A.F.L. Chart Soccer is back!

So here we are all in lockdown and having to find things to keep us occupied. There are plenty of things to do around the house of course, but still, it’s hard to just be doing chores all the time. So, I’m happy to report that A.F.L. Chart Soccer is back.

Some time ago, I began the 182nd season of the A.F.L., but I only got part of the way through before stopping for a break and before I knew it, months had gone past. But it has now resumed, and the latest tables have been posted on the Season 182 page.

Hopefully Chart Soccer, one of my longest standing pastimes will help me get through this very strange period. Watch this space!

78 thoughts on “A.F.L. Chart Soccer is back!”

  1. Hi Alex,
    Love the new website. I was looking for a way of playing leagues and all different cup comps but quickly with teams being rated and hey presto I came across your webs pages a few years back and researched logacta. I grew up in the 70s and a massive Subbuteo fan but never completed comps due to time but seem to never of came across Logacta.
    Your sit inspired me to complete a 4 20 team league with all the domestic and European comps with European Champs and World cups. I only completed 1 full season but thoroughly enjoyed it.
    I gave moved to Finland since and with a family I find it difficult to get time but now in the last few weeks I have been busy on my word docs and set up all leagues and worked out the League and FA Cup and drew up full Champions League and all the confederations World Cup Qualifying etc but not the chance to play anything yet.
    Guess you could say I am doing all the background and infrastructure then I am ready to go.
    One thing I wanted to ask you is I am going to use the Logacta score table and I have amended the Blue, Black and Brown slightly but do you use a different system to score if so how as I would be interested to know.
    I liked the way you use the form table for the league I hope you do not mind but I will use that system as well as I can see it ti s more accurate through the system.
    Thanks for reigniting my desire to play this grat game as a new and hopefully long pastime.
    If you have any other info on how you rate your teams in other comps let me know as always keen to see how other people do it.
    Best wishes from a snowy Finland. Keep up the results mate.
    Regards
    Paul

    1. Hi Paul

      Thanks for yopur message. I’m glad you have found some inspiration from the site, and that it has inspired you to set up your own games. It sounds like you had quite a complex setup there, so kudos to you for doing that. I do find that it is a balance between complexity and simplicity so that it doesn’t put you off keeping it going. It can be enjoyable though and it is coming into its own in these times of being confined to the house for long periods of time.

      As regards the scoring etc, I generally use the LOGacta system of dice values nowadays. I have used various systems in the past, some of my own invention and others from other sources, but now I just use the LOGacta system, the only difference being that I substitute a ‘1’ for one of the ‘2’s on the black dice.

      As for ratings, I don’t use points for ratings in league matches as LOGacta does. I use a scale of ratings from 1 to 5, so in a 20-team division there are four teams at each rating. The ratings are based on previous season’s final positions for around 10 matches and then on current league positions after that. This stops the ratings difference becoming too high towards the end of the season.

      Anyway, if you have any other questions don’t hesitate to ask, and in the meantime I hope you continue to get as much pleasure from playing this game as I do. Stay safe.

      Alex

      1. Hi Alex,
        Nice to see Kevin from Canada with his set up and great to see other people still into this game. The great thing about it is it’s quick and teams are rated giving the results a sense of authenticity but as we know upsets happen.
        I never have seen the rules for this game so I have picked up bits from the net and your good self but I do have a couple of questions Alex.
        1. In domestic cup competitions are there any rules on form dice or is the form given to those teams in the league who have it on the week those cup matches are played or do you just play on the ratings only.
        2. How do you rate your European Club teams and World cups etc, do you base it on current coefficients as that is what I may do, and best way of rating the teams .
        I have drawn up all the competitions on word docs now. I am old school so I will fill out on screen when matches are played or print off and do it real old school pencil and paper.
        For the dice I have made a colour coded table and as said before on a couple of colours you refill the dice and if 1 to 4 original score stands if 5-6 then the other score will stand. It just gives the scores a bit more edge IMO.
        I will have 4 20 team league, 8 National League divisions of 7 teams for Non league all with promo, relegation and play offs at the end of the season.
        Then a conference cup where the winners play off with the bottom non league team to try and get in the pyramid system.
        I will run Champions league from prelim rounds through to group and knockout stage and the 3rd place teams go to the Europa Cup which is a comp based on the cup winners cup and no group section purely knockout.
        I have all the World Cup qualifying worked out for a 48 team finals with all 6 confederations playing for qualification then onto their own Confederation championship apart fromEuropean ch , African cup of Nations and the Asian Cup whic I will play as a separate comp 2 seasons on from WCQ. My FA cup runs from prelim rd as well to cater for many non league teams with PL and championship teams joining in 3rd rd.
        I have also created a season schedule placing competiotions at different stages through the season.
        I have really enjoyed creating all these completions and I hope all my maths has worked out, it all seems to fit.
        I would be very happy to email you over all my comps and tables to you so you can se how I am doing it. I put guides and notes at different rods of all comps as well so you know who is joining each comp at different stages. Sounds complicated but it seems to be all in place, just need to make draw tables for competitions now so I can fill,in the teams when needed.
        Sorry for the long reply just thought I let you know that my structure seems ready to go just need the time to play it all haha. Keep safe mate and keep rolling
        Best wishes Paul

        1. Hi Paul

          Thank you so much for sharing that, it is always interesting to hear of what others are doing with this versatile game. That’s the beauty of it, from an original idea it can be adapted to whatever we like and are interested in.

