‘A thing of beauty’

Following the release of our action-packed new stamp collection celebrating landmark UK-designed video games from the 1980s and 90s, the gaming community and stamp fans alike took to Twitter en masse to sing their praise.

Reminiscing those days of yore, retro gamers and ‘dads of a certain disposition’ harking after the simplicity of a joystick and a single button, tweet-stormed their memories of halcyon nights spent worshipping those big bold colours and blocky 8-bit renditions of games such as Lemmings and Dizzy, when it was common, indeed embraced, to spend 40 minutes pressing the hyperspace bar in Elite and still never seeing anything!

Of all the games featured in our new Special Stamp set however, there was one clear favourite. Balls sticking to one’s feet, giant pixels, two pixels of sock per leg to be precise, marvellously over-the-top diving headers in the six-yard box and poleaxed players commonly heaped atop each other? Yes, you’ve guessed it, Sensible Soccer, often affectionately known as Sensi, was a football video game series, which still retains a cult following.

From matchstick men to movie quality graphics, virtual versions of the beautiful game have come a long way in 40 years. But Sensible Soccer, from 1992, is seen by many to be the father of digital football games.

Want to see a middle-aged football-game fanatic cry a tear of nostalgia? Ask them about Sensible Soccer. Mainly found on the Commodore Amiga system, it captured the hearts of a generation. In June 1994, Computer Gaming World stated: ‘In the debate over the best football action/tactical game, there’s no doubt that Sensible Soccer is in everyone's top three, no matter what format,’ while in 2007, the sequel, Sensible World of Soccer was named one of the 10 most important games of all time.

‘I knew Sensible Soccer, more than any other game, would be massive,’ said the game’s designer, Jon Hare, who explained what prompted the creation of his football opus was dissatisfaction with all the other soccer games on the market, at the time. ‘You knew it was something special. It was like magic…

‘Of all the games we ever made, this was the one that, within a month or two, you just knew it'd be a hit.’

See below for a selection of tweets paying homage to the ‘best game ever.’

• @MundialMag – the 1992 video game that still makes dads of a certain disposition nostalgic for crispy pancakes and endless games of Sensi, and seeing it lovely recreated as a first-class stamp is a fitting tribute to its lasting legacy.
• @FitnessRewards1 – Royal Mail are bringing out a Sensible Soccer stamp. How cool is that? Still the greatest football game ever!!
• @theculturedivis – A Sensible Soccer postage stamp? Oh yes, @RoyalMail.
• @DaveNotInSpace – @jonhare @Sociable_Soccer I lost my childhood doing full careers on SWOS (95/96 was my all-time favourite version). What a game and what a fantastic set of stamps from @RoyalMail
• @White_Horse – Incredible homage to the the original game. Great work @RoyalMail
• @­_box2box – New stamp from @RoyalMail paying sweet homage to Sensible Soccer is too beautiful.

Click here to read more on how the grand behemoth that was Sensible Soccer came to be. We are currently running a ‘guess the goal’ competition on Twitter. Enter your answer before 23:59 on Friday 24 January to win a stamp enlargement signed by the goalscorer himself!