Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Arena and Indoor Football



The next step in the evolution of my Gumball collection was the Arena Football League.  I went to my first game in 1988 and fell in love with this version of football.  I began collecting anything I could from this new league.  As time went on, my home town fielded a team and I was able to begin seeing many more teams and helmets.  After completing the USFL and WFL sets, I moved on to the current AFL and then to all the throwbacks.  That took some time and some serious research.  The AFL had many, many teams and lots of one-time use or pre-season only helmets.  Many teams also used more than one helmet in a season.  And, the New York City Hawks actually had a home and an away helmet!

From the AFL, I moved on to other Indoor leagues, such as the AF2, PIFL, IFL, NIFL and others (a complete list will be the topic of a future entry).  These leagues also proved to be a challenge.  However, the result is some of my favorite helmet sets.  I really like the old IFL and PIFL sets.  Here are photos of a portion of my Arena League set and one season of the NIFL.  Enjoy.

Bill

No comments:

Post a Comment