          That certainly is a comprehensive set of competitions you’ve go going there, and if I were restricted to one country I might have something similar. But for me it’s enough to be doing two countries, England and Scotland, and do enough of those to justify it and yet not be too much of a task.

          To answer some of your questions, firstly, when you mention rules, do you mean the original LOGacta rules or just what rules I apply in my competitions? Or both maybe? Certainly, in LOGacta, form dice never come into play in cup matches, and I follow that same rule. I do sometimes wonder about carrying form over into cup matches, as that does make sense, but it has never felt right doing it so I have refrained from doing so.

          Regarding European and international competitions, yes, I use coefficients. Bert Kassies does a wonderful website at which all the results and coefficients, for UEFA clubs and countries, are archived and I use that extensively. For my club competitions I use the country rankings (accumulated club records for each country) to decide how many clubs each country gets, and the club rankings to decide on ratings. I have a formula that combines the country and club coefficients, so that each club benefits from their country’s overall performance, but also their own past performances, if any, in European competitions. This means that, for example, let’s say Wolves qualify for the Champions’ League, then if it were done on club performance only then they would at the bottom of the rankings as they have not had much (any?) European experience in the last 5 years. So, they get an element for being part of the English setup which improves their ranking a bit, but also recognises that they are relatively new to European competition in recent times. I hope this makes sense. I may post something on the blog with more details as I’ve had a few people ask about this.

          In the meantime, yes I’d love to see some of your setup stuff, particularly how you are doing the non-league stuff. How did you decide on groups of 7 for your non-league level? Is that just to keep it from being too much to play or some other reason?

          Anyway, all the best with it meantime and by all means, keep us up-to-date with how it all goes.

          Alex

          1. Hi Alex thanks for that, it was a great help. Yes would be good to see your coefficients and I will check that site out. I have a good knowledge of clubs as always taken an interest where teams were from since my younger Subbuteo days.
            Yes Logacta was a great invention by Mike Baker, I hope he is still around to know his concept is still flourashing.
            As for my non league there are 2 reasons, 1st there are 56 National League and 56 conference cup teams. This fits seamlessly for my FA Cup as wanted a qualifying round to make it as realistic as possible and also yes 8 divisions of 7 seemed a quicker way of making a completion for non league without being swamped with too many games so it satisfies my thirst for a competitive league and National League cup where my conference cup teams can qualify for this is they get through the 3rd round. Also smaller leagues means possible better chance of promotion or relegation so most teams will leave each league and blood fresh teams the following season. I may look at 14 per league but I think this way seems more doable for me.
            I guess like your league changes and new formats can be implemented I’d the need to do so arises to freshen up a competition.
            Maybe if you email me I can send you attachments of what I have set up.
            Just need the time to start to sort out all the teams which is hard at the mo as I am at language school here in Finland trying to learn their incredibly difficult and strange Ugric language…
            best wishes
            Paul

          2. Hi Paul

            OK, thanks for that, it’s interesting stuff.

            I’ll send an email so you can send some stuff back, as I say I’m particularly interested in the non-league stuff.

            Best of luck with the language learning. That’s another interest of mine, although I have virtually no knowledge of Finnish at all.

            Alex

            P.S. I’ve just posted on the blog about how I do my European club competitions. Hopefully that will come in useful.

  2. Hi Alex
    Greetings from Canada. I’ve been looking for a way to contact you for some time and finally came across this blog. Although I wouldn’t call myself a geek or in a mid-life crisis, I would probably describe myself as someone stuck in the 197o’s…very similar to your reader Paul. I remember fondly Subbuteo, Logacta and “Card Football” (using a deck of cards) all of which were played avidly until the early 1980’s. Leagues , Cups, etc….
    After a 20 year “dark period” in the mid 2000’s I found Football Manager and that’s where I’ve been until 2017 when my interest declined. My only real achievements in that game were MLS titles, ConCacaf Champs League all with Vancouver as well as getting Canada to the World Cup! Oh I did get Boreham Wood to the Premier League – FM 2017
    Though on to the main subject. Your chart soccer achievements are awesome!! I love all the history!!
    I came across AFL chart soccer back in 2018 when Logacta popped into my head and reading about what you have accomplished just ignited something within in me to somehow go back to what I fondly remembered. I created a league system using a grid though work got in the way and the Excel file remained dormant on a USB.
    Fast forward to March 2020, Football Manager is finally gone and Chart Soccer is back in business as taking early retirement allows me some spare hours every morning.
    My own 2020 Chart Soccer is called the ASL (Alliance Soccer League) based on the MLS with a few extra expansion teams to make a 16 team Premier and Championship with a 12 team League One to be added in Season 3. To supplement the League’s there are 4 cup competitions. The Community Cup (pre season) The Supporters Shield, The US Memorial Cup and the Confederation Cup for Canada. With the exception of the Community Cup, all competitions provide a route to the Concacaf Gulf Cup and Champions Cup. On a national level the Gold Cup will be every 2 years. I’m still deciding about a World Cup.
    I’m not very good with Excel formulas so the ones I use are very simple and therefore a lot of manual entry is required to update the standings and current 4 game form, but that’s okay I enjoy it. I used the RandBetween function for the “dice” values and each worksheet has the dice selector as a header so to speak. The values are still a work in progress and may be adjusted slightly.

