Actually, perhaps my memory is playing tricks with me and I may not have been that verbose, but the recreation of the underlying sentiment is accurate: I thought it was ridiculous.

But these were the days of Licensing Rules: "Ah," my sales contact replied, "but there is going to be a big marketing push, with instore displays and posters and everything." So I fell for it. The product was available on just about every format of the day (ST, Amiga, CPC, C64, Spectrum, even MSX if I'm not mistaken) in smart green and red Subbuteo-branded boxes. It did indeed come with lavish instore display material: a genuine Subbuteo set for each store (which seemed lavish at the time but was probably much cheaper than commissioning custom stuff).

Needless to say, all my fears were realised and the product stiffed. I knew there would be problems on the first day when the Subbuteo promotional set had hoards of little boys flicking the figures around the pitch while the Amiga running the game instore sat neglected, its twin joysticks drooping sadly over the display area. Ah, sweet memories, especially of the day a few months later when I had to explain why we were 'promoting' Subbuteo the computer game by selling it at half price... and no, it still didn't sell.