KickAbout Rulebook

KICKABOUT is paid for by players every Session, with current fees per session running at just £3.00 for the postal and premier leagues, with the e-mail leagues from September 2009 running at £2.75 per session. This fee is irrespective of how many games you play in that session as we unlike other soccer PBM’s, can see no reason for penalising players who achieve success and hence have to play more games. On top of this basic cost, there is a start-up fee to pay upon joining the game, which is currently £7.50, for which you get your rulebook, back newsletters, team-sheets and first two sessions. For brandnew managers, you may be asked to credit your account with enough money to cover the first FOUR sessions (£12.00), as we tend to prefer keeping idle browsers and rulebook collectors at bay. You are in no way losing out with this, as you will still get the sessions you would have to pay for anyway, but it stops the casual players dropping in and out of the game on every other session, and upsetting the flow and feel of league as a result. I you have email though you can get this and your first turn for free. In KICKABOUT, Managers who drop out (or are sacked), are replaced as soon as possible, normally on the same session. Unlike many of our competitors, we cannot see the point in playing computer-run teams we much prefer having real people as Managers running our teams!

A full-season of KICKABOUT, covering sixteen sessions in all (and including your pre-season Session startup fee), costs £51.00 for the postal and premier leagues; whilst the e-mail leagues all season costs just £46.75. Please note that this payment is non-refundable, as you have reserved your position in the league for the whole season, and if you choose to drop out, then you forfeit your right to any recovery of that money. Our side of the agreement is that we will supply a whole season of KICKABOUT for your payment, which we will always meet. If you choose not to play it, then it is you that is breaking the agreement, not us. And, as a final note, if you submit orders when your account is overdrawn, or does not have enough money in it to cover the current session (i.e. less than £3.00 for postal and premier leagues and £2.75 for the e-mail leagues), you will be charged a double turn fee. This is done to discourage those players who seem to think we are a bank, not a business, and constantly play accounts which are overdrawn. The phrase which sums up our position is

`You must pay to play’

Ignore this, and you will find yourself pushed further into debt. If, after this, you submit a second set of orders without credit, you will be sacked as manager of the team, and your position given to someone else. Try to remember that we are a business, not a hobby; I do have a family to feed after all. If you advise a friend to join KICKABOUT, and he tells us that you did so on his start-up turn, we will credit your account with one session’s turn fees as a thank-you. However, please explain to your friends that they must send in their £7.50 start-up fee if they wish to play KICKABOUT, as just submitting their name and address will get them nothing at all.

It is still possible to play the game by sending and receiving your turns in the post.

There are two ways of paying for your mailing costs throughout the season, either by submitting an SAE each session, or by paying for a whole seasons mailing in advance. The latter option will cost you just £7.50 (£9.50 Overseas) for the whole season, while the former means that you MUST submit an SAE each session, and be liable to a £1.00 surcharge that is needed as we try and stem the rising tide of players who cannot be bothered to do either. Be warned; if you don’t pay for your mailing, and don’t submit SAE’s, then you will find that it gets very expensive!

We aim to keep the game to a four-week turnaround for postal leagues, fortnightly for email leagues so that you gain the maximum enjoyment from our product. Each session your squad sheet will inform you of the next RETURN-BY-DATE, which will be the day we expect your orders to arrive back to us.

Any orders arriving twenty-four hours after this date will be deemed late and you will receive one less automatic Success Point [SP] on the following session, so it is up to you to return your orders swiftly to keep the SP’s flowing. Your turns will generally (all things allowing) be processed the day after the RETURN-BY-DATE and if we do not have your orders then we will use the NO MANAGER RULES (below).

Hopefully your next turn will be back in the post a day or two after that so that you will have plenty of time in which to return your next set of orders. If you have trouble in meeting deadlines, it might be wise to submit a set of stand-by orders for us to follow, rather than use the No Manager rules. This will save you precious SP’s, and will allow you to make a rough guess on what team will actually make the park for any missed games. At the start of a new season, you will be sent a standard orders sheet anyway, and if you choose not to use it, then that is up to you.

If a manager misses a session and doesn’t submit orders then the computer will select his team for him (unless he has submitted stand-by orders), but this tends to be done with little tactical thought, so your team will not do as well as if you had selected it (at least, usually!!). No success points will be allocated to training during that session; all available SP’s are converted into cash at a rate of 100K per SP instead.

Obviously, missing turns is not going to help your team building very much!

If a second session is missed then we will assume that you have dropped out of the game and a new manager will be sought to take over the management of your team. Game over!

If you feel we have made a major mistake somewhere, or there appears to be an error made concerning your orders, then please include some documentary evidence (turn sheets, printouts, etc.) when contacting us about it. Without these we have no way of checking your claims and any errors cannot be rectified. We reserve the right to overrule any claims if we consider it necessary and our decision is final. Please don’t ask for a whole session to be re-run if the error is one that cannot easily be put right. We will do all we can to rectify mistakes on our part, but we obviously cannot do anything that will adversely affect the other players in the game. Such errors are very rare indeed, and though they do occur, we hope that you will never be the victim of one. Finally, please remember that we are human, and with the sheer volume of data entry involved in KICKABOUT, we cannot claim to be 100% accurate for 100% of the time.

To err is to be human after all! [Rumour has it the GM is an alien though]!!!!!

This rulebook is only an outline of what the game of KICKABOUT contains. Much of the game revolves around the Newsletter, and it is from here that news, rules and ideas flow. Things such as the Kickabout Weekends breathe additional life into this already fascinating game, while your fellow managers are also a source of news and views, and you will receive the names and contact addresses of these with your start-up materials and fixture lists. Contacting them to arrange deals, friendly fixtures or just for an exchange of ideas can prove as much fun as the game itself.

Whatever you get out of KICKABOUT, we feel sure that you will come to see why the game is regarded as the most complex, rewarding and fulfilling of its kind on the PBM market today. Good Luck with your side, and may you reap the rewards your planning and luck deserve.

(This rulebook updated with the help of Graeme `Councilor’ Miller)