Play by Mail Football

[ZeroCipher]

Before management sims really kicked in there was various play by mail football leagues advertised in the likes of Shoot magazine

Did anyone play any of these?

[SirClive]

Yes. I played in one for a while. To be honest it wasn't that much fun as it had no more depth than the original football manager. I much prefered the play by mail gangster game It's A Crime.

[Crunchy]

Yes. I played in one for a while. To be honest it wasn't that much fun as it had no more depth than the original football manager. I much prefered the play by mail gangster game It's A Crime.

OMG we is teh old farts! lol

I played loads of the KJC stuff. I was in on the early version of KJC's Quest when it was called Dark Blades and was made by a different company. Ever play Spiral Arm? Top stuff.

It's a pity RG is videogame-centric. An article on PBM would be well funny. Total nerdness. I absolutely loved it.

I've got a box full of old PBM stuff somewhere and I'm going to have to dig it out. There's an rpg I used to play and I just can't remember the name of it.

[SirClive]

Ha KJC, that was them!

I would love RG to do a piece on PBM.

[goldenone]

I played in one called Soccerstar for around 12 years costing £1.60 per week.

It went over to play by e-mail and it was at this time i left as it never had that same appeal as receiving my weekly paper turn through the post

[NRGuk]

Please explain how you would play by mail.... this sounds.... RETRO!

[goldenone]

You used to get a multi sheet 'turn' through the post each week containing match info, transfer markets, team info, stadium info, results, leagues and more. Was rather comprehensive too

On the last sheet you wrote your team and tactics for the next match and any other things such as sponsorship deals, bids for players etc then sent it back to be processed. One week later you would get your 'turn' again and the process would continue.

I think most play by mail companies have turned to play by e-mail and it really isn't the same if you ask me. I used to love getting my weekly turn through the post but it lost its appeal once it went online only

[thingonaspring]

i worked in a small hardware/DIY store on saturdays when i was 15 (so about 18 years ago now), and one of my colleagues used to play one of them. i have no idea which it was, but i used to look through all the papers with him every week. had forgotten all about them though, and never did them myself!

[ZeroCipher]

I found some paper work from one if the pbm football I used to do it was called Apex Soccer league


There is another one I used to play and did very well with I won trophies and medals but I cannot remember it's name

[NRGuk]

I can imagine that the fun was getting the mail each week.... taking the excitement if getting that and going through it like a newspaper.....

[IronMaidenRule]

I used to play one of these and it was fantastic!!

loved take the match reports to school and reading about how my team done, even remember phone a few people to arrange transfers of players....then I got Championship Manager 3 and thought why pay for a by post service, when I can play it all day for free.

[NRGuk]

Football manager games now are amazing, but you would get a write up of your team each week or would it literally be 'your name here' generice bit'your name here' generice bit'your name here' generice bit'your name here' generice bit

[STranger81]

Me and my dad used to do a play by mail football. I cant remember the name but I recall it was based in Derbyshire. We used to really enjoy it but we stopped playing after about 3 months because I signed a player (on the "transfer list" page you got the name of the player, club, fee and the name and phone number of the person who was selling so you had to ring their house and negotiate over the phone!) and although I filled out the required form the company never switched the player to my team. I even rang the office and they said it would be done next time, it never was so we stopped paying.

[NRGuk]

Did anyone ever find an old sheet they got through the mail to scan in:?

[Gonad]

Did anyone ever find an old sheet they got through the mail to scan in:?

KJC are still going strong.

There's a sample turn sheet from their football game (Extra Time) on their site:

http://www.kjcgames.com/extra/sampleturn.htm

I never played that one. I played Quest (Game 10) and Island.

There used to be Quest pubmeets in Blackpool, and the guy that owned KJC Games (Kevin Cropper) used to come along.

It all worked out quite expensive though, and the internet pretty much killed it off for me.