Catalogue of Eras: Great Universal - Autumn and Winter 1985/86

And so to our final dip into the mail order catalogue archives to see what bounty lay in store for the young football fan. The trouble is, the period covering the end of 1985 and the start of 1986 was a fallow one for anyone looking for a must-own bit of kit to brighten up their lives.

The Great Universal catalogue of the time did its best to rustle up some interest, yet in many ways it seemed distracted by the technology boom catching everyone's eyes. Video recorders, hand-held games and digital watches all had a shimmer of excitement and glamour back then, so what chance did a second-rate pair of football boots have?

In short, not much. It's true that the pair on page 340 would have only set you back 50p per week over a five-month period, but that's about all one can say. In essence, they were cheap boots with moulded studs that probably gave you blisters right up to the point when they inevitably fell apart. And to add insult to injury, they also had the words 'World Cup' printed inexplicably in gold lettering on the sides, as if that was going to make any difference to anything.

Skip forward 140 or so pages and you'd have found a slightly better offering for any kids keen to portray themselves as the new Ian Rush. First of all, there was a nice pair of Adidas Pro 3000's that had screw-in studs, three shiny stripes down the side and a padded tongue featuring a ridiculously large Adidas logo. At a whopping £44.99, however (approximately £130 in today's money), you'd have been hard pushed to persuade your parents to give you those for Christmas.

A better option was possibly the Puma S.P.A. Real's (?!) which at least had the mark of respectability as well as being £10 cheaper than their Adidas equivalents, but as for the Gola's... No, Mum, NO!!!

But what use are football boots without a football to kick around?! Answer: No use at all... unless you turned to page 502 of the catalogue where you'd have found a Mitre Delta 7000.

I actually had one of these, back in the day, and it was a great football to play with. My friends and I played with it so much, the red 'V' markings faded almost completely and the firmness of those synthetic patches also disappeared to the point where the whole ball became spongy and rather absorbent. We played with it THAT much.

At just £11.99, it was well worth every penny, but how many kids would have got one as a result of a mail-order catalogue purchase? My local sports shop would almost certainly have sold Mitre Delta footballs when I was young, so I'd have dismissed my Great Universal catalogue without a second thought. If my favourite ball was only a bus ride away, there was simply no contest. Sorry, Great Universal.

A cheaper ball was also available towards the back of the catalogue... in the Toys & Games section, specifically. A bit unfair to be labelled in such a way. it might have been, as the Adidas Tango knock-off was actually of a decent standard for young kids. It was made of leather, came with a pump adaptor and also the staple of many childhoods - the yellow cotton goalkeeper gloves with black plastic patches.

Yes, I admit it, I also owned a pair of these when I was getting into football, and as many of you will remember, they looked a lot better than they performed. In the rain, they were of no use at all, the cotton getting soggy very quickly and the plastic providing no grip whatsoever. Actually, it's almost a redundant point to ask why there was a patch on the backs of the hands when you consider that the ones on the fingers weren't much better.

Better, then, to play Cup Final, Peter Pan's football equivalent to the ever-popular Test Match. A cross between Super Striker and Subbuteo, the joy of Cup Final was pressing the button behind every plastic outfield player and letting fly with a killer pass or shot on goal. Scaled down hoardings added extra authenticity along with goalies that could actually 'throw' the ball. Now if only they'd given us a Subbuteo-style scoreboard as well, I'd have surely put Cup Final at the top of my Christmas wish list...

Finally, to bed with a good book, and thanks to the Great Universal Autumn and Winter 1985/86 catalogue, you could get two for £6.50, namely the 1986 editions of the Shoot! and Roy of the Rovers annuals. Not really what you'd call a bargain, but in the run-up to Christmas 1985, parents up and down the land would have been only too happy to snap up this and many other stocking fillers.

This catalogue, and many others like them, had gifts in abundance - and you didn't even have to brave the bustling hordes in the shops during the festive season either. A salute, then, to the mail order catalogue: masters of convenience, and a pre-internet shop window for football fans to savour.

-- Chris Oakley

All images featured on this post copyright their original owners and used for the purposes of review and illustration. No attempt at superseding original copyright has been made or should be inferred.

See also:

• Catalogue of Eras: Freemans - Autumn and Winter 1979
• Catalogue of Eras: Marshall Ward - Autumn and Winter 1975-76
• Catalogue of Eras: Littlewoods - Spring & Summer 1982

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Billy Hamilton's Football Academy (1985)

Many have tried and failed to encapsulate the world of football in a board game. Whether it be the thrill of scoring goals in a big match or the mental discipline required to manage a great team, you can be sure it's been recreated at some point for the purpose of entertaining children and their families.

Among the lesser-known titles is Billy Hamilton's Football Academy, a game supposedly conceived by the erstwhile Oxford United, QPR and Northern Ireland striker. I want to believe this is true, and there's nothing to suggest it wasn't, save for a bit of tinkering by the board game manufacturers. I say this because Hamilton's express wish appears to be to detail every aspect of a player's career from being a humble apprentice through to winning the World Cup (potentially, at least).

