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As you have guessed, your role here is to manage a club of your choice. The job ahead is to take your club from the Fourth Division to the First, and possibly win the FA Cup on the way.

This is by no means easy because players get injured, you lose a few too many matches and your gate receipts go down forcing you to take out a loan - with all the hazards of borrowing from the bank.

The first thing you do is select one of the current British Football Association league sides. Next you select a skill level, ranging from beginner to genius. All choices are made via the keyboard, so be prepared for lots of typing.

Then on to the main screen where you sell or list your players, arrange a loan, or perhaps pay one back. Loans can range from £250,000 for a Fourth Division team to £1,000,000 if you make it to the top.

Before every match you select your team. A careful evaluation of a player's morale, energy and skill will be needed if you want to succeed.

After every match you are given your share of the gate receipts and shown the results of the other games played in your division, thus allowing a league table to be calculated.

Fourteen matches later, you are marked for your end of season league placement. If you are promoted you can look forward to the start of a new season.

Football Manager is a fun game with only three faults. It is written in Basic, so play is rather slow, there are no graphics, and it is only available on cassette. This is a shame as so many Atari owners have disc drives now. Software houses should take note.

On the positive side, there is a save game feature which means that you don't have to start from scratch every time you load.

Football Manager is a good game in which you can really get involved.