    Anyway, enough of my ramblings and again thank you for the inspiration and it’s just brilliant what you have accomplished. I really just love the way you have set things up (even the competition names) and I do hope there will be a Season 183 to read about and to my utter joy I discovered your Scottish Leagues and Euro competitions to immerse myself in as well.

    Keep up the great work and stay safe during Covid 19

    Kevin

    1. Hi Kevin

      Thanks very much for your post. It’s really great to see how many people are coming back to the simple yet engrossing game of LOGacta Chart Soccer. I think its enduring appeal is its simplicity, i.e. you can just do it using paper, pencil and dice if you want, and its flexibility, in that you can arrange things any way that you wish.

      Your setup sounds really interesting, and its also interesting to see folks from North America getting involved in this, as soccer has not been your main sport, although MLS is changing this I think (I love MLS myself, and count myself as a supporter of the Vancouver Whitecaps).

      So, I am intrigued by your setup. Is your league done like MLS, i.e. with conferences and a play-off system, or European-style, with larger divisions where each team plays all of the others a set number of times and the titles are based purely on those “regular season” results? What you have said suggests the latter.

      Anyway, thanks for your interest, it has been really great to see how much interest there is, and from around the world too. I have just completed Season 183 of the S.S.L., and am about to begin the A.F.L. one, but things have been really busy. I should be doing that over the next week or so, so watch this space.

      So, all the best, and happy LOGacta-ing.

      Alex

      1. Hi Alex
        I’m just at the mid-point of season 2 right now. The leagues are based on European style – so a 30 game home and away league with promotion and relegation. Three teams are relegated from the Premier with 2 automatically promoted from The Championship. Position 3 to 6 in The Championship go into a play off for the final promotion spot. One team will get relegated from the Championship which is looking like Austin FC with San Diego ready to jump in.

        I’m a little concerned about realism. San Jose who won the Premier Division in Season 1 are now 3rd from bottom in season 2. I created a Form Dice for Match Day 1 t0 4 for 1st and 2nd place from the previous season but it hasn’t worked out the way I hoped for San Jose or 2nd place Portland.

        On the other hand I applied the same rule to the 3 teams who were relegated from the Premiership and those teams find themselves 1st, 3rd and 8th in the Championship so maybe just pure bad luck for the winner and runner up of the Premier Division!

        Kevin

        PS I live in Toronto though Vancouver is a beautiful place.

        1. Yeah, realism is something that has concerned me too. What I do is apply ratings based on the previous season’s positions for the first eight match sets. This does help to some extent but you still do get the odd one that goes from zero to hero or first to worst.

          I also have ratings that favour certain teams, no matter their performance. This is especially important in Scotland, where Celtic and Rangers would never be relegated, for example. However, I do like a little bit of randomness too, as otherwise it’s not so much fun.

          Alex

  3. Hi Paul
    Thanks for the shout out! Sounds like you have an epic Season 1 ahead of you when you finally get started. I found the process of creating my set up very engaging and fun too! Picked up some good ideas in reading this blog as well as the AFL and SSL pages to.
    Good luck!

    1. Hi Kevin,
      Thanks for the comment. Yes I have finally got everything prepared. I have a lot of competitions and have worked out all my cups and leagues with play offs and are pretty well spot on. I am hoping my maths are correct on some European comps as I have my 3rd placed teams in the Champions league teams transferring to the Europa Cup 2nd Round.
      I have made all competitions quite deep allowing for as many teams as possible. Yes a season will take time but I think it will be fun.
      I have just ordered all my dice from UK as I wanted to keep it true to the logacta experience of rolling the different colour dice. I have made a chart to follow the score and to add spice some scores are split so I throw an orange dice and if 1-4 same score applies 5-6 then alternate score is logged.
      For penalties I thought throwing the green dice was a bit unrealistic so I decided to make a penalty chart and roll the yellow and green. If you roll a 0 then a missed penalty the green is then rolled to see how it was missed ie saved hit post etc just purely asthetics.
      Yes I have taken some of what Alex has done and will implement in my season ie his Form system which I think is a far better idea than doing form after every 4 games and the best team(s) roll. I like the idea of your carry over as well.
      I am very happy to share with you my tournament templates and charts if you think you want to see how I have arranged all the comps and formats for everything. On all tournaments each round has a small note telling which team enter the comp at that particular stage, so is pretty secure that you cannot mess it up as long as the right draw numbers go in the pot ha ha.
      I have even done a Season schedule as well so each week I can keep track of what competition and round of competion is being played after all my league games have been completed.
      As I said to Alex I am studying Finnish at the mo at college so not a lot of spare time but once my dice arrive I will start to organise all the teams in all the comps which is gonna be a feat in itself.
      Hope your season is rolling well. And I am looking forward getting back into logacta after a long long break.

