January 1986: Playing Football Manager on the C64

Here I am in January 1986, just turned 16 and a veritable man of the world. Although a man who spent far too much time playing Football Manager on the C64. Herewith you will find my thoughts and cogitations on the year that followed.

As the twilight hours of 1985 waned, I found myself poised on the cusp of a new beginning. Pen in hand, a fresh 2 inches by ¾ of an inch slot in my BBC Pot Black 1986 Diary beckoned. I can’t remember why, probably because someone had bought it for me, but my intention was to keep a diary. A blank canvas to record the coming year’s adventures.

My first comment, made on 31 December 1985, was a rather unceremonious observation on the final television programme of the year. It was an ode to the somewhat anticlimactic farewell to 1985 that was Terry Wogan’s show.

Little did I know, this initial, somewhat sardonic entry would set the tone for a year’s worth of candid reflections, immersed in the cultural and personal ebbs and flows of 1986…

Tuesday 31 December 1985

In my new BBC Pot Black 1986 Diary (produced under licence by Collins, Glasgow) I made my first entry. It bears quoting at length, “Last TV Prog of 85 – Wogan – crap.”

There, what an erudite contribution to the discussion eh? You can rest assured that the rest of the pages are crammed with similarly pithy comment.

Wednesday 1 January 1986

After seeing in the New Year, my bed was found at ten minutes to one. I didn’t record whether I’d had a drink or not; it’s possible I suppose.

I slept in until 10 o’clock and then played Football Manager on my Commodore 64 (C64). Now let’s be clear here if Shirley Crabtree was The (Big) Daddy of the wrestling ring, then the C64 was The Daddy of gaming computers in the 1980s.

Football Manager was, quite literally, Addictive stuff. Geddit? Kevin Toms’ Football Manager, released in the early 1980s, is one of the pioneering sports management simulation games. It was originally developed for the ZX Spectrum and later ported to other platforms like the Commodore 64. The game was simplicity itself. You took on the role of a football team manager.

In this role, you would select the team lineup. You would buy and sell players and set the tactics for matches. Come match time there would be a rudimentary simulation where you could watch their team’s performance unfold. If you were unsure what was happening, there was a text commentary.

You would progress through the season, hoping to lead your team to success in league matches and cup competitions. The hope was that come the next season, you would have achieved promotion to the division above. All the while, you had to manage the club’s finances. This was crucial, as you needed to balance the budget while improving the team.

Kevin Toms’ Football Manager is remembered for its innovative approach to sports management and laid the groundwork for future games in the genre. Its simplicity and strategic depth made it a beloved classic among fans of early computer games. The game’s straightforward, text-based interface reflected the technological limitations of the time.

Despite this, it was an engaging experience for players, and I loved it. The game had the uncanny knack of actually making time accelerate.

Later on, in the evening I suppose, I watched Rocky II. I can’t remember anything much about the film, but my diary comment, “Wot a con!?” is unequivocal yet seems to leave the door ajar for a reassessment as necessary. I’m sure that my brother was highly enamoured with it!

Thursday 2 January 1986

I got up late, again. Well, it was still the Christmas holidays!

Played Football Manager again and didn’t do an awful lot else. So, it’s probably safe to say that I didn’t make my bed or do any other chores. And there is no way that I would have made any of the meals that I ate during my day playing Football Manager. I may have had a bath, but after having done so, I wouldn’t have rinsed it afterwards. Chores eh?!

Friday 3 January 1986

Another day bashin’ the chunky keys on the even chunkier keyboard of the C64. “Yup, Football Manager again.” I commented, “Pretty exciting stuff, eh?”

Let’s not be too coy about it, yes it was. Kevin Toms, the creator of FM had written a really cool game and it did get me hooked.

My other entry for this day is, I think, oxymoronic, and sums up the life of a computer-obsessed sixteen-year-old who happens to be a fan of real live grass and boots with studs football. My Mum had been to town and bought me a ticket for the following day’s third round FA Cup tie between Second Division Shrewsbury Town and (I think First Division) Chelsea. Cost of the ticket? Three English pounds.

