"The tension is mounting" here in the stadium, as the teams prepare, knowing that, at the end of the day, "only one will be victorious" and bearing in mind that "it only takes a second to score a goal". It is Indoor Football, the new game from Quickbeam.

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Just a few football manager cliches to introduce the setting of this game - the indoor stadium. However, you don't have to wear a sheepskin coat and chunky jewellery, because you control your team by the flick of a joystick.

Before you are allowed to kick off, however, you have a few tactics to decide. Firstly, the length of the game from the ridiculously short two minutes to a sweat-inducing half hour. Then you can decide whether to play the computer or a human opponent. Also, there is a choice to the number of players in the team from seven to eleven. Unfortunately, the opposition has to have the same number of players!

Having made these decisions, you are thrown straight into the bahle of the blues-versus-reds, each displayed as teams of animated players on a sideways scrolling 3D-style pitch very similar to the International Soccer released several years ago for the Commodore 64. To gain the ball, you simply get one of your players next to it (by joystick control only), but if the opposition has possession to tackle, you have to press your well-worn red button when the ball is near. A warning, however, for certain teams: here, you can't go around kicking the opposition to bits instead of the ball, so you may have some tactical problems to overcome! Also, as there is no fouling, there's no penalties, free kicks etc. Throw-ins and goal kicks are also non-existent, as the match is indoors and the ball bounces off the boards.

To pass the ball you simply hold down the Fire button (when you have possession, of course) and then let go - the strength of the kick is determined by how long you held down the button. The ball will then fly (or trickle) down the pitch to get your super striker on the ball, and to do this you once more press the button. The nearest man to the ball will Start to flash, enabling you to hurtle him in a goalward direction.

Well, that's the idea. My first attempt resulted in an interval score of around 18-0 (needless to say, I had the nil!). Bearing in mind another well-worn cliche that "Football is a game of two halves", I set out for the second period only to find that the opposition had lost none of their scoring ability. Full time 34-0. Several further games against the computer resulted in similar though not quite such bad results, all with a glaring zero on my side of the score sheet. Beating human opposition is alright, but not as satisfying as trouncing the computer.

Finally, it happened. A long pass downfield straight to the feet of my attached past two defenders and a chip over the keeper. A goal that was so perfect that Peter Beardsley would give his front teeth to score it - if he had any. Perhaps he already has.

Since then, I hasten to add, I have scored more goals, several of them from kick-offs, where sometimes it seems incredlbly easy to dissect the whole of the opposing team's defence.

My after match report is that the graphics are good, not much sound, control is tricky to get familiar with but fundamentally simple. The game, though, is in a tolallly superior league to Crazy Foota, although not as addictive as Superkid.

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to beat the computer. I'm getting there, but to finish with the most famous cliche, until that time I'm "as sick as a parrot".