      1. Hi Paul
        Can you tell me where you ordered your dice from, and are they like the original LOGacta dice, i.e. white with coloured numbers, or coloured with white numbers? Also, what size are they? I got some blank coloured dice a few years back and I put labels on with the values, but they are too big and not comfortable to throw. I know some people use a cup to throw their dice but I prefer to throw by hand.
        Alex

        1. Hello Alex,
          I have just ordered normal 16mm d6 from a place called THE DICESHOP ONLINE in all the colours of logacta plus an orange one for the scores with 1-4/ 5-6 splits on. They are the main colour with the pips on them. I ordered their ‘TDSO opaque’ set of dice as that was the only one they had a brown in,the grey I had to use a chessex but was very similar. The best bitof all they are discontinuing so the red brown and orange were only 10p each. Over here dice are expensive just for the normal 12mm so I just went in an ordered them all just gotta wait now, could take a while due to the Covid scenario and the Finnish post being not the most fluid in deliveries I must say.
          I also ordered a foldable dice tray as well as they were on offer for 5.95 and some soft dice bags for 2.00 each to store yes the dice and all my draw numbers I will print out on card.
          With the post still cheaper than me travelling to the nearest city here and paying silly money for dice.
          I have made a dice chart which looks good to the eye with all the original logacta numbers but as mentioned the black dice will have 4 split leaving a 2 and a 0 as they were and blue/red/grey and brown have 2 numbers with splits on using the orange dice. Funnily enough I changed the black dice with a 1 in it as well as I thought the same as you. That’s why black has 4 split numbers because they are only used together and not against blue or red in any capacity.
          I bought 2 each of the red/blue/ green and yellow as have got a great idea of a cricket game I want to work on but also I want to throw all dice in one go for teams so any extra yellow/red form dice can be thrown with the teams main colour dice in 1 go instead of 3 different throws so it might make it a tad quicker and I can refer to the score chart straight away.
          Also I have rated some teams in some competitions with seven rating forms. You have the normal 1-5 rated teams but for example in my European championship/world cup qualifying the the teams rated 52-55 get a rating of 6+ the 12 above get 6 rating then 1-5 above in a split I think appropriate.
          So teams playing both as rating 6 will infact roll as rating 5 each as of course same level. But any team playing a 6 rated side throw the yellow automatically with their normal roll plus any form, and this follows on playing a 6+ rated side it means you roll the yellow twice with any dice you have so really making a 6 and 6+ rated side quite a task overcoming a better rated nation/team. the 6 and 6+ sides always roll as a rated 5 team for their go as well. Fingers crossed this hopefully works well only time will tell if it does but if does seem a bit too heavy I might just go back to 1-5 ratings but I always like to go as far as I can with what I think would spice the game up that little bit more individuality and hopefully inspire other people to follow like you have done mate to me to get back into this.
          Also in cup matches teams rated 1 v teams rated 5/6/6+ play with an automatic extra yellow roll so you can see now 6 and 6+ teams will have a battle on to overcome that kind of force.
          Also in the league in the home points advantage I have done the same there adding an automatic yellow throw and creating an extra column so after 15-23 pts lead there is a 24+ points lead with the home team throwing green/yellow and any form if needed with the away team throwing yellow and any form.
          Just a little insight to let you know how my set up will run. I am always open to advice criticism etc and any ideas on how you run things this can only improve my input.
          Hope the above is kind of clear as some times I am not the best at explaining especially when you create your own house rules adaptations.
          Keep safe my friend and keep rolling!
          Best regards
          Paul

          1. OK, thanks for that Paul.

            Yes, I do something similar for my internationals, with ratings from 1-7 or even 8, and additional dice for the larger differences. It takes out the chances of too many things like Faroe Islands 2-0 Spain, or whatever.

            Alex

  4. Hi Alex
    I applied a “carryover” form dice to the top four teams from Season 2 for the first eight match sets of the new season. This has worked well for last seasons winner and runner-up as they remain in the top four but the other two are mid table. However the current 1st place team is Portland who were 7th last season. So a little bit of randomness.

    1. Yes, the randomness is always there and if it wasn’t it wouldn’t be as much fun. I have stopped applying “champions’” form at the start of a season though as it caused too many “runaway” winners. Having four teams though is a good idea.

