N/A: Chris Kamara, Sheffield United, Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer, Midas Games

In November 1972 the arcade game Pong made its debut and the gaming industry was born. While not the first attempt to make some computer pixels do not very much for the amusement of the masses it was by far the most commercially successful and, by the end of the decade, the first ever football game was unleashed on the world in the form of NASL Soccer. Judging by the YouTube footage it seemed to involve lots of brightly coloured stick men over hitting through balls and running in the opposite direction to oncoming forwards which may well be what the likes of Trevor Francis, Johan Cruyff and Gerd Muller were getting up to over in the US at the time.

Throughout the 1980s the games became more realistic and a host of star players and managers put their names on products of variable quality. Peter Shilton’s Handball Maradona (not that he is anyway bitter about being out jumped by a midget) gave youngsters the opportunity to fulfil their goalkeeping fantasies in a range of scenarios with reviews at the time describing it as “vastly overpriced and not worth buying”. Shilton’s former boss Brian Clough’s Football Fortunes was more of a computerised board game but gained praise for being “fun to play”, “a great family game” and coming “in a smart box”. England stars Gary Lineker, Peter Beardsley and John Barnes all put their names to releases which had little to do with the players themselves but no doubt provided a tidy little earner on the side.

The likes of Sensible Soccer, FIFA and ISS Pro would come to dominate the market in the 1990s but there were still a range of questionable player tie-ins. Tony Meola’s Sidekicks Soccer and Sean Dundee’s World Club Football failed to make waves, the latter being repackaged and given away for free with Danone products, while Michael Owen’s WLS 2000 for N64 and David Beckham Soccer for the PlayStation were both panned for their gameplay. The marvellously punctuated Go! Go! Beckham! Adventure on Soccer Island for the Game Boy Advance went down slightly better where the former England captain had to use his footballing skills to defeat Mister Woe who had turned the island’s animals into monsters and “taken all precious things” but, as batshit as it sounds, even this could not compare to the assault on the senses provided by Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer. Before anyone starts, yes, this isn’t a football sticker or card but the role this game played in the lives of a group of South London secondary school boys cannot be underestimated.

Through some shrewd financial planning and the timing of my Confirmation I managed to scrabble together the £50 required to pick up a second hand PlayStation and a copy of WWF SmackDown! from Computer Exchange in Bromley at the turn of the century. The next step was a football game which Woolworth’s provided in the form of Euro 2000 and these two genres tended to dominate my gaming choices. Rather than opting for one of the more recognised titles I bought a copy of Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer for 50p from a lad in my year at school. It would have been rude not to at that price (a mere 10% of what it was going for in my local newsagent). Perhaps the fact that, at full price, the game was being marketed for a fiver should have rung alarm bells but I relished the opportunity to take on “the toughest soccer tournament on PlayStation”.

While Chris Kamara now borders on national treasure status due to his enthusiastic and comedic career as a pundit he was an interesting choice of cover star for a computer game released in the year 2000. Having been spotted by Portsmouth while serving in the Royal Navy he played for a host of clubs over twenty years as a tough tackling midfielder with lengthy spells at Brentford and Swindon Town before hitting the top flight with Leeds United, hometown club Middlesbrough and Sheffield United. In total he played over 700 professional games contributing 86 goals. Kamara’s playing career, however, had ended five years prior to the release of his eponymous game at Bradford City and, while he had acquitted himself well at Valley Parade as the club’s manager, he had last taken the reins with Stoke City in 1998 for a fourteen game spell which failed to stop the Potters’ slide into the third tier. 

Somewhat unsurprisingly Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer did not have any official licensing leaving the national teams you could control made up of entirely random players. It was ahead of its time in some senses by having female representation for the Netherlands, Brazil and Austria and perhaps this nod to inclusivity is why the majority of the male teams looked like they were also representing their local branch of Combat 18 to balance things out. Graphically the game was simplistic at best but did provide players with a range of fun locations to play five-a-side football in including Death Valley and the top of a skyscraper. While the former perhaps helped FIFA justify the hosting of a World Cup in Qatar the latter sprung instantly to my mind when one of my former employers opened a football cage on the roof of the assembly hall. With no booklet provided to teach you the controls gameplay was challenging and included the added jeopardy of ‘super shots’ where, if you mashed enough buttons randomly, you could unleash some semi-legal acrobatic move at your opponents’ goal. 

Perhaps the real highlight of Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer, however, was the commentary. Every shot was met with an enthusiastic “what a rocket!” while the almost inevitable catch of said inbound missile received a “top save!” Evading tackles with a Cuauhteminha earned a shout of “it’s showtime!” but the greatest outbursts were suitably saved for goals. Each national team received a unique exclamation allowing Kammy to really enjoy himself over a decade before anyone was “fighting like beavers”. All German contributions to the scoresheet were “wunderbar!”, goalscorers for their respective nations either “the pride of Sweden” or “Irish and proud” while the Scots channelled their inner Old Firm dust up with a terrifying “I’ll crush ya!” Clearly our protagonist had exhausted himself by the time it came to Japan (who I shipped seven goals to as part of the research for this post) where a slight pause was followed by “yeah!” The pinnacle was the random noise a super shot goal forced Kammy into which my schoolmates and I convinced ourselves was “anal wash!” It obviously wasn’t but if football’s most enthusiastic pundit wants to correct us we would love to hear from him.

In an era where game footage from FC24 is eerily realistic and football clubs have dedicated e-sports teams Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer resembles something from a distant planet let alone a bygone era. Even when it was released at the dawn of a new millennium it was pretty bloody terrible but it holds a special place in my heart due to the hilarity it provided a group of South London schoolchildren when they probably should have been taking their GCSEs more seriously. Chris Kamara recently received an MBE for his services to football, charity and anti-racism and it is hard to think of a more deserving, likeable figure in the game. I like to think that King Charles III signed off on this award owing to his respect for Kammy’s contributions to technology and the gaming industry as well as secondary education. It’s showtime!