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And the applause rises as QPR's young centre-forward Ferdy Hamilton goes up to collect the accolade of "Footballer of the year, 1987". This is the goal that has to be achieved in Gremlin's football strategy game Footballer Of The Year.

The game is run by an icon-driven menu screen. There are seven icons altogether.

The Globe: This icon shows your team's overall status, their morale and league position. It also shows how many goals you have scored and in which competition you scored them.

The Footballer's Head: This icon is your personal status, including all the details you might stick in your Filofax. Wages, status, player rating and bra-size (not really!).

The Scroll: You are given the option if you wish to buy a transfer, it isn't advisable though as you usually find you have a 0.1 percent chance of moving. They are also very expensive, and when you do eventually move you find it is usually to a far lower club.

The Disk/Tape: Load or save your game, making sure that your promotion chances are not ruined by mum ordering you to run down to the shop (Plus/4 version only).

The Injured Footballer: Should you be lying comfortably at the bottom of the table you may wish to use this. The quit game icon.

The Question Mark: The incident card icon. These are a sort of Footballer Of The Year equivalent to the chance cards on a Monopoly board. They give you the option to gamble your money. You pay 200 sovs and are given a message like 'You have lost your chequebook, how many cheques were stolen. One cheque, three cheques or five cheques'. You must then stop the cursor on the correct one.

The Football Boot: This is the play match icon. The first thing you are asked to do is buy any goalcards. Goalcards give you the chance to participate in the match. You are given ten to begin with and five grand in cash, you must use the money to buy as many goalcards as possible as the more matches you play in, the more matches your team is likely to win.

The next step is to choose which matches to play and waste a goalcard on. How many shots you are allowed in a match depends on the indicator which varies between one and three every game. Once all this is done it's into the arcade section and on with the fun.

Or is it? Those of you who read Mike's review of the C64 version will have seen the great looking arcade section. I was seriously annoyed to find out that the C16 and Plus/4 versions did not have this. All that was substituted was a poxy choice whether to shoot left or right. How rivetting! When you have thought hard on which direction to shoot in, you are given a spartan commentary on what happened like "You tap the ball into the net".

As you can see, Footballer Of The Year is not up to much for Plus/4 owners, but for C16 owners things are even worse. My stomach churns at the thought of playing a whole season through. It doesn't have the pretty icons of the other versions; just ugly text asking you to press a number to access the options.

It is acceptable that the C16 has limitations, but surely not this many, and if the case is so, what a nerve to attempt to sell it at eight quid!