THE MAKING OF FOOTBALLER OF THE YEAR

IN THE KNOW

» PUBLISHER: GREMLIN GRAPHICS

» DEVELOPER: IN-HOUSE

» RELEASED: 1986

» PLATFORM: C64, VARIOUS

» GENRE: SPORTS SIM

By the mid-Eighties, 8-bit football videogames were still dominated by a triad of three titles: Match Day on the ZX Spectrum, International Soccer on the Commodore 64, and management smash hit Football Manager on practically every format going. Many challenged, but few competed, before 1986 saw a glut of football games appearing as publishers sought to take advantage of the World Cup, set in Mexico.

“The football strategy game to answer every boyhood dream,” is the claim on the back of Footballer Of The Year ’s inlay, and its unique selling point is the way that the player takes control of a singular character, the footballing world at your feet as a 17-year-old fourth-division striker. “The first I heard about the game was when Kevin Norburn handed me a folder full of paper, and a package with bits of card and stuff in it,” begins Chris Shrigley, one of Gremlin’s cadre of in-house coders. Along with his friends, Andy Green and Robert Toone, Chris had impressed Gremlin with the bouncing ball game, Bounder. “Then we did Future Knight, which was our Ghosts