Saturday 4 January 1986

I must not have played on Football Manager today.

I do, however, comment on the weather, “snowed” and sum up the match in around 10 words, “Town had it won but couldn’t finish and lost 1-0.” Funny the logic of the football fan. Let me just pick that apart… my team “had it won” – oddly without scoring any goals – which is acknowledged with the phrase “but couldn’t finish.” Proper gobbledegook, or football-degook.

In other news, also in the Third Round of the FA Cup, Liverpool beat Norwich City 5-0, with goals from MacDonald, Walsh, Whelan, McMahon and Wark.

Sunday 5 January 1986

I had a morning paper round and Monday through Saturday must have delivered no more than twenty newspapers plus the odd periodical. But on Sundays?

Good grief, I must have had forty to carry and of course, as it was Sunday, they were much bigger – and therefore heavier.

I had a racing bike. It was a Peugeot and it arrived, I remember, from Mum’s Kays catalogue on Live Aid Day in the summer of 1985. The wheels on this thing were like razor blades and it went like stink. It didn’t go so quickly, however, with forty Sunday newspapers slung over my left shoulder.

More to the point, I was probably unsafe, wobbling the mile up the road at the mercy of all sorts of car-wielding lunatics. So, on Sundays, Dad would go down in the car and pick up the newspapers for me. I still had to walk around and deliver ’em mind.

The lucrative part of the round though, was the collection of people’s paper bills. I divided my labour into two parts. First, I would walk around and deliver the papers. I’d get home around ten or 10:30, have a cup of coffee and then go out again for another hour to collect the money.

My idea was that they wanted their papers early, but they didn’t want me knocking on the door too early to collect the money – though some did try. I guess they must have been sitting by the front door, waiting for me to stuff their Sunday People through the letter box.

Anyway, this week, I collected the princely sum of £93.47, of which I think my share was 3%. I’d even written a programme in BASIC on my C64 to tot up the notes and coins and then tell me how much I’d earned.

Then, in the afternoon of this cold and frosty day, we settled down to watch Tony Cottee score the only goal in West Ham’s victory over Charlton at Selhurst Park in the 3 round of the FA Cup. It was, I noted, “[the] first televised TV (? football, surely) for yonks.” Kick-off at 3 pm on BBC1.

Monday 6 January 1986

Oh, Unhappy Day. No death, no pestilence, just back to school (or “Skool” as I had referred to it).

Apparently, it was “boring for the most part”, perhaps the only enlivening aspect was the departure of a mate from our top maths set. I was a little miffed about this you know, because he used to lift liquid paper from a well-known retail stationery supplier and in turn, I used to lift it from him and pass it on to a fourth party. Quite what either of us was doing, perhaps only other teenagers would know.

Tuesday 7 January 1986

Whoopee! Thank you, Jack Frost.

No, I don’t mean the grumpy TV ‘tec (David Jason was still busy with Del Boy). No, I mean, the Jack Frost who brings us cold and snow. Yes! We were sent home from school at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The snow must have been pretty heavy. We had a snowball fight outside(!) at 7:30.

The best news of the day, however, was the new series of Grange Hill. Yesssss! Get in there! We all loved Grange Hill, didn’t we? The only thing slightly odd about it from a realist’s point of view – you know, like what I was in the 80s – was the complete lack of swearing. Yes, I know now that it was on at prime time for kids, so there wouldn’t be any swearing, but it was odd to see Gripper Stebson, Roland Browning’s would-be nemesis, angry and frustrated with the Space Invaders machine in the local chippy, thumping it and yelling… ‘Sugar!’ at it. Priceless.

Even Ben Elton picked up on it, “Aww come on Mr Liberal, we’re the only kids on telly who don’t say f…”

Wednesday 8 January 1986

Thanks to the snow, we had a day off school.

