2 years ago my SPF collection numbered just 3 seasons. At that point I had just rediscovered the game after nearly a 20 year hiatus but quickly fell under its stat’s heav(enl)y spell and in short order I began filling in the gaps quicker than boiled asparagus. Fast forward 2 years and I now have almost every season ever produced either by Avalon Hill or unofficial fan based efforts. My interest and focus has always been on the Houston Oilers, my team that I adopted in the mid 80’s when the game was first shown on UK tv. Other blog posts explain the cracked/warped thinking behind choosing this bunch of underachievers suffice to say my experience playing this game has had its fair share of ups and downs.
As new seasons were being produced I began to want to play a wider range of consecutive seasons, if nothing else but to allow me to get through some of those bad Houston years……..Then unexpectedly in October 2020 the 1966 season was produced. At this point my focus had always been to try to replay only play-off games from the first Superbowl. With the advent of the ’66 season I could do just that and go back to the start. It also meant I could try out another idea that I had been mulling over of a knockout tournament that would allow me to use all the teams in the set in a relatively short amount of games. All of this to satisfy my obsession with record keeping. At time of writing the 1966-68 seasons are all available but may stall post 1968 unless follow on seasons become available. But that was it, ambitious enough for anyone. Then one day going over my old record books it dawned on me that the Oilers had only begun with the formation of the AFL in 1960. Just 6 years earlier than my current “start” point. I’ll admit that did set off some rather interesting ideas (well interesting to me at least) and had me thinking that it would be nice to go back to the very start of their history. As these seasons didn’t exist in Statis Pro nor I thought were they ever likely to, I shelved the idea, NOT before posting a message on a forum asking if one of the current makers of seasons would be prepared to do it. The expected tumbleweed response pretty much kaiboshed that idea and I decided to concentrate back on my original campaigns.
Then, just a few weeks later another splendid fan of the game completely out of the blue announced he had produced the 1960 season. My brain had that Das Boot “ALARM” moment and from that point on it’s been pretty much going over and over in my head whether it just might be possible. In the end I couldn’t fight the “Stat Devil” on my shoulder telling me over and over how much joy there was to be had logging and recording every single game for what would no doubt be a lifetime………….. So there we are. I have decided that I’ll replay every game the Oilers (Houston and reluctantly Tennessee for completism) played. I don’t regard the Titans as their successors, they have no rights to Oilers stats, history or records so it will end when they Oilers name was retired in 1998. At least that gives me an end point.
Whether this is achievable is open to debate. With playing 2 other campaigns (play-offs and knockout tourneys) I conservatively calculate that this project will take at least 25 years to complete. I’ll be 79 if by God’s grace I’m allowed that life span. It is also dependent on whether my interest in the game can be sustained that long and critically whether the missing seasons are made available. If it all stalls after 1960 this could be a very quick project of just 14 games instead of over 600. Real life might have a say too……….
However, if these Lone Star State locals reaction from beyond the grave when they got the news is anything to go by, I really feel obliged to give it a go. As they say “I may be all hat and no cattle, but I’m ready and rarin’ to go”. If you fancy hanging around for the long haul, stay tooned. I intend to start this project in April which is likely to be the earliest I can get the cards printed.