  5. Hi Alex
    Hope you don’t mid me posting this here, but I just finished an awesome Season 3 whereby DC United, LAFC and Portland all ended up with 69 points on the last day of the season. A real “Grandstand” finish. (you probably recall that BBC show). I had to work out goal difference with DC United coming out on top. I’d forgotten how exciting this game could actually be!

    1. Sounds good Kevin. And realistic too, those three teams are pretty good in reality. Glad to see DC winning it too, as I have a soft spot for them, mainly because of the Rooney connection.

      My Retro League had an exciting ending too. The last fixture of the 380 league fixtures was Manchester City away to Luton Town, and City were in 19th place, 1 point behind Cardiff City but with a better goal average. (As I was basing it on the 1958-59 season I was using goal average instead of goal difference, 2 points for a win instead of 3, and 2 teams relegated instead of 3.) So, City had to draw the match and it was the blue die for Luton and the grey die for Man City. I threw the blue die and it came up with a score of ‘2’. So that would mean that City would need a ‘2’ or a ‘3’ to avoid relegation, which I thought would be a tall order as that is a 1 in 3 chance on the greay die. So, I threw it and it came up with the ‘3’, and therefore they survived and sent Cardiff down. As you say, this game can throw up some exciting scenarios.

  6. It certainly makes all the effort worthwhile for these types of season ending finishes. What a finish yours was! I’m currently tweaking my template in readiness for Season 4. Example being the Champions Cup (Concacaf) which will now have Group Stages followed by quarter-finals etc.. whereas previously it was a straight knockout competition. The Supporters Shield is now the League Shield just to avoid infringing too much on MLS reality.

  7. Well, I’m honored! There’s nothing fancy about them and they are in Excel 2010. There’s a couple of very simple formula’s but a lot of manual entry is required too. No VBA or such like. As site owner you can probably see my email so just drop me a note a and I’ll respond with an attached file, if that works for you?

    1. Hi Kevin

      OK, I’ll send you an email sometime, no rush. It could just be a screenshot, or a copy and paste of the raw tables, no need to send any Excel files or anything. And only if it’s convenient, I don’t want to put you to any trouble.

      All the best.

      Alex

  8. Hi Alex
    Congrats on completing SSL 184. Celtic eventually clinched the title though a good effort by Ross County!
    I like the way you have the club crest embedded in your tables too.

  9. Greetings Alex!
    So A-F-L 184 ended with a surprise winner in Southampton. That’s quite an upset considering the top 6 are very dominant. Will be interesting to see how they do in Europe.
    May I ask a question and apologies in advance if you have mentioned elsewhere. You seem to get through seasons relatively quickly, so I was wondering how you do that? Not that I’m looking to “poach” your ideas….
    I finally figured out how to create a macro that eliminates a few key strokes for the “final score” so that’s helped me a little. Season 5 underway!

    Thanks!

    1. Hi Kevin

      Yes, it was an unusual winner this time, I’m not sure how it happened but the dice just seemed to go their way every time.

      I’m not sure how I manage to get the seasons done so quickly. I had the same question the other day on Facebook, and I just put it down to a couple of things. One is that, as we are in lockdown, I have more time and I do a couple of hours on the footy every, or most, afternoons. It gets me through it and it has been fun to do so. Also, I seem to have the organisation down pat now and just seem to be able to get on with it. That’s the only things I can think of really.

      Anyway, that’s the AFL done, it’ll be Europe probably over the weekend and then onto the next Retro League season – looking forward to that.

      Cheers

      Alex

  10. Hi Alex, I’m so glad I have found this website! When I was younger I used to play dice football leagues. Logacta was around before my time but I would have played it. I managed to complete 8 seasons. However the results were completely random, the dice roll was the score, but 5 and 6 were no goals. Consequently the league placing we are random and there was no consistency in teams. Despite that Norwich managed to lift two titles and Manchester United managed a League and Cup double! I haven’t played it for years but now with the lockdown I would love to resurrect my football league. Luckily I have found the final tables for all the seasons and at the time of me stopping playing I had a Division 1 and 2 of 20 teams each and a Non-League of 16 teams.

    Unfortunately I’m not very technically gifted so the way you play your seasons is a bit beyond my computer expertise. I have started a test league of 12 teams (using teams from Roy of the Rovers) but am finding rolling the dice very time consuming, because I only have one dice, using the Logacta scoring system. Anyway, sorry for going on a bit. My question is do you know where I can buy Logacta dice, which will speed things up for me?

    I have been looking through your season archives and am finding them very interesting. Looks like the Scottish title race is getting very close!

    1. Hi Matthew.

      Thanks for that and congrats on getting back into dice football.

      As regards your question, it’s difficult to get Logacta dice as they are as rare as hen’s teeth, but I would try eBay or just the internet generally. I know some people have got custom made dice but I have searched and can’t find anyone that does what I would want.

      Personally I just use ordinary dice with dots, ie 1 to 6, as they are easy to get, and use a chart to convert the value thrown to the goal amounts that are on the Logacta dice. If you need a conversion chart let me know and I will post one here or send one.

