Sure, it was free and fun albeit a bit slow to get going over the first half of the season especially under the old points system of two for a win and one for a draw.
As the competition hotted up after the Christmas games such a tab system would have been very useful and informative but in a household of five children it is a fact that stuff went missing, became mislaid, chewed up or in the Hoover.
A key point in the long English season would be the appearance on the Match of The Day league tables of the thick lines at the top to indicate the serious contenders for what was then the First Division title but more ominously and drastically at the bottom of the table the line represented a trapdoor inviting potential freefall through the lower divisions into obscurity, financial straits and an average crowd of three men and an unattached dog.
By the time those decisive lines appeared the SHOOT! league ladders would be decimated with only a handful of workable tabs so as to be just about useless. That nervousness at the back of my psyche at this time in the football season persists even into what is now my 50th year of which I can confidently say that 42 of them have been as a football fan.
Of course, as a starter supporter you have to go with a top team. I lived in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk up to the age of about 10. The two nearest and reasonably achieving teams were Ipswich Town and Norwich but I started as a Chelsea supporter. Why? I am not really sure except the Chelsea team of that era were dominant and with great players including Peter Osgood, John Hollins and Peter Bonetti. Their kit could also be replicated with just blue shorts with a white stripe sewn on down the side and a blue polo shirt without the expense of an authentic one.
My allegiance switched to Liverpool soon after as I got a proper Umbro team kit for what must have been my 10th or 11th birthday and we moved northwards into Lincolnshire. I went with my father to my first football match at Scunthorpe United and the Liverpool connection was strong with the club having recently sold both Ray Clemence and Kevin Keegan and the rest is history. Scunthorpe were at that time persistent under-acheivers mostly in the old fourth division but I followed them keenly. It was Ok to support the local team but you also had to have a First Division allegiance and I stuck to Liverpool until a period of disillusionment at some time in the late 1970's when I flirted briefly with West Bromwich Albion. It was more out of spite for the Liverpool success and wanting to be different than anything serious.
1979 saw a move to Yorkshire and Hull City. I tagged along with new schoolmates to the old Boothferry Park which was a crumbling shadow of some former glory. It had its own railway spur to bring supporters from the city centre some 3 miles away but most arrived on foot after clogging up the surrounding streets with vehicles and buses.
There were good and bad times as a Hull City attendee. I will not dwell on the facts, suffice to say that the club were so very close to going out of business altogether on a few occasions.
In this current season with Hull City back in the top flight Premier League I am sorely missing those SHOOT! tabs because it is time to plot and predict the outcome of the final four to five games. I am not interested in the battle to win the title but in the fortunes of the 11 teams from mid table downwards who are perilously close to the three relegation places.
Hull City are, as I write, in thirteenth spot.
In the absence of slotted tabs and a bit of incompetence with Spreadsheets I have a lot of scribbled hand written notes which are revisited and reviewed regularly as games loom up and slip by.
Hull City's success in getting to the FA Cup Final has been a bit of a distraction and I have been shocked at how the points gaps between the eleven teams has condensed in the meantime.
Former write offs in my reckoning have suddenly hit form. The announcement a couple of weeks ago that on 36 points Hull City were safe from the drop has been premature and based on optimistic hope.
I have transposed my scribblings below. The order of teams is as per today's league position (18th April)
Current Points Team Games Left Points Predicted final
43 Stoke City 4- Cardiff, Spurs, Fulham, WBA 50
40 Crystal Palace 4- West Ham, Man City, L'Pool, Fulham 46
37 West Ham 4- Palace, WBA, Spurs, Man City 40
36 Hull City 5- Arsenal, Fulham, Villa, Man Utd, Everton 42
34 Aston Villa 5-S'hampton, Swansea, Hull, Man City, Spurs 37
33 Swansea 4- Newcastle, Villa, S'hampton, Sunderland 37
33 West Brom 5-Man City, West Ham, Arsenal, Sun'land, Stoke 36
32 Norwich City 4- Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal 32
30 Fulham 4- Spurs, Hull City, Stoke, Crystal Palace 31
29 Cardiff City 4- Stoke, Sunderland, Newcastle, Chelsea 31
26 Sunderland 5- Chelsea, Cardiff, Man Utd, WBA, Swansea 35
Final predicted positions
Stoke City
Crystal Palace
Hull City
West Ham
Swansea
Aston Villa
West Brom
Sunderland
-----------------------------------------The line of doom-------------------------------------------
Norwich City
Cardiff City
Fulham
To be continued......................................
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