Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I mined the AAF web site and downloaded all of the gamebooks through Week 8 (the final week?) as well as all of the weekly flip cards (rosters) and press releases. Is there any interest in preserving these game books on the PFRA web site?

It's pro football and there will be researchers interested in looking at the information. You can send it to me and I can upload it to the website.

While we're on the topic of defunct football leagues, do game books exist for the WFL or USFL?

I saved every gamebook off AAFGSIS. They did correct some things from the originals for the first 7 weeks, but I doubt they do anything to correct Week 8 now.

I was planning on re-statting every game and doing a participation guide. I copied all the transactions for the league from the start on 8/1/18 to when it ended on 4/1/19, so that can be comprehensive, as well.

Rupert Patrick wrote:While we're on the topic of defunct football leagues, do game books exist for the WFL or USFL?

It's not whether or not they exist - it's who has them?

TodMaher wrote:

Rupert Patrick wrote:While we're on the topic of defunct football leagues, do game books exist for the WFL or USFL?

It's not whether or not they exist - it's who has them?

Tod, as the co-author of the World Football League Encyclopedia, would you happen to have game books for the WFL, and if so, would you consider contributing them to our game book library?

On the subject of game books, I was going to wait until I had a couple complete seasons of AFL play-by-play before I made the announcement, but I have been exchanging emails with the PR and Media people with a couple of the former AFL teams (Chiefs, Chargers, Titans/Oilers, still waiting to hear from the Jets and Bengals) to help me fill in the missing game books from the AFL of the 1960's. I was unsuccessful in getting a game book for the 9/8/63 Bills-Chargers game, both the Chargers and Bills only had the scoresheet of the game in their archives, no play-by-play. I am currently seeking about 26 game books from the entire 1960-69 AFL, and I have all the gamebooks for 1961.

At this point, I am also going thru each of the game books to make sure the play-by-play is complete and readable. I have done this for several AFL seasons (1961, 1963 and 1966) and found three or four for each season that I am going to try to get alternate copies of the game book from one of the other teams who were involved in the games in the hopes that their copy is of a better quality than the one I have. Some of these that are nearly impossible to read we might have to try to decipher them using the final statistics and the remaining play-by-play and try to piece the rest of it together as best we can.

Rupert Patrick wrote:On the subject of game books, I was going to wait until I had a couple complete seasons of AFL play-by-play before I made the announcement, but I have been exchanging emails with the PR and Media people with a couple of the former AFL teams (Chiefs, Chargers, Titans/Oilers, still waiting to hear from the Jets and Bengals) to help me fill in the missing game books from the AFL of the 1960's. I was unsuccessful in getting a game book for the 9/8/63 Bills-Chargers game, both the Chargers and Bills only had the scoresheet of the game in their archives, no play-by-play. I am currently seeking about 26 game books from the entire 1960-69 AFL, and I have all the gamebooks for 1961.

At this point, I am also going thru each of the game books to make sure the play-by-play is complete and readable. I have done this for several AFL seasons (1961, 1963 and 1966) and found three or four for each season that I am going to try to get alternate copies of the game book from one of the other teams who were involved in the games in the hopes that their copy is of a better quality than the one I have. Some of these that are nearly impossible to read we might have to try to decipher them using the final statistics and the remaining play-by-play and try to piece the rest of it together as best we can.

Rupert, why are they so hard to read? Are they handwritten or is it a matter of poor reproduction? Or something else?

rhickok1109 wrote:

Rupert Patrick wrote:On the subject of game books, I was going to wait until I had a couple complete seasons of AFL play-by-play before I made the announcement, but I have been exchanging emails with the PR and Media people with a couple of the former AFL teams (Chiefs, Chargers, Titans/Oilers, still waiting to hear from the Jets and Bengals) to help me fill in the missing game books from the AFL of the 1960's. I was unsuccessful in getting a game book for the 9/8/63 Bills-Chargers game, both the Chargers and Bills only had the scoresheet of the game in their archives, no play-by-play. I am currently seeking about 26 game books from the entire 1960-69 AFL, and I have all the gamebooks for 1961.

At this point, I am also going thru each of the game books to make sure the play-by-play is complete and readable. I have done this for several AFL seasons (1961, 1963 and 1966) and found three or four for each season that I am going to try to get alternate copies of the game book from one of the other teams who were involved in the games in the hopes that their copy is of a better quality than the one I have. Some of these that are nearly impossible to read we might have to try to decipher them using the final statistics and the remaining play-by-play and try to piece the rest of it together as best we can.

Rupert, why are they so hard to read? Are they handwritten or is it a matter of poor reproduction? Or something else?

It's poor reproduction, or perhaps the documents were not stored well, and they deteriorated. Sometimes it's just one page, one quarter of the game that is unreadable or one portion of the sheet that is unreadable.

A number of the game books from the Redskins and Lions (from the 70's and 80's, at least), are often of unreadable quality. By 1991, the NFL standardized the game book form for all teams, so that they look the same for every single game, and from that point forward the quality of all the game books is great. Before that, each team had their own way of preparing game books, so that no two team's game books looked alike.

A number of teams such as the Broncos, Raiders and Dolphins have made their game books available online. If I come across a game from, say, 1966 between the Broncos and Chargers and the game book I have (which I would have gotten from the Broncos site) has some unreadable content, I will try to contact the Chargers to procure a copy of their game book for that game in the hopes that the quality of their copy is better. Sometimes I'm lucky and get a better copy, sometimes I get the same exact copy. I'm not so concerned about final stats and halftime stats pages, I am focusing on play-by-play because the rest of the stuff (final stats, etc.) we already have.

And even though I am keeping a primary database of game books, I am also keeping a secondary database that contains a copy of every single game book I come across, so sometimes I have two or three different variations of game books for the same game, and I've had to use cut and paste them together into one game book.

Rupert Patrick wrote: A number of teams such as the Broncos, Raiders and Dolphins have made their game books available online.

The Seahawks, Cowboys and Buccaneers also.