By Mike Lloyd For BBC News Online

Three computer buffs, all called Derek, believe they are on the road to success with their online football manager game.

Their pay-per-play game has won plaudits from industry experts who say interactive gaming online is one way in which the slumps in the dotcom sector can be tackled.

Computer games such as Championship Manager already allow fans to play god with - or at least be the boss of - their favourite teams.

But the three computer entrepreneurs have come up with an online version which they believe takes the game to another level.

"Lots of people already play leagues by e-mail," said Derek Gillanders, who along with Derek Husbands and Derek Scoulars, devised the Funkyfootball website.

You can type in the players' aggression levels, set training schedules, organise stadium seating and do all the things a real-life football manager does Derek Gillanders

"With e-mail, the person administering the league has a lot of typing to do. We wanted to make it more fun to play and less hassle."

After choosing players from a squad of 25, drawn from the Scottish and English leagues, players can hone their managerial skills over a 22-match season.

The team said that success depends on using the very same skills as any budding Alex Ferguson and any canny club chairman.

"You can type in the players' aggression levels, set training schedules, organise stadium seating and do all the things a real-life football manager does," Derek Gillanders explained.

The computer judges the manager's skills against a set of variables and generates the results.

Doctom uncertainty

"We have created a database back-end that crunches the numbers." said Derek.

Polly Purvis, boss of ScotlandIS, the trade body for Scottish IT entrepreneurs, believes Funkyfootball stands a chance of being a winner, even amid continued uncertainty for dotcoms.

"Interactive gaming online is going to increase. As broadband rolls out we will see new ways of developing internet capabilities," she said.

Polly believes there is a big reservoir of creative talent across Scotland, which reveals itself in the quality of site design and the success of Scottish-based organisations.

Derek Husbands is also in the team

She said: "Using the net to support business is a growth area and it's not going to go away."

The three Dereks are alive to the potential, as their core activity is business consultancy and software testing.

"The web is one of the tools you can use to bring creative business solutions to clients," said Derek Gillanders.

"It would be nice to cover our site development costs but we saw this as a personal challenge."

Covering costs might not be a problem. Within its first week the team said the site had 600 hits - despite lacking a listing by the major search engines.