3141 days......

[Mario ADK]

i found something really incredible: Day 1 of the FWL....

Ronnie Munro was the first ever GM to sign for the FWL and was a pioneer of the league in its early days. Munro was named GM of the Scottish Claymores on 14th June 1997 of the team which he passionately loved.

I might be wrong but i think today (sunday) is day 3141 of the FWL....

[jcompton-Orlando]

How did everybody come to this league, anyway? I know most if not all of the original GMs were on the old WLAF fan e-mailing list.

[Niki]

How did everybody come to this league, anyway?

If I am correct Ross was teh first GM of the Admirals, he knows Ton who become later the GM of the Admirals, who knows me and Michel. So 1 season before Ton stopped he introduced Michel as GM of Birmingham and I took over the postion of Ton one year later. At one point Ross wanted to become a GM again so I informed Paul about it 

[Mario ADK]

How did everybody come to this league, anyway?

Well, i cannot remember how i initiated the first contact to the FWL. I think i found it by surfing around. i was a big WLAF-Fan.....

I came in just days before the initial kickoff and at that time Miguel Cuadron was designated GM of Austria but i told Paul that i would insist on having the Austrian team and Miguel was so kind to "step down" from his duties and walk on to Rhein before week 1.

At that time a friend of mine - Gerald Kuderna - had control over Sacramento. He left after two or three seasons.....

[Paul-London]

Hey great topic !

I think back in those days like someone else said there was an WLAF mailing list and i originally got most of the GM's from there.  For others i may have posted on a website as at one stage most of the main WLAF fans used to go to one particular website, forgot the URL though.

Nice memory Mario ! I remember Miguel had Austria to begin with but moved to Rhein after you arrived.

When i worked in Windsor, England, i met up with Christian Bender (ex Birmingham) and i think another GM who were visiting England that time.  Also met up with the Munros, Iain Carey (ex Ireland), Lorne (Ex Ams, Bir) and Doug Adamson (ex Barcelona).  Also Pete Muego (ex Raleigh)

[Marco_Frankfurt]

I also was recruited over the old WLAF mailinglist.
(by the way a fine list back then. I also got contact with
an US WLAF-Fan who since then also visited me to watch a
life WorldBowl and we still exchange football-merchandise )

I then talked with Miguel (I knew him from the university)
and Andreas (who was also a Galaxy season ticket holder),
so they joined the league.

Some GMs I met at the Galaxy homegames, but I missed the
one great FWL meeting at the WorlBowl.

[velcro]

The the old WLAF Mailing list. Believe it or not the list still exists although has pretty much died a death.

Its reachable as a yahoo group at nflineurope, and the rest of the stuffis the same as here......

Many of the names on the ex-GMs list stem from there.

[Niki]

Paul, what is your story?

you know the best of the beginning, I think, how did you set up the league with what kind of idea and how did you try the get the people?

[Paul-London]

Hmmm can only vaguely remember !

I love stats and remember getting the software as back then i loved any american football games, eg i had every Madden game on the Megadrive and PSX1.  On the Amiga before that i had TV Sports football, on the Spectrum before that i had Headcoach and also Headcoach on the Amiga also.  (The one where you were coach of the Schoburg Franklins)

I bought FBPro and used to play against the computer actually running the plays, quite hard it was but not bad.  I did a search in the early days of the net for FB Pro and found a lot of utilities and also online leagues.  They looked great, specially the ones in their 10th season with career stats etc, it was like a real mini league

I decided to do one as i loved the WLAF/NFLE and there wasnt one around for that. I emailed a few friends from my Claymore connections (eg Ronnie, Iain Carey, Doug Adamson, Lorne Callaghan who are often on www.touchdownclaymores.com) and then like others have said put an email out on the old WLAF mailing list.  Had a great response and we went from there.

I have most of the files from the early seasons, quite funny seeing the original site which was pretty dire !  I need to update the site at some stage to have the current look of ESPN or the NFL.com website.

I do love being in the later seasons of the FWL where now every player was drafted and the career stats which i love (specially alltime.htm !)