Joysticks for Goalposts - 1. Wednesday Afternoons

Never liked 'em. A mournful trudge around a muddy pitch, the balls didn't roll properly and you weren't supposed to kick them anymore. What the heck was all that about... and what could we do to redress the balance?

My mate John and I soon realised that we could claim to need extra time for studying and the games teacher couldn't argue. In fact I dare say he didn't even notice our absence after the first week and that suited us just fine. It was also a pretty genuine excuse. Neither of us were going to be in the running for head-boy that or any other year... and we had absolutely no intention of boosting our chances when there were more important matters that demanded our full attention. In my case pulling back a three match deficit on International Soccer - the nearest I was going to get to playing proper football all bloody term.

I was dead jealous of John's C64. For a start it had decent joysticks, unlike my BBC that had grotesque floppy things the size of an 80s mobile phone. No amount of rubber bands could make the damn things center... and god knows I tried. It also had those sprite things and could do scrolling without triggering epilepsy. Best of all it had a football game that actually looked a lot like, well... football. Better still, it was the only game we had on cartridge, so there was a good chance we might get to play it rather than watch a blue screen for half-an-hour.

For the most part it was a close contest. John had been practising in the evenings and knew how to sneak the ball past me on the diagonal (surely the staple of any football game), but my random "run at them and then panic" tactic seemed to catch him out. I'm sure most of my goals were just as a result of stumbling over the line amid a throng of blocky bodies all but obscuring the ball. John, however had a secret weapon... namely his two dogs. They were just the right size for gently swinging across the sofa and into my line of sight. Neither John nor the dogs seemed to mind, and as I went another goal behind I figured this was the price I would have to pay for an afternoon skiving, joystick waggling and being made tea and toast by John's mum.

In the end we both barely scraped through our exams. I became addicted to Revenge of the Mutant Camels, and John to Forbidden Forest. I started skiving off whole days to play Elite. Nothing much has changed then.

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