A former Tamworth teacher has moved away from the class room and is heading into the board rooms of some of the leading retailers as a designer who has invented his own take on the beautiful game. While console gaming may be all the rage, inventor Keith Mallett has developed a new football-based board game and has attracted interest from Hamleys, Selfridges, The Entertainer toy shops and FIFA. Herald reporter NICK HORNER met with Keith to find out more about his “realistic football game” and his goals for the future

IN a technological age, the enduring appeal of board games appears to confound a common belief that to be successful in the entertainment world these days you need to be “plugged in”.

While Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo dominate the gaming world, the market place for old-fashioned gaming is growing – and has been for the past decade.

FIFA 12, the latest incarnation of the console football game endorsed by Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere, may have topped many wishlists at Christmas but those bored of two-dimensional gaming in front of a TV screen will have a new way to try out their “tekkers” this year.

Former Tamworth teacher Keith Mallett from Great Barr, Birmingham has been involved in football gaming for over 25 years.

In the 1980s his 90 Minutes game, endorsed by England captain Bryan Robson, promised “all the thrills of real soccer packed in to a board game”.

It was Woolworths’ top game in 1988, was in the top 20 board games at the time and saw retail giants Argos buy 15,000 copies.

Keith said he has always been a creative person.

“When I was at junior school I invented games,” he said. “During the summer holidays it was up to me to organise tournaments and games. I’ve always been an administrator and always had creative skills.”

Keith’s latest creation is Socceristic, an update on his 1980s football game but faster paced, simplified and more true to the game, according to the 70-year-old.

This observer is a self-confessed football fanatic, mesmerised by Messi, wowed by Wilshere and intrigued by Iniesta, but how would Keith’s game play out with the myriad of competing interests in 2011?

The game comprises of a football field with 165 squares, a football-shaped token and a dice. There are then Referee’s Decision Cards and Outcome Cards, akin to the Community Chest and Chance cards found in Monopoly.

A double A4-sized sheet provides the rules and while they appear a little technical to start with, you soon get the hang of it.

The game is played by rolling a dice, with an element of skill in determining which direction to move in and that all-important element of luck thrown up by the cards and number thrown.

“There is anticipation and anxiety when you pick up a card,” Keith said. “Very much like the anticipation of watching a move build on a real football pitch.”

Keith said he has always been a “creative” person. “When I was at junior school I invented games,” he said.

“During the summer holidays it was up to me to organise tournaments and games. I have always been an administrator and always had creative skills.”

Keith’s creative skills devisor first manifested themselves in the 1960s when he managed and was an agent for pop groups including Herman’s Hermits and ran the fan club for The Monkees.

“That was in the ’60s and my mother used to say to me ‘why don’t you get a proper job?’ ”

That he did, teaching in Tamworth at Woodhouse High School and Wilnecote High and also in Sutton Coldfield, Hodge Hill in Birmingham and West Bromwich.

But when his career ended in 2004, he came up with the idea for Socceristic.

“I came out of teaching and I wanted to have one last effort of making my creations work.

“As an ex-teacher, I try and bring imagination back. I was brought up with the radio when you had to imagine. It brings people and families back together.”

Whereas FIFA 12 on a Playstation or XBox will try and visually mimic a game of football, with Keith’s game the roll of the dice brings the quantity of the unknown.

You may then get a string of passes to a forward before an Outcome Card decides whether he scores or misses.

But it is down to the Socceristic player as to how they envisage it – a strike from your own half like David Beckham, a mazy run like Messi or a six-yard tap in from a Gary Lineker or Darren Bent.

“Console games haven’t affected the board game markets,” Keith said assuredly. “They have always been popular and in the last ten years there’s been a resurgence in sales.”

But despite this optimism, the pensioner is only too aware that very few new games make it.

“Out of 700 new games each year, only one or two make it,” he said. “The general policy of retailers is to stick to household names like Hasbro. They’re not interested in a one-off situation. That’s why we’ve produced another game, Quadraughts, with the idea for a third as well.”

Undeterred by the poor success rate, Keith, who now lives in Great Barr, Birmingham, produced a prototype of the game last May.

He took delivery of the finished article last June and has since been on the marketing trail visiting Wembley Stadium, FIFA’s marketing wing in the UK, ADM Promotions, retailers The Entertainer, Hamleys, Selfridges, Debenhams, and the Professional Football Association.

The PFA’s commercial director George Berry, a former Wolves and Stoke City centre half, immediately had doubts when he met Keith and his colleague, former cricketer Ron Headley, in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

“George’s opening comment was that he was highly sceptical because of all the computer games, but I countered one of the reasons board games were popular was the price [Socceristic’s RRP is £29.99],” Keith said.

“Ron took the board out and got it all out. Within a few seconds George was into it.

“It was ten to three when we got there and I thought we’d be out within 20 minutes after the way the meeting started, but we were there until half five.

“George said this is a must for schools – it teaches kids the rules and he was all for it.”

FIFA’s interest is two-fold, Keith said. The game could be used for promotions as well as merchandise.

Football’s governing body is preparing for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and have said they will get back to the games inventor in March.

The game was officially launched at the UK Games Expo last July in Birmingham, but missed the window for the majority of large retailers’ Christmas 2011 choices, which were made last March.

This year it will also feature at the world’s biggest games fair in Essen, Germany in October.

As well as Socceristic, Quadraughts is a modern take on a classic game that allows up to four players to play on an extended board.

“People have said ‘why hasn’t this been thought of before’,” Keith said.

He has another game in the offing called Dimension Six, which his friends have described as an “absolute winner”.

The only element the games creator was willing to divulge at this stage was that everyone had a chance of winning right up until the last moment.

Keith believes “keeping the faith” in his ideas is now starting to pay off.

“It has been the most difficult seven years of my life,” he mused.

“You think ‘how am I going to meet next month’s bills’ but I’m a Christian and a lot of prayer went into it. I firmly believe God’s been opening doors for me.

“In 2005 that was the start of my seven years of lean and that comes to an end this year and now I hope it’s seven years of plenty!”

More information on Keith’s games can be found at www.ATBgames.co.uk and they can be purchased online from www.sifco.biz/shop