Today’s diary entry looks as if the author had been blinded by the snow. I’ll quote it at length “Snow still here, still snowing this morning. Afternoon snow thawing slow (sic). Snowed a bit more – not much. TV – crap. Bed at twenty to ten early night!!” Phew! What utter drivel eh?

Thursday 9 January 1986

Whoo! Wow! This was a seminal day for 1980s television, for BlackAdder II was broadcast for the first time.

It was, I noted, “Brill. Ace! FANTASTIC!!” Rowan Atkinson, who as well as playing the title role, had co-authored the first series, but had left the writing of this second series to Richard Curtis and Ben Elton. I’m sure you will agree that the result was much slicker and Atkinson, freed from writing the dialogue, delivers a much more polished performance.

We were back at school, which was “boring”, and the weather was cold. It being my ‘O’ level year I had an interim report – unfortunately, I make no mention of its contents. However, I did have an insurance policy mature, delivering me the princely sum of £250. Can’t remember what I frittered it away on! But fritter it I certainly would have.

I also noted that Michael Heseltine resigned. It must have been those bloody helicopters!

Friday 10 January 1986

By now, the snow had all gone.

It had rained overnight and was now quite windy. My aunt and cousin came to visit, and my mum went to visit my grandmother in hospital. School was uninteresting.

Saturday 11 January 1986

This was a day to which I had really been looking forward.

In the morning, we went up to school to play. In the way of these things, the sides were uneven. Five versus seven. Also, in the way of things, it didn’t occur to us to make them even and play six against six.

Whichever way we had a great time, as you always did as a kid. It’s one of the rules of looking back! Twenty-twenty vision, rose-tinted spectacles and all that. Dare I say it, “jumpers for goalposts”? The 1980s were our good old days!

But what of the evening’s entertainment? Oh yes, a fine day cavorting around a football pitch was capped off with a trip to town where I bought the seven-inch single of The Eurythmics’ It’s Alright (Baby’s Coming Back).

Also, my mates and I went to the pictures (The Empire on Mardol in Shrewsbury). And what did we see? Nothing but the best… Back To The Future. As I noted, it was “magic. [A] brill film.”

It’s one of those films that many years later I can watch repeatedly. I never tire of Marty and Doc’s antics. I’m never quite sure that the DeLorean is going to get up to the correct speed at the exact moment that the lightning strike hits the clock tower… But of course, it always does!

I also noted that [Shrewsbury] Town beat Barnsley 3-0 and that I went to bed at 9:30, “Dog-Tired”.

Sunday 12 January 1986

BBC1 3:00 pm Watford v Liverpool in Division One.

Liverpool won 3-2 with two goals from Paul Walsh and one from Ian Rush. For those of you without long memories, this was in the period of the domination of the game in England by Liverpool FC.

In 1986 they were to go on and win the League and FA Cup double. This particular match is a demonstration of two central facets of a good football team – some steel and a never-say-die attitude.

Liverpool were poor in the first half, Kenny Jacket had given Watford a deserved 1-0 lead on eighteen minutes before Walsh popped up with the equaliser just before halftime. In the second half, Walsh again, and then Ian Rush made it 3-1 before Worrell Sterling pulled one back to make the final score 3-2.

The weather was windy, but without rain – an OK state of affairs for a paperboy out there all morning! And this paperboy did no homework except French, which was “boring and hard.”

Monday 13 January 1986

“Felicity Kendal ‘does’ Wogan.”

Now you can read this in two or more ways. Of course, I was sixteen when I wrote it, so obviously, I mean that Felicity Kendal was ‘standing in’ for the Irish charmer on his BBC1 chat show 😉 It aired on BBC1 at 7:00 pm and was a staple of 1980s television.

But back to Felicity Kendal. According to Mr Pye, the father of Neil Pye in The Young Ones, ‘Felicity Kendal is sweetly pretty, and just what a real girlie should be.’

Now whether or not you agree with that statement, or its sentiment, for a sixteen-year-old young shaver, she was exactly what a ‘real girlie’ should be. Richard Briers is a lucky beggar, I thought.

