The first time...Ever I saw that team-

[NO Dave]

We all had that first time. That first team that made us think "Electric Football is the greatest game ever!" 

Check out my photo, and see who my "first" was... 

These are the original "Haiti Repro" New Orleans Saints, and I ordered these from Tudor in 1981. 

[Capanther]

I remember i was 10 when i bought my first electric football game...i bought one of those little 500 boards with the big yellow and white standard players...but i stared at the little tudor catalog every day until i got enough courage to ask my mom if i could order a couple teams...i ordered my favorite team ( white rams ) and i ordered the jets in dark because they had just won super bowl III . ...then i started buying a few teams every birthday and christmas...but those white rams and dark jets will always be my happiest memory for electric football.

[RickLM30]

I got started in electric football with a 500 game that had the old yellow and red teams in two poses back in the early 60s.  Next I got a game with the big yellow and white players and that was when I started to develop my solitaire league.  It really hit me though when I received a Super Bowl III game with the Jets and Colts.  After that, I began to expand my league by by buying more teams (beginning with my favorite teams the Eagles and Packers) whenever I had extra money.  The dark jersey Colts and white jersey Jets were the real beginning though.

[Capanther]

As my electric football collection grew...i had a few more games....but that super bowl III jets and colts game was the game i thought was the coolest....i finally found and kept my own about 20 years ago when i first started on ebay

[RickLM30]

I still have the Super Bowl III board and the Colts and Jets figures.  Amazingly, the board still works! 

[The System]

My friend Joe Jenkins had the Super Bowl III board.  We played and I was hooked.

[NO Dave]

I'm with ya - The Haiti Repro Colts and Jets looked amazing. 

[mccaber]

I picked up a bunch of teams as a garage sale and played several season, kept stats, and dreamed about having every NFL team.  Then one day, many years later, I reopened that old box filled with teams and decided that now I could actually have more and so I've been buying them and making them ever since...

[Scott]

My first game my dad got for me 

Christmas Eve 1976 SuperBowl

he was able to get our Raiders in Black

and the rival Chiefs in white jerseys &

Red Pants from Tudor 

[Troutbum]

My first game was Super Bowl IV with the Vikings and Chiefs, but I was too young and most of the players ended up broken. I started watching pro football during the 1971 season, and I was much more excited when I got my Super Bowl VI set with the Cowboys and Dolphins. That came on Christmas Day, 1972, during the Dolphins undefeated season.

[RickLM30]

My brother got the Super Bowl IV with the Vikings and Chiefs the year after I got Super Bowl III.  I think that was when he became a Vikings fan sadly. 😊  We used the boards playing head to head and had many exciting games until I went off to college.  He lost interest while I was gone and later gave the game to me. I still have it and It also still works!

[The Major]

Mine was the Cowboys vs Steelers Super Bowl game from the late 70's.  I was hooked.  One of my favorite memories is playing that game in the garage with my dad.  We instituted the 'turnaround' rule and the 'bounce' rule.  The runner had to be turned around completely before he was tackled no matter how many times he got contacted (apparently we were both running Earl Campbell) and we could complete a pass on the bounce.  I grew up in a football household as a big fan of the NFL and College Football.  My dad passed away before he could see the new electric football, but my son and I both love the game (though we don't use the 'turnaround' nor the 'bounce' rule) 🙂.  Got my nephew and uncle hooked as well.  These days, I watch a LOT more NCAA ball than pro, but I love them both.  Go Air Force!  Go DAWGS!  Go ATL!

[Long island EFL]

On 6/20/2020 at 10:00 PM, NO Dave said:

We all had that first time. That first team that made us think "Electric Football is the greatest game ever!" 

Check out my photo, and see who my "first" was... 

These are the original "Haiti Repro" New Orleans Saints, and I ordered these from Tudor in 1981. 

Beautiful

[Long island EFL]

On 6/20/2020 at 10:00 PM, NO Dave said:

We all had that first time. That first team that made us think "Electric Football is the greatest game ever!" 

Check out my photo, and see who my "first" was... 

These are the original "Haiti Repro" New Orleans Saints, and I ordered these from Tudor in 1981. 

 

[Long island EFL]

Man!  That photo brings me back to all of the stages of our hobby and the quality which has changed over the years.  I sold all of my Haiti teams, but started the 67'BIG MAN ERA in 2008.

In 1971, I had the chance to step on the Miami Dolphins field at the Orange Bowl in Miami while we were on vacation as children. In those days people could just walk right into the stadium without being stopped. I couldn't have been more than nine-years old. We had watched the Monday Night game the night before on television. My older cousin Julio, who was in high school at the time, promised to take us to the stadium the next day. True to his promise, he walked me thru the entire stadium, although you couldn't go into the locker rooms. But the magic of being able to step on the field, which was turf, gave me a mesmerizing and overwhelming sensation because I found a piece of a Miami Dolphins Aqua player's Jersey while people were cleaning the stadium up. A man cleaning the bleachers called me over to him and he handed me a book. It was a Dolphins magazine with Dolphin Quarterback Bob Griese on the front cover. I still have it to this day, but the whole episode quickly made me an instant Dolphins fan.

Fast forward to 1972, my love for electric football became contagious when my mother, an International and Olympic volleyball player from Havana, Cuba bought and taught me to play this memorable game. Mom was an avid sports fan and athlete and she saw that the game sparked interest in me after walking onto that field at the Orange Bowl in 1971.  

The first original teams we had were the Dolphins and Packers who played in LIEFL Super Bowl I on December 28, 1974, which we called the AFL Championship Game in which I played with the Miami Dolphins who beat Mom's Green Bay Packers 24-17 on the kitchen table. She didn't look so happy, or maybe she let me win, but her competitive nature got the better of her and in 1975, Mom helped us expand  by ordering from those old order forms that Tudor provided, the Bears, Rams, Steelers, Giants, and Raiders. The game quickly became popular with all the kids in the neighborhood, thanks to our parents, we all joined forces and started collecting all of the NFL teams any chance we had when Tudor Games, located on Johnson Street in Brooklyn, NY., had those massive electric football sales of $1 per team. 

Living close to Brooklyn on Long Island, we now wonder why it took so long for the teams to be delivered because we were less than 30 miles away from the Johnson Avenue Tudor Games facility. But, we received the teams with amazing excitement as we numbered our players to match the stars of the time, and the gridiron of the metal board became our childhood addiction. I am sure the game kept us from a lot of trouble too.  We then graduated to 19 teams with a mixed version of the AFC and the NFC broken into AFC Conference I and II, and NFC Conference I and II by our 1978 season.

[GMishoe43]

I see #38, Big George Rogers, who followed up his Heisman Trophy at South Carolina by becoming the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and was named 1st Team All-Pro after leading the NFL in rushing during his rookie campaign with the Saints!