Kick Off (series)

The Kick Off franchise is a series of football simulation computer games, first released in 1989. Kick Off, the first game of the series, was designed by Dino Dini and released by Anco for the Amiga and the Atari ST in 1989. The game was received well by the games industry at the time and won awards.

After the release of Kick Off several sequels were released. Player Manager was released in 1990. The game was the first game to combine a management environment (including tactics, league play, transfers, and detailed player attributes) with a football game engine (based on that of Kick Off). Kick Off 2 was released in 1990 as a sequel to Kick Off. The game introduced a number of new features as well as several small alterations.

In 1992, Dino Dini left Anco and signed a contract for Virgin Games, which released Goal! in 1993. Anco released several further editions of the Kick Off series between 1994 and 1997, but these games had little in common with Kick Off and Kick Off 2. In 2001–2003, the KOA collaborated closely with Anco developer Steve Screech in an attempt to relaunch the Kick Off and Player Manager series. Kick Off 2002 was released. Anco started to work on another sequel Kick Off 2004 which reached beta status. The attempt came to a halt when Anco closed in 2003.

Kick-off

Kickoff or kick-off may refer to

Kickoff (gridiron football)

A kickoff is a method of starting a drive in American football and Canadian football. Typically, a kickoff consists of one team – the "kicking team" – kicking the ball to the opposing team – the "receiving team". The receiving team is then entitled to return the ball, i.e., attempt to advance it towards the kicking team's end zone, until the player with the ball is tackled by the kicking team, goes out of bounds, or scores a touchdown. Kickoffs take place at the start of each half of play, the beginning of overtime in some overtime formats, and after some scoring plays.

Common variants on the typical kickoff format include the onside kick, in which the kicking team attempts to regain possession of the ball; a touchback, which may occur if the ball is kicked into the receiving team's end zone; or a fair catch, in which a player on the receiving team waives his entitlement to attempt a return in exchange for a chance to catch the ball without interference from the kicking team. Additionally, penalties exist for various infractions such as a player violating his position restrictions prior to the kick (5-yard penalty), or if the ball goes out of bounds before touching a player (20 yards or placed at receiving team's 40-yard line, whichever is farther).

Kick-off (association football)

A kick-off is the method of starting and, in some cases, restarting play in a game of association football. The rules concerning the kick-off are part of Law 8 of the Laws of the Game.

Award

A kick-off is used to start each half of play, and each period of extra time where applicable. The kick-off to start a game is awarded to the team that lost the pre-game coin toss (the team that won the coin-toss chooses which direction they wish to play). The kick-off begins when the referee blows the whistle. The kick-off to start the second half is taken by the other team. If extra time is played another coin-toss is used at the beginning of this period.

A kick-off is also used to restart play after a goal is scored, and is taken by the team that conceded the goal.

Procedure

The kick-off is taken from the center spot. All players must be in their own half of the field of play, and all opposing players must remain at least 10 yards (9.16m) from the ball (a distance marked on the pitch by the centre circle), until the ball is in play.