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"I don't like the FIFA games. I don't see the point in being able to see the players' nostril hairs," mutters Jon Ritman, a mischievous glint in his eyes. The creator of the legendary Match Day games on the ZX Spectrum is sitting opposite me in his local curry house - and is obviously not a fan of Electronic Arts' enduring franchise."I was in my local software shop when the first one came out and the guys working there knew I'd done football games in the past, so were keen to show it to me. I started playing and was thinking, there's something wrong here, I just don't get it." Ritman pauses for dramatic effect and takes a swig from his pint of Kingfisher. "So I shut my eyes, and scored twice in under a minute."
Just 10 years earlier, football games were considerably different, especially visually. The 70s had inevitably produced a whole bunch of Pong clones dressed up as 'soccer', and early cartridge-based systems such as the Atari VCS didn't offer much more. Then came the home computer invasion of the 80s and one popular game in particular on the Commodore 64.
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