Fáilte go dtí Catch And Kick

After playing in a couple of events with TFAI over the past year, I can see a few areas where the rules need to be readdressed to be really playable. Some of these are things which I can already identify and I already have ideas for how to fix them. Others won't actually show up until the game has been tested in competition. The problem is that the rules were based on an old Subbuteo rule book I found in a box set, which is nowhere near as comprehensive as the 70+ page rule book produced by FISTF. This leaves quite a few gaps which need to be filled. At the Celbridge Open last weekend, i was speaking to some of the guys about the possibility of holding a Catch and Kick tournament. Ideally I'd hope to have the game feady for tournament play by the All-Ireland tournament in September, which means we'll need to have some games before that to fully test and refine the rules.

Over the next week I'll be making some changes to the rules which I've already identified. These include rules governing the use of the kicking figure / chipping ramp, and including backs instead of free kicks more frequently. Hopefully this will go some way towards making the game more playable without sacrificing the things which make the game unique and more like Gaelic Football than soccer.

Slán,

Paul

I've just ordered a new piece of fabric for the playable version of the pitch. This means I can finally replace the test version I made, which has several very obvious mistakes on it. The new fabric will be exactly 1600 x 1100, so it will fit the board exactly. Once I get legs on the table I'll be up and running.

Transporting it around the place is out of the question though, as it's too big to fit in the car. This means that I'll have to host any "tournaments" in my house!

An advantage I found with the baize is that there is absoltely no need to polish the player bases. Unpolished bases can still travel from one end of the pitch to another.

Got the board today for the playable version of the game. It's 1600mm X 1100mm. I also have a piece of green baize, 1500mm X 1000mm for the pitch. I'm going to mark this out over the next few days and then fix it to the board. Once this is done, legs will be put onto the board so I will have a permanent playable surface for the games. I have a few lengths of board to use as a border on the pitch. However, I'm going to have to find a way to attach nets behind the goal to stop the ball from flying off the table every time a point is scored or attempted!

At first I thought I would have to abandon the idea of the stadium due to the lack of space. It seemed like a choice between the game and the model, but then I thought: can I not have both? Now the attic will be floored out so the model can go up there as a permanent installation piece.

I'm happy now!!!

Slán,

Paul

Just started linking this blog to my Facebook page (which means I might actually use this blog now).

Since Facebook imported the blog, it has my old posts now at the top of my list of notes. This won't be an issue in the future.

I got two books from Amazon today: one is "Model-Making Materials and Methods" and the other is "The Architectural Drawing Course". Since I know nothing whatsoever about model-making, I decided that this year I'm going to do my best to learn so that I can finally start constructing my own stands. However, I'm going to keep the Zeugo stands until such time as I manage to build something I can be proud of.

There's still a delay on getting the new table, but I have at least cleared the room to make way for it when it arrives. (Just waiting for the contractor to get his thumb out.) I've built a desk in the room as well where I can do the construction work and paint the teams.

Slán libh,

Paul.

It's finally happened! My love for the Kerry team and Manchester United are now flying the same flag. As you probably know, United fans are taking a stand against the American owners of the club by boycotting the regular United colours and instead using the colours of Newton Heath LYR (the club which went on to become Manchester United). You may remember back in the 90s United used the old Newton Heath jersey as their away strip, which had green and gold halves. Now for the United games I can just rely on my Kerry flags, scarves etc.

"Green & gold till the club is sold!"

Slán,

Paul

LU*HG

Due to unforeseen delays, the construction of the trable for the stadium has been delayed. At the moment, i can't say how long things will be delayed for. In the meantime, it gives me plenty of time to second- and third-guess the way I'm going to build the stadium!

Slán,

Paul

I've completed my overhaul of the homepage (I think). Some of the ramblings have been taken off and put onto a new "About" page. The plan is that the home page gets straight to the point with a brief summary of the project as a whole, leaving detail and discussion to the relevant pages.

One thing I've noticed though is, looking at the traffic stats, many of the hits I get come from search engines, mainly Google. I dropped Subbuteo from the domain name so as to avoid any copyright infringement, but I'm definitely keeping the word in the site description and homepage since that is the term that is almost always used in searches linking to my site. I'm starting to see the importance of striking images on the site too. Many of the hits come from image searches rather than text searches, so obviously some people see the picture and are intrigued enough to click.

When I see the number of hits my site receives and how far around the world they come from, I'm in complete shock sometimes. When I started this whole thing, I was just doing it for myself as a hobby and never considered the thought that anyone outside my close circle of friends and family would have any interest in the project. And while I know that no-one leaves comments on the blog and not many people send me emails, it is very humbling to see how much of an interest, however passing, is being taken in what I'm doing.

So to whoever you are that is reading this, whether you are a friend / family member or stumbled across this site by accident, go raibh míle, míle maith agat. You are giving me the encouragement to go on and complete this project, and make it the bast i can.

Slán,

Paul

Since I've now posted a list of playable rules, I decided to make a playable pitch. The soccer pitches were never done to scale (they appear to be set at 1:100 scale as opposed to the OO scale players and the oversized goals). Since many Subbuteo enthusiasts often have stadia built around their pitch, I made a pitch that would fit the exact same size as the soccer pitch. (116cm x 77cm).

The only times I deviated from this scale are in the width (it should really be 72cm) and in the size of the penalty area, which had to be made bigger than usual due to the size of the goalposts which need to be larger in a playable game. Other than that, I think it looks okay. All that remains now is to find someone to play against and I'm sorted.

(Eventually a picture of the pitch will be going here)

I also finally got around to adding a thank you page for all the people who have helped me along the way and a links page which strangely enough contains... links.

Slán libh arís,

Paul

The site is starting to take shape! At least I think it is. Other people might reckon it's complete crap, but what can you do...

I've finished amending the stadium history. I've also changed some of the pictures on the site as some people had mentioned to me that they were taking forever to load. The same photographs are up, but as a new version which takes up about 100Kb on aaverage as opposed to 3-4Mb. I tidied up the homepage a bit too, but I may do more.

Finally, I've resumed work on the "How to Play" section. The rules for the throw in have been completely revamped, and I've clarified some points about the shoulder tackle. Basically you can't knock an opponent off the board and call it a fair shoulder! Many thanks are due to Richard Pepper for his assistance in testing out the new rules and for his advice and suggestions.

Slán,

Paul