Apart from this televisual highlight, I complained about a schoolmate – “Joel is a cretin!” I came home from school and listened to records, and the day was windy. Such was the way of things on 13 January 1986.

Tuesday 14 January 1986

Another windy day, and a cold one too.

School was “dead boring.” Apparently, I played football in PE. I remember this with a certain annoyance. Not the playing football part, I was a sixteen-year-old boy – what’s not to like about playing football?

No, my gripe was that we, as the boys, were forced to go outside and play football, whilst the girls were allowed to have the gym set up for them, to play badminton and other such crap sports, in the warm, whilst we had to go out in the cold. Shame, eh? What’s that line about the playing fields of Eton…?

Anyway, enough whinging, whilst we were enduring our “dead boring”, cold and windy day at school, Michael Heseltine (“who he?” – my diary comment) was busy at it down in Westminster.

Wednesday 15 January 1986

A day of rain, today. I report on a defection to Will’s team of one of my players for our grand match on the coming Saturday.

Come to think of it now, the guy who defected wasn’t that good at football, and in any case, he didn’t schoolmate turn up anyway! I didn’t do much homework in the evening, just a spot of Physics.

On the sporting front, Liverpool beat Spurs in the Screensport Super Cup by three goals to nil. Ian Rush grabbed two and Mark Lawrenson scored the other.

Thursday 16 January 1986

Uh oh! Forget the politics in Westminster… this blessed football match on Saturday is causing ructions!

One of our team, a vice captain if you like, has only gone and asked one of the better players in school to play in our team! Is this cheating? Or it is merely selecting the best players from the pool available… I guess I was quite naïve. It’s only what happens in real football.

We had a power cut at school. It was a really cold winter remember, so this must have caused some issues concerning the heating. However, the power cut didn’t stop us watching a video in English on one of the school’s Betamax machines – none of your VHS crap.

We were studying Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. You know, the one about the ‘witches’ in ‘Salem, Massachusetts’, hem hem. So, we were all of us going around quoting phrases (well one phrase) from the play – ‘Be you John Proctor…?’ Kids, eh? Limited scope and no appreciation of a modern allegorical classic. Peasants!

I think that Great Expectations apart, The Crucible, was probably my favourite piece of literature that we studied. I’m 99% certain that it was not made clear to us at the time that Miller had been a target of the 1950s anti-Communist purges by Senator John McCarthy.

Friday 17 January 1986

Ooh… fallout from the news regarding our new recruit?

No, it’s a bit of a damp squib really. The opposing captain takes the news quite well really. As I noted, he was probably glad at the prospect of a bit of a better game. Furthermore, “they’ll still beat us probably.”

Game on for tomorrow…

Saturday 18 January 1986

“Match v Will’s team.”

Our best player, the ringer who caused all the kerfuffle (or not), didn’t show up. He obviously had better things to do or better teams to play in on his Saturday. At least we managed to score but ended up losing 3-1. I made no comment on how the game went, but I remember that we played them on several occasions, and we lost every time. We even played them at cricket but lost that too!

3-1 was a popular score today, as Shrewsbury Town beat Sheffield United, with goals from Robinson (2) and Hackett. West Ham too, suffered the same reversal v Liverpool.

I made a purchase too from town, in John Menzies, I suppose. I bought myself a new calculator, a Casio fx570. A top piece of kit and no mistaking.

Sunday 19 January 1986

It was a rainy and windy day today.

TV was boring; it must’ve been as I did some homework!

I collected £104 on my paper round, and… erm… that’s it. Sunday 19 January 1986 passed with only the merest comment on my part.

Monday 20 January 1986

It gets better.

Today, we went to school, came home from school and in between, school was boring. Again, it was windy, and it rained, and I did some homework. Ah! The lives of the rich and famous…

Tuesday 21 January 1986

Today was a better day because I played football.

As I noted, “me (sic) and Arthur played football in PE, one-a-side. I won 15-11.”

