Hi- and low-tech gaming

Football Manager (sort of) news

Saturday 4 November 2017. Newly promoted (to the Sky Bet First Division, lying in 16^th place, expected to bravely battle against relegation) Mansfield, managed by Istvan Fallok, are up against Oldham in the first round of the FA Cup. It isn't going well. The good news? Bonobo's Black Sands is on the stereo. Otherwise? We're struggling to...

...oh...

...we've just drawn level at 2-2. Ha! We'll see them at our place! Our league game with Tranmere has been rearranged, and the winner of our replay will face Swindon in the next round.

There's a bewildering array of options, transfers, tactics, player roles, individual training regimes, transfers. Too much, really, for an old duffer like me.

I'm of the dice cricket era...

Dice cricket

No apps, no software needed.

Equipment: an exercise book, a dice, a pencil, and some imagination. You could play, for example, heroes or goodies against nasty baddies. Roll the dice. One = one run (and puts the other bat on strike). Two=two runs and the bat retains the strike, three = three runs, and so on. Five = potential wicket. Another roll of the dice. One = caught, two = bowled, three = LBW, five and six = not out, and so on.

Maybe, just maybe, on the 4 November sometime in the 60's:

The Goodies batting first

Jesus run out, Hitler...15

John the Baptist caught Dracula, bowled Jack the Ripper 27

Jeff Hurst lbw Jack the Ripper 0

Dr Who bowled .Jack the Ripper 0 (that's a Jack the Ripper hat trick right there)

Deputy Dawg stumped, Atilla the Hun, bowled Frankenstein (I know, that should read 'Frankenstein's Monster' but we're, like, six years old here) 3

John Noakes...hit wicket, bowled the evil black dalek 54

I imagine the evil black dalek as bit of a mystery spinner, with a slightly suspect action.

Jesus really shouldn't open the batting, he seldom gets any runs.

Jack the Ripper is a very effective fast bowler able to rough up the opposition batsmen with some nasty short stuff.

Meanwhile, back at...

Football Manager...

Mansfield (9-2 against) have achieved a hard-fought draw (two-all) at home to Chesterfield (1-2 (fav)), putting in a very solid performance. The wingers were effective (the coach's report says) and there was some quality finishing on display. Despite that, we've slipped to 17^th while writing this.

Now, where's me pencil, dice, and exercise book? Sad eighties musicians, put in to bat by the Celeb Paedo Invitational XI.