KICKER is a football manager simulation for the Atari ST, developed from 1987 by Dirk Weigand in GFA-Basic. Inspired by the Football Manager (1984) on the ZX Spectrum, it was one of the first German-language football managers ever made. In 1991 it was commercially released as Starbyte Super Soccer for Atari ST, Amiga and PC, receiving consistently positive reviews from the German gaming press. The game was never released outside Germany – all menus, player names and content are in German.
KICKER is a football manager simulation developed from 1987 onwards by Dirk Weigand in GFA-Basic for the Atari ST. In 1991 it was commercially released as Starbyte Super Soccer for Atari ST, Amiga and PC.
No. Both the original KICKER shareware and the commercial release Starbyte Super Soccer were exclusively published in Germany. The game, its menus and all player data are entirely in German. This memorial page offers an English version so international retro gaming enthusiasts can learn about this piece of Atari ST history.
As the KICKER Tribute Edition, the game now runs natively on iPhone, iPad and Android (beta, see Tribute). The original can also be played on Windows, macOS and Linux via the Atari ST emulator Hatari. Ready-made packages with a pre-configured emulator are available in the download section for Windows and macOS.
Yes, KICKER is available as a free download. The original shareware version including the manual and save codes can be downloaded at no cost.
Starbyte Super Soccer is the commercially published version of KICKER. It added a new title screen, music and stadium sounds, but the gameplay is largely identical to the original.
Yes, Dirk Weigand has published the original GFA-Basic source code (approx. 20,000 lines) on GitHub. The revised version 1.82d with bug fixes is also available there.
How a summer-holiday project became Starbyte Super Soccer – and why the Tribute Edition exists: