[A report from the mid-1980's]

LOGICA WIN SUMMER
COMPUTER LEAGUE

As you already know, well you ought to, Logica won this year's Summer Computer League (Apex Computer Recruitment Division) on goal difference. The margin of victory belies the superiority generally shown by the Logica team, but for a couple of bad games, goal difference would not have been required to settle matters.

After finishing a reasonable third last season to the winners NCR and the runners-up Hewlett Packard, it was clear to the young Player-Manager that an injection of new blood was needed. Unfortunately, Everton rejected a late bid of GPB 57.99 for Gary Lineker, preferring instead to sell him to Barcelona for GBP £2.75m, which meant that the free-transfer market had to be scoured for any available talent.

Although the wages on offer were not high, a number of highly-skilled(?) footballers were tempted to come to the bright lights of London to play for Logica: Nick 'Safe-as-Houses' Sibley - a cat-like goalkeeper; Peter Venis - an unpredictable but highly volatile left-winger from Brighton; Steve Oliver - a Northener at left-back; Adam Tracey - rejected by Liverpool but snapped up by Logica as an all-purpose defender; and Phran Ryder - a well-know spelling mistake to play in midfield.

The additions to the team and the hard-core (?) talent remaining from the previous year, coupled with the as yet unrecognised talent of the fit young Player-Manager, gave the Logica team an excellent chance of challenging for honours. Confidence was raised to an unprecedented level after Logica were unbeaten in a number of tough pre-season friendlies.

The season got off to a tremendous start with an excellent 5-1 victory over ICL in the first game of the season, but faltered in the second game against APEX where Logica came away with a 1-1 draw after playing extremely badly, the only Logica goal coming from the fleet-footed, fit, young Player-Manager. This disappointment sparked off a series of five victories against NCR (the winners the previous season, [a game] which was won from a fine goal by Kevin Spence whilst unable to move through injury), CAP, BCI, ICCH and BT. The game against BT was particularly nasty, but Logica came out worthy 3-1 victors without playing to their full potential.

This left the Logica team with two games left and three points needed to be sure of victory, which meant that a victory against Hewlett Packard would have virtually wrapped up the title. This, though, would have been far too easy for the die-hard romantics in the Logica team who would prefer to snatch a glorious victory from the jaws of defeat, so the match was lost 5-3 leaving Logica needing to score as many goals as possible in the last match against NCR (Brent), and hoping that APEX, their nearest challengers, slipped up.

Logica Football Club (circa 1985) Back Row: Unknown, Unknown, Nick Sibley, Phran Ryder, Malcolm Dick, Adam Tracey. Front Row: Unknown, Billy Arnold, Kevin Spence, Steve Oliver, Phil Jarvis, Peter Venis.
	Tracey and Arnold try desperately to protect Nick 'The Cat' Sibley.

It transpired that in their last game, Logica played some of their best football of the season, coming out victorious 9-2. A particularly fine performance was turned in by the unpredictable and occasionally volatile Peter Venis, who either set up or scored most of the nine goals. APEX were unable to score enough goals in their last game against BCI (mainly as the match was cancelled!), so Logica had won the league. Here we go, here we go, here we go... etc, etc. The roll of honour reads as follows:

- Nick 'The Cat' Sibley,
- Bill Arnold - a chunky right-back and midfield player,
- Adam Tracey,
- Martyn Lunn - the only sweeper to inspire fear in his own defence, also the only player to head the ball out of his own keeper's hands and into his own net
- Peter Maddigan - our rotund ex-Manager and centre-back,
- Steve Oliver,
- Paul Walton - the man with shooting power in his boots,
- Phil 'Sniffer' Jarvis - our own little action man in midfield,
- Phran Ryder,
- Peter Venis,
- Gareth Mellor - the only man who would rather be in bed than play football,
- Kevin Spence - our very own Scot, who won the league for us if anyone did,
- John 'The Destroyer' Wood,
- Eric Padua,
- Mark Ellis,
- Pasquae le Face,
- Greg Holtum,

and, of course, not forgetting the uncompromising, sharp, fleet-footed, fit, young Player-Manager: your very own correspondent,

Malcolm Dick.

As a short post-script: Logica are now playing in a Winter League unconnected with computers, and anybody who has not contacted me with a view to play, and would like to, can contact me on ext.3636 on HH 00/2. Look out for regular match reports.

Notes:
(1) With many thanks to a Mr.K.Spence of Islington who chanced upon this rare antique in his parents' loft.
(2) We know this ancient parchment dates from what historians refer to as the Dick Era circa 1985-6 AD, but if any of our readers are able to date this relic exactly, we'd be extremely grateful to hear from you. Either e-mail the Editor, or drop us a line on the Message Board.
(3) Ditto, if anyone can match any of the Unknown faces in the team photo with names, we'd be grateful to hear from you.