      Cheers

      Alex

  11. Hi Paul
    I totally missed your response which you posted May 1 st so sorry for that. That’s great you were able to locate dice online and hopefully they have arrived in Finland by now and you are well into Season 1. I’ve added some depth to my own set up just for the variety though not anywhere near what you have done. Like yourself I have a schedule made up so I bounce around various domestic and continental competitions.
    I only have three leagues in my North America set up. League One is only 10 games per team ( 2 groups of 6) which I play half during pre-season and the second half after Match day 15 of the Super League and Championship. Only 1 team promoted from League 1 (after knockout rounds) and one relegated from the Championship. Usual 3 up three down between Super League and Championship.

    Season 7 I’m thinking of introducing a Mexican League – just 8 teams though

    Good luck with your Finnish studies!

    Kevin

  12. Hi Alex
    Great to see Matthew joining the conversation….the interest is growing perhaps because of the over complexity of some of the computer games out there. “Logacta” in any form is simple, fun and versatile!

    Anyway just out of curiosity I’d love to see your conversion chart if you have time to post it.

    Kevin

      1. Thanks Alex!
        As you know I use Excel to generate the dice values / scores which I’m not all that sure is completely random. However, I just happened to have a couple of dice in my desk drawer from when I started thinking about Logacta again in 2018 and did a few “practice rolls”. Your chart is awesome and works out really well. Kudos!

        Kevin

  13. Hi Alex
    In season 185 It will be interesting to see if Wolves can win the Premier League after coming up as Division 1 champions. Do Wolves have any special rating due to winning Division 1 the previous season or is it literally the luck of the dice for them?

    Kevin

  14. Hi Alex
    So Wolves did it and that’s amazing their accomplishment hasn’t happened since Season 68 which I guess was a long time ago (in real time)?
    Do you use VLookup to generate fixtures for the AFL as documented for the SSL or do you simply use the grid system? It took me a while but I finally worked out the VLookup formula to generate fixtures for the start of my Season 7. However, I never actually used it as I was so comfortable with the grid system.

    Oh a quick NACS update. Los Angeles FC and DC United have slipped into mid table obscurity having been totally dominant in the early seasons, with the San Jose Earthquakes now being the team to beat. They are the current champions and haven’t lost a game in Season 7. Played 18 – 50 points!

    Kevin

    1. Hi Kevin

      Yes, Season 68 would have been about 30 years ago in real time (eek!).

      I used to use the vlookups but now I just used grids as they are so much easier and quicker.

      OK, that’s some record, 16 wins and 2 draws from 18 games. Excellent stuff.

      Alex

  15. Hi Alex
    Very nice write up on Season 186 of the SSL and that was a great idea to expand on the Summer Cup. Also more teams in Division C right?
    I was a bit lazy to research, though is that a record Inverness set for Division B with only 1 loss? It must be? Quite remarkable! 🙂

    Thanks to your inspiration my own North American set up continues to expand with extra teams added to the domestic tier 3 league as well as a new Mexican league of 12 teams. There are now also 3 continental club competitions. Internationally, the Continental Cup (Gold Cup) still remains the primary though I’m currently working out a new Nations League as I write this.

    I’ve also worked out coefficients, well more like rankings for both club and countries which is a points per performance system. I’ve really created a bit of an obsession for myself….LOL.

    Anyway, looking forward to the AFL update!

    Cheers
    Kevin

    1. Hi Kevin

      Yes, thanks, it was a very interesting season in the S.S.L., with Inverness’s performance one of the most interesting factors. Strangely though, it’s not a record. I don’t know if there are any other better performances, but in Season 138 Dundee United were unbeaten in 30 Division ‘A’ games, and drew 5 matches, for a total of 80 points. There may be some similar performaces in different sized divisions though, somewhere.

      That’s great about the success of your North American setup, and I am really happy to have helped inspire it. It sounds really good, and the coefficients calculation especially. Years ago, I had a program on my computer that I wrote, which I used to do the European football competitions, and it had the ability to work out the coefficients automatically as I played the games. It was quite sophisticated, but I don’t have it any more and it probably wouldn’t work on my Mac anyway, LOL.

      By the way, the new A.F.L. season has just started and I will be posting results from that tomorrow.

      All the best in the meantime, and keep rolling those dice. 🙂

      Alex

  16. Hi Alex
    Took a quick look at the new season and there is Wolves still going strong! That program you created years ago sounds just awesome.
    I found out today that MS Office 2010 will no longer be supported as of October which is a concern as my set up is all in Excel 2010. Lots of Macro’s , Rand Between functions etc…Although it will continue to work there will be no more security updates, patches etc which might put my PC at risk!
    Do you use Office 365 or Google Sheets for your set up? You must have a huge amount of data??

    Thanks
    Kevin

    1. Hi Kevin

      Until recently I just used Google Sheets as it is free and quite easy to use. It’s also accessible from any compuer or device. The only thing I had in Excel was the lower divisions spreadsheet whihc uses macros, so I couldn’t use Google for that.

