In this post, I return to one of my favourite computer games from my childhood that 35 years later, I can't stop playing.

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After sharing some thoughts on Space Invasion yesterday, part of @frafiomatale's comment triggered something in me.

My first computer was a ZX Spectrum

For whatever reason, I decided to look up one of my favourite games on the Spectrum, a game that I remember as Soccer Simulator which led me to the world of Spectrum website and the game's full title Advanced Soccer Simulator. After a bit more searching, I found a website where I could play it online.

The emotion I felt at that moment was something that I have never experienced before. It was nostalgia, joy, sadness and much more. I could feel it navigating its way through my veins in such a bizarre sensation that I don't know what it's called. Even now, I struggle to put it into words.

😀 Happy Memories

As a child, I remember taking it in turns with my brother to manager our teams. I was Celtic, he was Morton. It was the greatest football match up in the history of football gaming. Even now, I remember my star man, simply known as Lappen bagging goal after goal for my side.

And just like my 9 year old self, I was hooked again. The graphics and gameplay are definitely basic. Each player only has 2 stats and I'll let Crash Magazine describe the presentation:

presentation is superb and the obligatory goalmouth highlights are great - even if they are in monochrome

Source - Crash Magazine No. 64, May 1989

If not great, the players movingly randomly and the ball bouncing around like a pinball machines is as entertaining as it is frustrating.

2 seasons were over before I knew it and then the problem with playing retro games online - I pressed the wrong button. My game, gone.

I started again, but I needed to find a better way of playing.

So today, I've installed a Spectrum Emulator and can now save my progress.

♥ I Still Love It

In a moment of madness, the developer who created the game picked English and Scottish football teams at random, forgetting to include the Mighty Royals (Reading FC of course). Luckily, changing team names is possible so I removed Clyde and added Reading.

I was quickly back in the game, remembering everything from my childhood to be successful and as if by fate, my first save after getting the emulator provided me with a familiar name up front...

... Lappen. A player whose skill could drop to 1 and I will never sell him.

The game's so old, there's no Premier League and to many people's surprise, football did exist back then.

You start in Division 4 and after 16 games, I'm pushing for promotion.

Play-offs didn't exist in 1989 so it's Top 3 or failure.

The temptation for me is to explain every screen and every option (like selecting the pitch colour - choose from 1-7 with no knowledge as to what colour each number corresponds to) but there will be few outside my brain who will have any interest in that.

When I finish typing this, I'll be returning to this game which will be permanently open on my Desktop and forgive me if in a few days time, I write a post describing every detail on every screen. My brain is telling me that I need to write a thorough guide for future fans of the game.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, particularly about the emotion I've tried to describe. As an adult, have you felt a strange combination of emotions, or new emotion that you've never felt before? Could something as innocuous as a video game evoke that emotion within you?

_{All Images are my own unless stated otherwise}