In the evening, I filled out my application form for Sixth Form College. Quite how long it took I don’t know, but I do know that I would later wish that I hadn’t bothered. I hated sixth form.

Two years of my life were wasted, trying to hang around with people with whom I was only really passing acquaintances at secondary school. I think that it was only by the time I had got to eighteen that I realised that I had to stop this nonsense and start living my life, and not trying to follow others around.

Others who were, let’s not be too coy about this, not all that interested in me. Others who would tolerate my presence but didn’t miss me when I wasn’t around. You know, wouldn’t wait for me at lunchtime kinda thing.

But heck that was still to come in my life at the moment I was still having fun playing one-a-side football with a lad called Arthur.

In sport, Liverpool beat Ipswich Town 3-0 in the Milk Cup quarter-final at Anfield. The goals came from Whelan, Rush and Walsh.

Wednesday 22 January 1986

Today started with rain, but it did get better.

We were given a lot of Physics homework, but fortunately, not much else.

I reported that the bus was late – but not at which end of the day. I also made a comment on an altercation that I had on the bus with someone. Apparently, I “almost kicked [him] in the head but I stopped(?).”

No, sixteen-year-old me, NO! Testosterone fuelled nonsense on the school bus. Aka, all mouth and trousers.

Thursday 23 January 1986

Today was boring (again!)

My friend brought back my Level 42 tape that I had lent to him. It must have been World Machine, featuring such smash hits as Something About You and Leaving Me Now. There was quite a thriving trade of music swapping between us.

As non-earning individuals, we had no other choice, a tape or an LP must have cost at least a fiver. I earned about 6 quid a week from my paper round. Go figure…

We had a grammar test in German – easy? And the bus was late again. “It’s beginning to be a habit!”

Anything that had happened during the day, however, was made alright by Thursday evening’s televisual offering. Blackadder II was on again, must’ve been the third episode. As discussed previously, this was marvellous stuff. Simply the best.

Friday 24 January 1986

It snowed today but it didn’t stick.

Looking back now, no snow = no worries, the world can continue as normal. Back then, no snow = we still have to go to school. Boo hoo, no fun. But hey, here’s one for ya, GET OVER IT! Bloody school kids.

School today was enlivened by the antics of two girls in Chemistry. “Imelda and Desdemona [were] in a stupid mood.” And one of the male members of the class drew my wrath – as I remember he was always attempting to ingratiate himself with this particular pair, so as they became more entertaining, he became more annoying.

Probably a kind of envy on my part…

Saturday 25 January 1986

Ah, the weekend. What fun.

I went to town, closed my Barclays account, and bought a Fine Young Cannibals single (,) and an Alarm 12″ single – I think it must have been Spirit of ’76. The Alarm was a band that I liked a lot.

I remember later at 6 form I had a folder that I covered with a homemade Alarm logo. It was fab! Anyway, the 12″ was more like an old-style EP – a sixties thing, I suppose. It had the title track plus live versions of Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke, Knocking On Heaven’s Door, Deeside and the fabulous 68 Guns.

Later on, we played football again, versus our opponents from the previous Saturday. Last Saturday’s result proved to be a fluke, as this time we lost by even more, 6-3. I was, ahem, “pissed off with it.”

Sunday 26 January 1986

Today I reported, was “a nice day.”

Now, in the days before Sky, BT, Amazon and the like with their exclusive contracts to cover football competitions, the FA Cup was shared between ITV and BBC. Some might call it a cosy monopoly, but football was treated as football, as a sport. Sky’s coverage has brought in many innovations, some of them beneficial, but has also introduced a level of hype which is quite preposterous.

Anyway, at 2:30 pm that afternoon, on ITV, Liverpool travelled to Stamford Bridge to play Chelsea in FACUP4 as Sky might have put it, with goals from Ian Rush and Mark Lawrenson seeing off the Londoners’ challenge.