      I’ve recently subscribed to Microsoft 365 and have started doing some of my spreadsheets in Excel again, partly because I like being able to lock cells so that I can tab easily between unlocked cells for entering scores.

      Yes, there’s a lot of data, a lot of which is not really accessible any more due to obsolete technology, but I do have the most important stuff on disk. I use Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive to store everything. A lot of stuff is still in books as well, which are in a box in a cupboard, lol.

      Alex

  17. Hi Alex
    Thanks for the quick response especially as it’s late in the evening for you.
    Looks like I’ll, have to subscribe to 365 to maintain the Macros and other functions.
    I have a friend in Wiltshire who has a lot of books in his cupboard as well, dating back 40 years, all from “card football” 🙂

  18. Hi Alex
    Looks like Wolves are still the team to beat in the League! Regained top spot on Match day 10 and never looked back. And poor Ipswich with the double “Rr” beside them. Whose coming in for Yoevil and Plymouth next season?

    A quick question. Are you part of a Logacta Facebook group? I rarely use FB myself though the other day I did a search and that resulted in a FB group with about 45 members.

    Kevin

    PS season 9 in my set up is drawing to a conclusion with old rivals DC United and LAFC battling for the title once more after spending 4 seasons in mid table.

    1. HI Kevin. Yes, it’s Strange that Wolves have won two in a row in both the A.F.L. and the Retro-League. And in the A.F.L. this season the three domestic trophies were all retained by last season’s winners.

      I’m not sure who will be coming in in place of Plymouth and Yeovil. It usually depends on the real-life positions but as these are not changing at the moment due to the early finishing of Leagues 1 and 2, I’m ending up with the same teams ll the time, so I might do a mini-tournament of some sort to decide it.

      Yes, I am in a group called the “The Old LogActa Players’ Association”, which does have 45 members. It’s a really good group that has grown massively in participation since the lockdown started and has continued to be quite busy since then. Everyone is really friendly and there’s lots of interesting stuff going on, so you’d be most welcome if you wanted to join. I for one would love to see some posts about your MLS set up. Well done on getting to season 9, that’s good going.

      Alex

  19. Hi Alex

    I thought you would be part of that Facebook Group 🙂

    I haven’t posted anything for nearly 3 years as I was exposed to some very unkind gossip. If I joined the group do you know if would it show up on my timeline and to my “friends”…..some who turned out not be. I’d rather be private about this.

    Thanks
    Kevin

    1. Hi Kevin

      It’s a private group so nothing appears to any non-members, so no need to worry about that. I’m the same, I wouldn’t want all and sundry seeing my posts about LOGacta, not that I’m ashamed of it or anything but many people don’t understand these types of hobbies and some use it against you. So yes, it’s totally private and just between all us LOGacta enthusiasts. 🙂

      Alex

  20. Hi Alex

    Thanks for confirming that. I’m not ashamed of Logacta either, but as you say a lack of understanding can create problems both online and offline which none of us need during a pandemic. I’m finding Logacta is providing some escape from all that if only for an hour or so a day.

    I’ll join up later today after running some errands 🙂

    Cheers!
    Kevin

  21. Hi Alex

    Hope you are doing well.

    Way back in this blog you mentioned that you used a rating system for league matches rather than the LoGacta points chart for determining which color dice is used. Do you use a sliding scale meaning top teams get green, next level brown and so on regardless if they are playing home or away?

    After season 10 I’m thinking of switching to a ratings based system for my league set ups.

    Thanks so much
    Kevin

    1. Hi Kevin

      The system I use is similar to the cup rating system in LOGacta. For example, in the AFL I would split the league into five groups of four teams. The top four are rated ‘1’, the next four are ‘2’, and so on down to the bottom group on ‘5’. They then get the dice determined by the LOGacta dice selector for cup competitions. So a team from group ‘1’ playing a team from group ‘2’ at home would have the blue die, with the away team having the grey die. If the team from group ‘2’ is at home to the team from group ‘1’ then it’s both teams using the black die. So, the top teams would only get the green die at home against groups ‘4’ and ‘5’.

      Hope this makes sense.

      Alex

  22. Hi Alex

    That’s great and makes perfect sense. I thought your answer would be something like that but wanted to make sure from “The Expert” 🙂

    Appreciate the fast response you always give me.

    Kevin

  23. Hi Alex
    Just wanted to say I’m really enjoying the Facebook Group. Thanks for easing my nerves about joining. It’s nice to be part of something again and having a connection with like minded people.

    Kevin

  24. Hi Alex

    Looking forward to the season end of SSL 187. Should be an exciting one.

    So, I’m now firmly using the “cup rating” system for league play. I think it’s a better way of doing it and besides it eliminates the mental arithmetic of working out the points difference to select the correct dice. Definitely a process improvement! 🙂

    1. Yeah, it’s certainly poised for an interesting finish, although I’m betting Celtic will win it, as I would in real life too.

      Ha ha, yes, I hadn’t thought about that (re the mental arithmetic). But that’s the great thing about the game, it can be tailored to everyone’s own preferences.

