Challenge Software
£7.95

Football crazy, football mad! Have you ever fancied yourself as a football manager? If you have, you'll have probably bought games like this millions of times already. But those kind people at Challenge Software seem to think you need a new football managing program for your collection.

So what has Treble Champions got to offer that all the others haven't? See for yourself: four divisions of twenty teams, a non-league division, league tables, fitness training, coaching, midweek matches and the option to start in any division you fancy. Here is a detailed look at some of the more interesting features...

To make things more realistic the program only gives you a set number of hours a week for team management. This forces you to choose carefully what you do with your players. Keeping an eye on the team's financial situation is also an essential. Interest on the team's dash is due once a week, and if your current account is overdrawn the directors will nominate players to be sold, by cancelling their contracts to make them available for transfer.

A number of options can be customised to your liking to give you more help in managing your team. You can choose to have auto results which changes the program so that it quickly goes through all the results; you can select any border colour; after ten matches you can save out the game to avoid battling up the league again, and there's the option to get a print out of anything, so you can easily refer back to your progress.

Despite all this, with endless football management games on the Spectrum market, I don't really see why Challenge Software thought we needed another. If you think this is for you, get it, but we've seen it before and a lot better.

NICK [35%]

I have to admit to a bit of addictivity about football management games, or at least, six or seven years ago. What I'd like to know is how the bloke who wrote this persuaded anyone to market it. Once the first bit has loaded (it's a multi load folks!) you wait for hours for it to get on with the rest; it puts up that old 'please wait' sign white it initialises the variables and things. I don't think I've seen anything like this since 1984! There are NO special features to recommend it; it doesn't even have the endorsement of a popular footballing star (as if that made any difference).
MIKE [33%]

Spectrum 48/128 £8.95
Amstrad CPC £8.95

On the face of it, Treble Champions looks like a very good football strategy game. Included within the wealth of features are four divisions, non-league teams who are included in the FA Cup, League Cup, 1500-player database, training, coaching, midweek matches, player retirements, long and short-term injuries and so on. My first gripe is relatively minor. The method of conveying the match action is not very exciting. Basically, you are told who has scored the goal and very little else. However, my main criticism is the speed of the program - it hasn't got any. I cannot remember ever having played such a slow game as this. When you load up the Spectrum version you have to wait around for a few minutes before it initialises itself! Making menu choices and generally moving around the program is horribly slow. Eventually, you forget about all of the the game's good features as frustration sets in. Wake up Challenge - this is 1989 you know!