In 1984, the Los Angeles Raiders won Super Bowl XVIII. I had to look that one up. Despite that lack of American Football knowledge, though, I know something about what was shown on American television during that match. That was when Apple previewed the Macintosh with a stylish advert where their representative took a hammer to the grey conformity of Big Brother. That ad had the kind of legendary impact that means I’ve heard all about it despite not having even been born yet at the time. There was no UK sporting equivalent. However, on a smaller scale the same year, the UK also played host to a coming together of American football, television and computers.
Viewers in the UK were able to stay up past midnight and watch the Raiders’ triumph live on TV. Live UK coverage of the Super Bowl had started the previous year for Super Bowl XVII (it would not be the last famous series of big games with roman numerals to come to us late). That was because of an event towards the end of 1982, the same year as the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 hit the UK: the launch of Channel 4. A new commercially-funded television channel, it also had a remit to cater to audiences that the BBC and ITV hadn’t. Within a week of going live, that included the first broadcast of a weekly sports highlights show called simply American Football.
The Times reported on this a month later with a note that “the sport is as bewildering to the Englishman as cricket is to the average American” but that it was nonetheless finding an audience. Some sources suggest that this was helped by being up against religious programming on the other channels. This was not quite true; Songs of Praise on BBC1 and James Galway Presents the Psalms of David on ITV both aired ten minutes after the first American Football finished and that lack of overlap continued in following weeks. It was true, though, that the BBC and ITV’s other Sunday evening programming had left an opportunity to attract younger viewers in particular.
Channel 4 deliberately set out to differentiate it from other sports coverage, too, picking up on some American ideas along the way. The director of production company Cheerleader described how they made it fun and stylish, in opposition to the typical British sports coverage with “the presenter in the blazer with a glass of water”. They added the big event of live Super Bowl coverage, and the program went from strength to strength. In 1984, Channel 4 used its annual report to claim it was responsible for making American Football into a “growing cult” in the UK. Among those taking notice were Argus Press Software.
Others had made electronic versions of American Football in the past (they’d “been around almost as long as Lunar Landers and Hammurabis” as Your Computer put it) but there wasn’t any mainstream version on any of the UK’s popular home computers. Seeing an opportunity, Argus made an American Football game for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, releasing it under their Mind Games imprint. Just like Apple, they saw the perfect chance to advertise on television, and so Channel 4 carried adverts for the new computer game during ad breaks in American Football. Helpfully, Argus was able to give the game exactly the same name, too. I have not been able to find what those adverts looked like. I imagine they had a lower budget than Apple, but appear to have been pretty effective too.
American Football the computer game came with instructions explaining the sport at much greater length than the game. Those instructions were written by Ken Thomas, a consultant for Channel 4’s programme. The computer game itself was designed by Ron Harris (the managing director of Argus’s soon-to-be-launched Your Commodore, not the retired footballer of the same name). Programming for the most Spectrum version was by Paul Rawling, who had done the same for The Fall of Rome. Speaking of which, it’s worth noting that American Football being a non-arcade chart #1 was Argus Press marking their own homework again, but this time other charts did at least show evidence of genuine popularity.
Other aspects also bear resemblance to The Fall of Rome. American Football is similarly colourful and largely text-based and puts the player in the role of strategist rather than participant, typing in two letter codes to determine which plays to make. Chris Passey began his review for Crash by making the metaphorical link explicit: “A General stands at the head of a battle, he looks deep into the mist. He asks himself questions as to the tactical advantages of various offenses. […] Standing on his 20 yard line he observes the field. He decides upon the Blitz in a last desperate attempt to halt the opposition.”
When you’re the attacking side, you get a set of offensive plays to choose, including various passes and running options, plus punting and attempting a field goal. Then in defence, it is about predicting the general type of play the attacker has gone for, from a smaller set of broad defensive plays to try to counter them. What happens next plays out in legible, if not especially attractive, animations with football players on a schematic of the field. If you’re playing American Football with two people rather than against the computer, as the instructions explain, “each player must enter his/her play in turn. It would be polite not to look at the keyboard while your opponent does this”.
