KickAbout Rulebook

A KICKABOUT season lasts 16 league sessions (in some PBM games these are called turns, and the words should be regarded as synonymous with one another) and the close season session when ageing of your squad occurs. Each session your Club will play a number of matches, usually two, sometimes three, and on rare occasions, four. Each session you submit a team selection sheet on which you will select your team for all the matches to be played during that session. You also make various other tactical and financial decisions regarding your Club at this time. When we receive them at this end, your orders are fed into our computers, which then play the matches and produce the results. These are returned to you in your team sheets and the League Newsletter, which also contains league tables, match reports, news, a press column for managers to contact each other, transfer details, cup draws, rules updates, and so on. The newsletter is the hub around which the game revolves, and is open to player contributions as well . Professionally published and written in lively style, the newsletter is usually at least twelve pages in length, often sixteen or more, and many players feel it is worth the price of the game on its own!

When you join KICKABOUT you will either be managing a brand new team in a new League or, more likely, taking over the management of an existing one. In the former case you will be randomly placed in one of the four divisions created for the new league and, at the end of the season, the top three teams from each division will form Division One for the following season, the second three teams forming Division Two and so on. If you join an existing League you will either takeover an existing team, or you may have the opportunity to start with a new team at season’s end in a lower division (where you can build up your strength free from the power of that League’s leading teams). In an existing league each twelve-man division will operate a three-up, three-down system of promotion and relegation at season’s end. Goal difference will separate clubs on the same number of points, while if this fails to separate them, then the team that scores the most goals will be placed higher. At the beginning of the season you will be provided with a complete fixture list of all your League matches for the coming season so you know who you are playing in the league in each session and can make your team selections accordingly. Also, details of all the other teams, plus their manager’s contact addresses are provided along with your fixture list, so that you can make deals and arrange friendlies etc.

There are many competitions within a KICKABOUT season besides the League Championship itself, and it is often these competitions that keep a season alive for a team struggling to maintain the league form needed to win Division Championships.

With the knock-out competitions, such as the Cup [and the Bowl for those are KO’d at the 1st round of the Cup], the games works as a straight one-leg competition, with a replay being played if the first match ends in a draw after ninety minutes. This replay will be on the opponent’s turf, and will go to extra time, and a penalty shoot-out if necessary.

The third knockout competition played within a league is the Trophy, which runs in the second half of the season and encompasses all the Third and Fourth Division clubs and the bottom eight in Division Two. The Trophy is different in that there are no replays. The games, if drawn, go into extra time and, if required, a penalty shootout.

The longest running knockout competition inside every League is the League Cup. The first round consists of the 32 lowest-placed teams in the league from last season, who will play each other on a two-leg basis, the winners going through to meet the remaining 16 teams for round two [ the12 sides from Division 1 and the top 4 in Division 2 ] . These will be played as two-legs also, as will round three and the Quarter-Finals. Both the Semi-finals and Final are straight one-leg games and will be played on Neutral grounds with the games going to a replay and extra time if drawn, again held on neutral grounds. Note that Email and premier leagues might well have differing League Cup set-ups.

You must check your Pre-Season Info booklet for the session times of all these competitions, and your league schedule. If you have more than two scheduled matches on any one session, you will be unable to arrange any friendly games (see later) for that same session, and you do not want to miss putting a team out for a vital cup game.

During the season there will also be REPRESENTATIVE games between sides chosen from the best players in each Kickabout League. Players chosen for the Representative Squad will earn their clubs a £50,000 (50K) bonus, each and every time they are chosen for the squad. The Representative squad manager will usually be the Manager voted Manager of the Year from the previous season for each league. The League that wins the ‘REP’ competition gives all its players a higher chance of turning STAR the following season, and existing STARS may even start the new season still a STAR, so winning the REP competition is a big, big bonus to have.

