Dirk had very little interest in real sport when I was growing up. I couldn’t see the appeal of grown men kicking a bag of wind from one end of the field to another. How could I see any entertainment in such mundane sports when my imagination was fired by 2000ad comic? Week in, week out, the comic featured a futuristic twist on popular games: Johnny Slade was my hero in MEAN ARENA in which whole towns were cleared for a twisted version of street-American-football, but there were others, such as the HARLEM HEROS, basketball with jet packs, and in mega city one there was Chopper, the low flying surfer, or the amazing human pin balls encased in the miracle plastic Boing.

My favourite of all was the STRONTIUM DOG episode THE KILLING which featured Johnny Alpha participating in a battle to the death against the most notorious villains in the galaxy. It was recreated as a game for the Sinclair spectrum which seemed like the best that home entertainment was ever going to get, even if it did take 20 minutes to load every time you wanted to play.

In recognition of BATTLE ROYALE being added to the Dirk Hall of Fame, here follows some more future investment options for the Glazers.

WINNER TAKES IT ALL

1) Rollerball in ROLLERBALL (1975) In the not-to-distant future wars will no longer exist instead there will be James Caan recreating a good night at the Nevada. It was remade by The Goodies as ROLLER-EGG introducing the extra element of an egg and spoon race.

2) Holographic Chess Set in STAR WARS (1977) Forget the iPad, where is this table-top Harryhausan kit that we were promised as kids? Just remember to let the wookie win

3) The Running Man Game Show in THE RUNNING MAN (1987) Cardigan Man of The Year 1977 presents his tour de force, not least because director Paul Michael Glaser managed to get Arnie in a silly body suit in a film that has everything (including Mick Fleetwood)

4) Trace Bikes in TRON (1982) If there was no TRON then there wouldn’t have been the wonderful TRON coin-op game that was hammered in the summer of 1986 in Morecambe. Living the dream.

LOSER STANDING SMALL

5) International Street Fighting in STREET FIGHTER (1994) The late Raul Julia camps it up as M Bison against Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Guile in this recreation of the computer game. Of course there have been more rubbish film adaptations of computer games but not even Kylie could rescue this crock of ‘ELLO KEN! Wot, no Blanka?