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I ought to get one thing out in the open right from the start - I am not a football fanatic. I hated playing it as a kid. I never collected sweet cigarette cards of obscure players from Leyton Orient and when England won the World Cup I horrified friends by not even knowing we were playing. Yet, (such as the working of fate, I guess) I am now halfway interested thanks to Ocean's new football simulation - supplied by the Computer Gamer staff on the assumption that everyone who enjoys the occasional beer must also like football. Sorry lads, I never wanted to be a train driver either.

So to the game. A conversion, I'm pretty sure, from a Commodore 64 game I recall being impressed with in a shop window some jumps around a bit as the scrolling rushes to catch up.

This (and the detailed but static crowd) does point up yet again the memory limitation of the Beeb but the game is still very enjoyable and, more important, very playable. There are full options for one player against the computer (a vicious tackler!), two player, joysticks, keyboard and redefinable keys. Having a wife even less keen on the game than I am (Sole response: "What sweet little men!"), I was forced into the one-player joystick mode and, after the obligatory rendering of the Match Of The Day theme, I kicked off.

Sound is an option sorely missed here, limited as it is to the gentle bounce of the ball and a kind of reptilian hiss from the crowd when goals are scored. The animation, on the other becomes a lucky dip at times when the opposing player has the ball - do you chase down the field with a player close to the ball or wait, immobile, until the ball is close enough to another player for him to be activated? Tricky too is playing the goalkeepers - he crouches when the ball is close enough but defenders in the goal area will not allow you to control him until it is probably too late. He can make diving sales or jump to block, but sadly cannot rush the ball.

There are also various set pieces - throw-ins, corners and goal kicks - which can be directionally and strength controlled. Throw-ins, interestingly enough, do reveal the game's two major bugs or problems: firstly, the screen does not scroll if the throw is near the edge of the screen and you have to try and recall where your other men are and throw off-screen to them, and, secondly, players move in set formations on these set formations on these set pieces and a throw-in near a goal line will usually force an attacking player to take up a receiving position behind the goal line!

A game timer (which in my copy went mysteriously straight from ninety minutes to forty to game over with no warning and no half time) and a goal update are visible on the halfway line. Annoyingly, the game is so mega-protected that it will default to game over if the joystick signal becomes at all distorted!

To sum up, this is a lot of fun, well-programmed and challenging. The game's only really annoying feature is the overlapping of player graphics, which makes a tackle a matter of chance and a blur of distorted pseudo-sprites. And, much to the chagrin of Gamer's redoubtable Editorial Assistant, there is no option for a hooligan mode. There are simulations and then there are simulations, I guess. However, this is definitely one for the collection.