Before the big match, I collected £96 on my paper round, and I also managed to find the time to do some home-taping. I illegally copied a mate’s tape of The Alarm’s album, Strength. Naughty naughty.

Monday 27 January 1986

We had school inspectors in today.

They were very good, just sitting in the corner – no trouble at all. And we only had one in the one lesson, French. School was quiet without Friday’s nuisance maker who must have been off sick.

Now this character isn’t somebody with whom I had an awful lot to do, but he must have really got under my skin at this time.

In the draw for the next round of the FA Cup (when it were on’t radio and they fished the balls out of that velvet bag, not the terrible mechanical fish bowl that they insist on using nowadays), Liverpool were drawn away with York City. Not the easy draw that it looked like on paper.

Tuesday 28 January 1986

Challenger, the US Space Shuttle exploded today just over a minute after it had taken off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at approximately 11:40 am local time, or 4:40 pm in the UK. Apart from noting it, I made no further comment.

I don’t know what the government’s school inspectors would have thought, but we had this morning off school thanks to a strike by the NUT.

It was a great boon to me personally, as we missed a double dose of Chemistry. Believe me, not being stuck in the lab with the horror who taught us was no hardship.

Part of my issue was that we were a mixed group, some of us doing Chemistry on its own and others of us doing either Physics or Biology as well. The woman who taught us was a Biology teacher by training and inclination so her Chemistry was targeted towards the organic side of things.

As someone who was also doing Physics, I would have liked her to have been a little more even-handed.

I remember her introducing herself to us in first year. She clearly thought that she was some kind of big shot – or was playing up to the two real hard nut Science teachers in school, more like. But anyway, as I was saying she introduced herself to us with a “Good morning first years, my name’s Mrs Parkhurst…” wait for collective intake of breath, not forthcoming… “like the prison…” cue tumbleweed.

Anyway, I went into school for PE just before lunch. It was, I noted, a waste of time. Bloody boring, or should that have been muddy boring…? Boom-tish! I’ll get me coat. But the weather was OK so it couldn’t have been all bad.

Wednesday 29 January 1986

More snow today.

Those who lived in the more inaccessible places from which people sent their children to our school were packed off home early. The rest of us who lived along a main road stayed until the proper end of school.

Thursday 30 January 1986

After a day at school, the snow was all gone.

How unfair is that?! Honestly, the Gods of Meteorology did not smile kindly upon us this day.

I noted that Liverpool would play Queens Park Rangers in the Milk Cup semi-finals after QPR had beaten Chelsea the previous evening. I was most disgusted that the next instalment of BlackAdder II would have to wait until next week because of Crimewatch.

How dare they?

Friday 31 January 1986

Oh dear. Winter must have been really dragging.

My first comment for this day is “Dead boring.” Good grief, it’s an oft-spouted piece of nonsense, but if I had known then what I know now, there is no way that I would have been making such ridiculous statements. Trouble is, kids today are exactly the same, ‘I’m bored’ they whine.

In German we received some test marks back – I scored 26½ and 27 out of 30, ooh smarty pants, eh? All other lessons I noted were boring. That word again. Pah!

It rained a lot today – so much so that a proposed football practice session for tomorrow was called off. The pitch was too muddy. “Not [a] good idea,” quoth I.

Next Up, January Gives Way to February

As January’s final days drifted away, my diary had already begun to fill with the historical snippets of life in the mid-80s. From the digital football fields of Football Manager on my Commodore 64 to my disappointment with Rocky II, the month was a microcosm of the era’s cultural landscape, seen through the lens of my teenage world.

Each entry, no matter how mundane or muddled in the wisdom of youth, was a step in the larger journey of the year. My diary already contained an eclectic mix of observations, critiques, and the occasional philosophical musing. It was shaping up to be a true companion through 1986.

As I turned the page to February, it was with no particular sense of anticipation for what lay ahead. Looking back as an adult, my diary was more than a record of days passed. It was a narrative of growth and discovery, set against the backdrop of an era that continues to captivate the imagination.