REVIEW: Footy Nation is a unique combination of crazy footgolf and indoor football skill park games that all the family can enjoy in the half-term holidays and beyond, writes Neil Docking

Half-term holidays are anticipated and dreaded in equal measure by many parents. And for good reason - just how do you keep your children entertained day after day, especially if a storm has just struck and it's tipping it down?

Well, if you're based in the North West, then I've got a cracking suggestion for you: Footy Nation. Though I can't promise there won't be a strop or two if, like me, your wife unexpectedly unleashes her hidden talents, transforms into Lionel Messi and puts you all to shame!

A unique combination of crazy footgolf and indoor football skill park games, Footy Nation at Ocean Plaza Leisure Complex in Southport is a great way to spend some time together as a family or with a group of mates.

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It's worth booking in advance, because it's very popular and can get pretty busy - especially on a rainy day. It's £14.95 per person and you can play in groups of up to four, which was perfect for us. But larger groups including children's parties can book consecutive slots, so you're still all together.

As advised, we arrived 15 minutes beforehand and got stuck into the games in the waiting area, the Player's Lounge. They include table football and what I can only describe as ‘under table football’. I've since learned it's called Subsoccer - and it's loads of fun.

There's a bar serving everything from fresh coffee to fizzy drinks and alcohol. Or in our children's case, red and blue slushies - the perfect accompaniment to any sporting endeavour. Plus there's hot and cold snacks, so we could have lunch afterwards.

The session began with a trip to 'The Boot Room', where the six games we would be playing were explained in easy to follow videos. The games are easy to understand - not easy to master!

The first was Spin Ball, where you have to kick the ball up a ramp and try and get your weight of shot just right to land it in one of three holes. The lowest is easiest to reach but scores the fewest points, while the middle is the trickiest, but with the biggest reward.

It's a good game to introduce you to the course but clog-footed dad here didn't know his own strength and kept hitting it far too hard! What's brilliant though is that you can succeed with different strategies - racking up points with lots of quick low scores, or taking your time and trying to hit the jackpot.

The second game Match Ball features another ramp, but this time you have to kick the ball up the slope and try and land it as close as possible to a target before it comes back down, you control it, and kick again. You can see your scores live so the pressure sets in, especially when your wife has already taken an early lead!

Next up was Skill Ball, which as a right-back by trade, you can probably guess didn't suit my limited abilities of running all day and kicking people! It was definitely a challenge, dribbling through a maze of obstacles, nutmegging mannequins, and skipping around poles, with speed and precision key. I'd say I unleashed my inner Ron Atkinson rather than my inner Ronaldo, but my daughter really shone on this one.

The fourth test was Score Ball, where finally I found my groove, shooting against a wall of different targets. You have to race against the clock and again decide whether to aim for lower targets carrying fewer points, or the high targets with high rewards. It's also a genuine workout - racing to control the ball as it bounces back and shoot at goal again.

The fifth game is Curve Ball, another tricky one where you have to place your shots and curve the ball around a course, because the higher the ball crosses the line, the more points you score. By now I'd hit my stride, meaning it was all to play for in the final challenge.

This was probably the most fun of all six games: Pin Ball. On the one hand it's exactly as it sounds, with a pinball machine style course. Except it's supersized, there are three footballs all in play at once, and your feet are the flippers!

It's really frantic and a bit mad, which suited my son perfectly. He'd have scored higher if he hadn't kept breaking into fits of laughter.

Overall, the Footy Nation course took us around 50 minutes to complete, but we spent nearly an hour and a half there in total when you factor in the games we played beforehand and getting some food.

At the end, it was time to see the final results and pose for celebratory photos with our scoreboard. Needless to say, my not-at-all smug wife was very proud of her first-place finish!

A nice touch is that you can also take as many photos as you like on a screen with backdrops of trophies, player cards and a manager's chair, which you can download to your phone for free. Not that I'll be sharing any pictures of Mrs Docking holding her trophy aloft...

To find out more about Footy Nation visit the website www.footynation.com.