As every league of KICKABOUT, plays its season in parallel with all the other leagues, the management of Euro games is somewhat different to others. Your normal matches are played on the session you send in your orders, and you can see their results in the newsletter for that session. However, Cross-League games differ from this in that the competitions that feature teams from every league cannot be played until the data for each of those leagues has been entered. Consequently, for matches where your opposition is from another league, you will have to wait until the following session before you learn of the results. The matches are played at the very end of the session for ALL leagues, so the results of the game will be applied to your squad sheets BEFORE your next set of matches are entered. This means that any suspensions, injuries and/or SP’s you gain will already have been added to your squad, and though the SP’s will be carried over until NEXT session, the unavailable players will still count as being so for the current one. This is why you may find you need to rely on your substitutes, as players you pick thinking that they are eligible for the game, may not be. If the result of a cross-league game is of specific importance to you, then you may prefer to call us and find out the result before submitting your team for the next session.

INTERNATIONAL matches also take place, and International managers are generally selected by the GM, based on individual success, club player nationalities and other factors. All players of the selected nationalities have a chance of playing for their country during the International tournaments, based on their current ability and form. Players selected for this International squad all gain their clubs a 25K bonus EACH TIME that they are chosen for the international squad.

Managers who control an International side can also gain benefits for their own club too, in the form of financial rewards for success and a prize of 1 Motivation Point for each time they win a match + 100K if this is against higher rated opposition. Only by beating the best do you get rewards. International managers also receive a free SUPERSCOUT for their club side on the basis that they know more about the players in any particular league through their International scouts. Each Representative and International team is allocated 20 MPs and 2 PPs which can be used up during the season. The maximum aggression that can be played in any match is four points (see later). The player who manages the winner s/ runners-up and beaten semi-finalists of the international competitions will win a cash prize for his club as well.

The squad selection process is controlled by the computer, which will produce a 22 man squad for the managers concerned to select from. Generally it selects the best players in each League, though some specialist players might be conspicuous by their absence at times. The managers concerned then have to select the team in exactly the same way as they would for normal club match.

Selected, experienced managers, will be invited to manage International and Rep squads

Finally, after all the hurly-burly of the important games and matches, we reach the relatively low-key, though crucial Friendly games. Clubs who have no second or third match in any session may play a friendly (one per session only). This has to be arranged by yourself (the Yahoo forums are a good place to oranise these), and will be against a team from your League.

If you are lucky there will be a player-run friendly pool in your league (see the appropriate league's startup newsletter for news of this!)

Friendlies are vital for youth development and are exactly the same in all respects as competitive matches. There is no aggression allowed in a friendly match, though the computer will apply a random aggression with the consequent results. This random aggression is generated with its base in the number of disciplinary points each side has generated during the season; when two notoriously dirty teams meet in a friendly game, you can bet that it will be anything but!

Winners of friendly games receive 10K, though no success points.

Note that you can only play friendlies against the same opponent twice per season, once at home and once away; there are NO neutral ground friendlies.

Friendlies are EXTREMELY important for bringing on young players, but tend to be treated in a somewhat cavalier fashion by many managers. If somebody contacts you to play a game, make sure you turn up and at the right venue as well! Otherwise the game won’t be played. Also, always check that a prior commitment doesn’t prevent your opponent from playing (a Cup replay perhaps). Friendly slots are too valuable to lose, but it often happens.

Also, when arranging frieldlies remember that if you play your derby opponent in a friendly then it will still be a derby game, and this is the ONLY case in which you are allowed to select aggression for the match; four points is the minimum AND maximum in this case. You must apply this minimum yourself or it will be doubled by the computer.

==== KickAbout lists on-line

Since the majority of our players, use Shomatch, Teampick and MarkInfo and receive their session updates via Shomatch, each league within the game has its own online list where managers chat, arrange deals and discuss issues involving the improvement of Kickabout.

So if you had a team in the Disraeli league, you would apply to join that list ka-disraeli@yahoogroups.com ] through the GM and then Disraeli specific items will not clog up the main Kickabout list, Kickabout@yahoogroups.com.