In the old days before FIFA13 and PES 2013 boys and some girls had to pretend to be their favourite football stars while kicking a ball in the back garden. Men, and perhaps some women, of a certain age will remember playing Subbuteo with their mates.
As the Half Man Half Biscuit song All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit recalls when you used to play the game, әou֤ always get palmed off with a headless centre forward/ And a goal-keeper with no arms.Ԝn
Sometimes there was just a base with no man at all. You had to flick away and try to score and imagine that you really were controlling Manchester United against Liverpool. This was sometimes difficult as the dog would walk across the pitch and ruin everything.
Computer games
In the 1980s there was a home computer boom and suddenly teenage boys (it was generally a male thing) would wonder round WH Smithֳ buying games for their ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 or BBC Micro.
Quite early on the game manufacturers worked out that a lot of young lads were interested in both football and computer games. They then set about trying to make soccer simulation games for these limited machines.
One of the early successes was a game called Football Manager. Suddenly you were not flicking a bit of plastic and were in charge of Manchester United. Just like the real thing Bryan Robson was injured and needing a first aid kit and you had to work out how you were going to replace him.
Nowadays football management games have huge databases and are more realistic. This means that the virtual manager has similar dilemmas to the real bosses. For instance, a player will badly injure their knee ligaments. Do you splash out on a replacement or promote a youth team player?
During the game a player will get injured and the physio will treat him with his physio supplies. You have to work out just how fit he is. Can he carry on or do you take him off?
The real thing
It is though a real problem that some kids today would prefer to play the pixelated version of the game than the real thing. In the past children would kick a ball around until it went dark and they could no longer see the ball.
There is no consolation in a console. Nothing can beat the real thing and more fun can be had playing the game for real as opposed to enjoying a fictionalised version. They wonִ get hurt pressing buttons but it is not as much fun.
If they do get a whack on the knee and experience a bit of knee pain it will be more character forming than making a computerised Wayne Rooney perform an overhead kick. It will also be more memorable when they get older.
Do we really want our children to look back on their childhoods only for them to remember days spent in front of screens? Or do we want them to recall the goals they scored for real on the playing fields of England.