When I first loaded the game to play a single player match, I failed to make note of the list of offensive plays. So at every available attempt I had to use the only one I remembered: PO for Pocket, i.e. protecting the quarterback with other players for him to make a pass. Repeating this ad nauseum was enough to get a touchdown, which had me wondering if there was anything much to American Football at all. Playing as both players in a two-player match and trying out various possibilities was more positive. It became clear that it was possible to manipulate the odds, but not the outright outcome, with an element of chance at about the level you would want for a sports strategy sim. American Football is basically a matter of playing rock-paper-scissors with frills, but that’s a concept which has continued to work for games well beyond the ‘80s.
Reviews were generally unimpressed by the graphics but found other things to like. “I imagine much careful coding has gone into this” said Ian Scales of Personal Computer News. Like me, John Minson of Popular Computing Weekly was not keen on the single player, but suggested that “played by a league of friends it could become a cult”. Personal Computer Games described it as “interesting and exciting” before the high praise of calling it far superior to Football Manager. Not quite everyone was as impressed. Your Computer said that “for the true English man, it may soon lose its appeal”. TV Gamer’s Anthony Ackroyd described a “lack of playability” and that “the game soon became boring”. “I doubt if this game will sell well” he finished.
Crash’s review is the best indication of why that prediction proved wrong. Out of nine reviews of the 1984 Spectrum version of American Football linked from Spectrum Computing, six of them mention TV coverage. Crash’s is one of the four to mention Channel 4 by name, even though the channel’s signal hadn’t made it as far as their base in Ludlow yet. After calling American Football “mildly addictive”, they said that “it taught me a lot about the real thing, so that now I can’t wait to watch it when we finally receive C4”.
Sources:
- From Mick Luckhurst to Neil Reynolds: The NFL on British TV, Charlie Liptrott, Decyfr Sport, 2023
- A Century of British Readings of America through American Football: From the Fin de Siècle to the Super Bowl, Iain Adams, University of Central Lancashire, 2017
- Harp and the Fridge: Ireland’s 1980s NFL flirtation, Conor Neville, RTÉ, 2023
- Atlantic Crossing: Remembering the NFL’s First British Invasion, Jonathan Fearby, Athlete’s Hub, 2021
- Channel 4 and LWT TV listings for November 1982, The Television & Radio Database
- BBC TV listings for November 1982, BBC
- Channel Four Television Company Report and Accounts for the year ended 31st March 1984 p. 12, Channel 4, 1984
- News – Go For It, Home Computing Weekly No. 81, 25 September-1 October 1984, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- American Football, chart history from Computer Hits
- American Football instructions, 1984, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- A Guide to American Football, Ken Thomas, Orbis, 1983
- Software Shortlist – American Football, Your Computer Vol. 4 No. 11, November 1984, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- Reviews – American Football, Chris Passey, Crash No. 13, February 1985, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- Reviews – American Football, Computer & Video Games No. 38, December 1984, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- Sport for all – American Football, B.B., Home Computing Weekly No. 85, 23-29 October 1984, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- Spectrum – American Football, Personal Computer Games No. 13, December 1984, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- Gameplay – American Football, Ian Scales, Personal Computer News No. 83, 20 October 1984, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- Strategy – American Football, John Minson, Popular Computing Weekly Vol. 3 No. 40, 04-10 October 1984, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- How to make a touchdown, Chris Bourne, Sinclair User No. 34, January 1985, accessed via Spectrum Computing
- Reviews – American Football, Anthony Ackroyd, TV Gamer No. 14, January 1985, accessed via Spectrum Computing
scottishwildcat
Played this one loads against my brother, was never really bettered on the Spectrum. (Certainly not by Ocean’s Super Bowl, which was rubbish.)
iain.mew
I will be getting the chance to write about Ocean’s Super Bowl too!