Detail is very much the watchword in this game as can be seen on the board which is dazzling in all its colourful splendour. The playing area is circular and has concentric tracks flooded with illustrations and text that provide all the intrigue and fascination that make you want to play in the first place.

Between two and six people can take part, and the object is to travel around the board initially as a football trainee collecting Skill and Effort tokens by rolling a dice. The outer ring of the board is where the action takes place in this first part of three, and the messages found on many of the spaces show where Billy Hamilton's own experience comes into play. "You volunteer for extra training - Gain 2 Effort" and "Manager adds you to first team squad - Gain 2 Skill" give an insight into the continuing struggle to improve as a young player.

But there's also a notable mention of the more menial tasks that have to be done when you're setting out at the bottom rung of the football ladder. One space instructs you to "Sweep the terraces - grab a broom" whereas others speak of clearing snow, running a bath, cleaning boots or 'making a nice pot of tea for the pro's after training'. There's no denying Hamilton's intent to show the less glamorous side of being a footballer alongside the fame and adulation, and this adds to the charm of the game.

There's also the chance to gain or lose tokens by picking up a 50/50 card or a Linesman's Flag card. Once again, the devil's in the detail as you're told "You have put the wrong studs in the 1st Team's boots - Lose 2 Effort" or "Linesman flags as you control the ball with your hand - Lose 1 Effort". And you wondered why this game wasn't endorsed by Diego Maradona...

Three circuits of the outer section of the board have to be completed before moving onto the second part of the game, and if I'm honest, those three circuits get less interesting the longer they go on. Though the messages and the collecting of the tiny plastic tokens starts out as being quite enjoyable, it does get a little tedious towards the end. No matter, because the next bit of the game concentrates on being a fully qualified professional, but before that can be done, there's some mathematics to attend to.

To determine the position you're going to play in for the rest of your career, you first need to divide the number of blue Effort tokens you received by three, then add that number to the amount of red Skill tokens you've accumulated. If the total is 19 or below, your lot in life is to become a goalkeeper; 20 to 24 and you'll be a defender, 25 to 29 and you're a midfielder whereas 30 or more ensures your fate will sealed as a striker.

Being a striker undoubtedly gives you a strong chance of winning the game, because in Part 2, you travel around your positional track on the board taking instructions from whatever the rule book tells you. Suffice to say that the rule book has more favourable messages for the strikers than it does for the goalkeepers.

Goalies roll the dice and move around the ring of green shirts, while the defenders are on the orange ring, the midfielders are on the blue and the strikers are on the pink. When you land on a space, you use the relevant number to look up the accompanying message in the book. The optimal outcome is to collect one or more goal tokens in readiness for the final part of the game and many of the messages provide in this respect. "Save a penalty - gain 2 goals" or "Score with an overhead kick - gain 2 goals" could be the outcome, but you may just as likely be dealt a slice of life with the message "Visit a supporter in hospital" or "Interviewed on local radio" that carry no goal tokens. In this instance the game falls a little bit flat as by now you're purely focused on gaining goal tokens. Are you really bothered if you've 'entered a fun-run for charity' or 'visited a children's home'?

Any such interest in the minutiae of being a footballer starts to fall away quickly by the time you reach the final inner circle of the board, for it's here that you enter the 'International Stage'. An extra dice comes into play now as you attempt to traverse the last 18 spaces quicker than your opponents. The skill comes in 'pledging' the right number of goal tokens (those pleasing flat yellow plastic footballs) to ensure the right result on the dice. By adding your tokens to the number on the black dice, then subtracting the number on the white dice you end up with the number of spaces you move forward. If it's a minus number, you move backwards.

Any goal tokens you pledge go back to the bank, so it's vital to land on a space where you earn more tokens to keep you going. "You make your international debut - gain 2 goals" is the sort of thing you want to hear at this point, whereas "Go to tailors and measure up for a squad travelling suit" probably isn't.

Anyway, without really being fully aware, the final ring of yellow spaces is leading you to eventual glory as a World Cup Winner, but it's an anti-climactic finish that lacks all the triumphant messaging you want to see as you reach the peak of your footballing career. Not only that, but as I found in playing the game, you can easily run out of goal tokens before you even reach the end, thus highlighting an unfortunate shortcoming of the game.

When the end does come, however, you're left with conflicting feelings about the hour that's just passed. On the one hand, you have to admire the effort that's gone into the making of the game, from the delightful coloured football boots that act as playing pieces, right through to the real-world instructions on the board and the ease with which you can get started without reading copious notes that are hard to understand. Unfortunately the element of submersing yourself in the fantasy of being an actual footballer weakens as the game progresses. There's less need to chuckle at the wording as you realise it's all about gaining tokens and getting to the middle of the board first, which is a shame.

For all that, however, there's not a football board game in the world that's perfect and for that reason it has to rank among the better ones that are available. Well done, Mr Hamilton - you may not be a World Cup Winner, but you certainly gained 2 Effort where I'm concerned.

-- Chris Oakley

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