Armchair sports fans or strategy freaks. Call them what you will. One of the most prosperous products a mail order company could ever produce is a sports strategy game. Most of the majors have kept out of this genre (only Addictive Games continue), but what they're missing is one of the most dedicated and loyal computer gaming groups in the UK. Some of us dream of managing our own favourite soccer, American football or cricket team and with the aid of your Spectrum it's possible for your dreams to come true - well, almost. Ace sportsman and all round sports fan PHIL KING takes a look at the top sports strategy games around at the moment.

THE DOUBLE
Producer: Scanitron
Price: £10.95

Of course every football fan knows, 'the double' is when a club wins both the FA Cup and the League Championship in the same season. Scanitron have tried to create the year long battle against all odds, in their game of the same name. The game includes many menus which allow the player to manage all the aspects of any of 66 football teams.

One thousand players are on show, with a small amount available for transfer after the eighth week of the season. Notification of forthcoming transfers is given two weeks in advance, allowing the manager to send a scout to watch an interesting player. The scout (a very likable and useful chap) reports on that player's performance and estimates his value, allowing you to make a sensible bid when he comes up for sale.

The way transfers are handled is one of the strengths of The Double - allowing you to build a team excelling in all departments. The program uses real players' names; I was amused to see Ian Rush valued at only half a million pounds! Every week a very slow pseudo teleprinter scratches out ALL the league results, and can become VERY irritating.

Sadly, there's no graphical display of the match. Being able to see how your players are getting on really stirs inner feelings (no matter how naff the graphics may be!). The Double contains many interesting features not used in other football strategy games, and also presents a reasonable challenge. It's not a bad game, but there's much room for improvement.

Johnson Scanatron
£7.95
Reviewer: Tony Worrall

Footie simulations seem to be all the rage at the moment, and The Double is, I think, up with the best of them. Set purely in the management/strategy mould, The Double concerns itself with, yes, the capture of both the League and the FA Cup in the same season. And of course it's far from easy.

The Double was accomplished in the very first Football League by my home town, Preston North End (almost 100 years ago), but since then has been achieved only four times. This simulation puts you in the manager's seat and asks you to make it five. Tricky.

The package comes with a security code entry system to ward off pirates, so don't lose that key sheet or you're up the creek. Once through this hurdle, the game begins with an offer to manage a Third Division team. There is no Fourth in The Double, for memory reasons. Now you start picking players and organising your funds as best you can.

Unlike in other footie manager sims, the players are not allotted ability ratings. It's up to you to discover individual talents, although you can employ two scouts to check out players beforehand. I find this far more realistic (if harder) because it takes several games before you begin to suss out the good from the bad. The team needs constant rearranging before the best line-up is reached.

Selective buying and selling on the transfer market is an important part of the game. Buying the odd player from Everton won't do you any harm! Intelligent use of your scouts will stop you offering too much for a player. Hazards along the way include crowd trouble (if you guess the gate wrong), and regular injuries (which always seem to affect your best players).

There are no 'skill levels' or computer trickery - everything depends on your skill as a manager, which is what football's all about, Brian.

The Double is a surprisingly good and easy game to play. If you want , all action (such as it is) can be handled by joystick. This takes an awful lot of hassle out of playing. There are no silly match graphics to clutter up the screen; everything is text-based in a pleasing redesigned character set. Maybe not as involved as Football Director. The Double seems a little on the simple side, but the speed of play and the snazzy design more than make up for it.

Label: Scanatron, 396 Totterdown Road, Weston-Super-Mare, Avon BS23 4LH
Price: £11.45
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

Honestly the genre of football management games is enough to make any human being break into a cold sweat (Remember Football Director!)

For those of you who may have just been born, the general idea is that you play the manager of a football club, which in this case happens to be in the 3rd division and using the skill of decisions and a little bit of luck by selecting options you have to get them through to be the league champions and/or FA cup winners. The game is menu-driven with all the usual features and at the end of each week lists all the scores and shows the league tables. Not surprisingly, Liverpool are nearly always at the top, though I was sure Rush had gone to Juventus.

It turns out the game is amazingly simple to use and gives you a wealth of information making it terrific fun to play. A goodie - but pricey.

Spectrum £2.99cs
C64 £2.99cs

Start off in the Third Division (Nothing wrong with that, you'll be in excellent company with first rate sides like Bristol City) and work your way up to the First. Once there your aim is to pull off the double. Takes a bit of doing as only five teams have managed it in the history of the Football League. Pulling it off on computer is equally difficult.