe shows you the state of affairs of your team, their position in the league table, their morale and the usual WDL-points table. The numbers show how many games your team has played - but if you go through more than one season in a session the numbers keep on adding up. They don't reset to the start of a new season. The number of goals you've scored and in which sort of game - cup, league, etc - are also shown in another table.

The other teams in the league aren't indicated - so you could be top of the league but you don't know who is chasing you and how many points behind they are. This is a disappointing feature of the game and takes some of the interest away from the actual matches you get to play. But I suppose it comes back to the individual being more important than the team in this game.

The Football's Head icon gets you into a status screen which shows your skill rating, your earnings and the league you currently play in. Status points go up and down as you play.

The Scroll allows you to purchase transfer cards - once you've earned enough cash. Buy a card and you could be spotted by a scout from a bigger and better team. A successful transfer will bring more money and more status.

The Question Mark is a sort of Monopoly style "chance" section. Here you can buy an incident card for £200 a shot. This can lead to many things, a win at the Casino, a transfer, free goal cards, and disasters like injuries, burglaries and fines.

Sometimes nothing happens and beat the keeper. Graphics in this section are pretty good.

After the game comes the Grandstand-style teletyper which prints out reports of the matches you've played to suitable tickertape sound effects. You can speed up the printer by holding down a key - a good idea this as it speeds up the game.

You often get a chance to play for the international squad - but I was never good enough to have a crack at an international. I did get into trouble with the ref a few times, was injured and scored some beautiful goals - but I still didn't manage to win the ultimate accolade despite being promoted to the first division after a couple of seasons. You can jump right in at the top and try division one.

Be careful how you use your goal cards. They are worth a set number of goal chances per match. Use them wisely and you'll be able to enjoy the arcade section throughout the season.

There seemed to be a couple of bugs in the version I played. I seemed to be playing Oldham many more times than possible in a proper season and the teletype machine developed terminal spelling difficulties after a couple of seasons. And since when has Roma been in Div One?

Footballer Of The Year won't replace Football Manager - but it adds a new dimension to computer soccer simulations. Despite its limitations it's fun to play and will appeal to all would-be soccer superstars everywhere.