      Alex

  25. Hi Alex

    Hope all is well with you. Hot and humid but still Covid free myself here in Ontario.

    As the next A.F.L. season will be 188 are you planning on doing a E.F.U. Nations Championship once it’s over? If so, how do you go about doing that? What I mean is do you go through all the qualifying rounds or just pick a 24 teams for the finals? Actually I’m looking forward to following this tournament.

    I’m thinking about adding in a World Cup starting season 16 or 18 but just doing qualifiers from my region rather than everywhere. That sounds like too much work….LOL!

    Cheers
    Kevin

    1. Hi Kevin

      Yes, I usually do a qualifying competition with a certain amount of teams. The last one I did had 36 teams going for 24 places, but the top 12 in the rankings received byes to the finals. The other 24 played in 6 groups of four with the top 2 qualifying from each group, to find the other 12 qualifiers. I do this just to keep the number of games down.

      I’m currently at the Retro League stage of the cycle, with Season 8 due to start shortly. I’ve been working on increasing it from 20 teams to 22 to make it more realistic, and of course, more “retro”. I’m nearly finished that and hope to start playing within the next couple of days.

      Alex

    2. I’m now working on doing a full qualifying tournament, i.e. all 55 U.E.F.A. nations, in ten groups as in real life. I’m not doing a nations’ league (although that’s an idea I might adopt), so all the teams will qualify via the groups and play-offs (e.g. top two in each group and play-offs among the third place teams). I’ve nearly finished Season 188 of the A.F.L., so it’ll be the European club competitions next followed by probably the E.F.U. Nations’ Cup.

  26. Hi Alex
    Well that was a suprise update on the FB Group about Logacta 20. It’s great to see that someone is trying to revive the game in a somewhat orginal format of a binded book and charts. Not sure myself if this is something I would be onboard with mainly because I spent the last 5 years of my career overseeing a project to reduce paper! Still, I hope it is successful just to add something different to a football games market dominated by FM and FIFA. I may contribute a few bucks to the cause 🙂

    1. Yes, same here. I keep most of my records in electronic format, although I have moved to using charts a lot more lately because I find it more engaging. However, the charts I use are very tailored to my setup, so the new version probably wouldn’t be for me either. I wouldn’t mind a set of the dice though, but I don’t want to pay £35 for a set.

  27. Hi Alex
    So Liverpool prevent back to back Euro Leagues for Sevilla and a Spanish double with Granada winning the Euro Cup. Oh, I really like the addition of the country flags to each of the tournaments. Nice touch!
    BTW – Happy Thanksgiving from Canada. Our’s is earlier than the Americans 🙂

    1. Hi Kevin
      Yeah, it was a bit of a spoiler Liverpool winning that one, for me also, as I now have to somehow incorporate them as a fifth team for England in the Euro League next season. It’s doable but a bit of a faff, as my spreadsheets don’t have a special slot for the holders, it’s just assumed that they have qualified anyway via their own league. But Liverpool finished 13th in the Premier Division, so I either have to add an extra English team or deprive someone else, i.e. Fulham, of their hard-won Euro League spot. Anyway, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

      I’m currently working on the Nations’ Cup, which will have a qualifying tournament involving 50 of the 55 countries. I will also look at setting up a World Cup, of possible, for Season 190, if it is viable to do so. So it might be a wee while before the next posting.

      In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving Kevin (I knew Canada’s was earlier than the USA’s but didn’t realise it was this weekend). Do you do like the Americans and have a turkey meal etc? Well, whatever is the tradition, have a great day.

      All the best.

      Alex

  28. Hi Alex
    It sounds like you have a bit of work cut out for you to add in Liverpool….
    The Nations Cup is something I’d look forward to seeing you do though with 50 teams there’s a lot of planning I assume for rankings etc and a lot of “rolling” to come afterwards! Same goes for the World Cup which I hope you do also.
    I’m still figuring out my own World Cup finals and how to rank the final 32. Probably R1 to R6 and somehow relative to the current FIFA coefficents.

    And, just like the Americans its all about the turkey and the various side dishes. It’s basically Christmas dinner with Pecan and Sweet Potato pie for dessert. Our Thanksgiving is a little different this year due to Covid. No going to other family or friends houses to share dinner. I’m not sure if our cousins to the south will adhere to that next month even if its the advice from health officals.

    1. Yeah, there’s a lot of planning and rejigging of spreadsheets etc, but it’s all good fun.

      Your thanksgiving sounds great, although sad that you can’t share with other households as that is part of the fun. That’s 2020 for you. I reckon we’ll have the same things at Christmas too.

  29. Hi Alex
    Well, I’m quite surpised that the Logacta 2020 project reached the target, though I’m very happy for Greig Marshall who got the whole thing going. There is obviously a market out there for the product and quite an avid following too. 12 backers from the USA!! And even the FB group continues to expand.

    Speaking of FB group I hope I’m not posting too much? I can get a bit carried away, especially after 17 seasons 🙂

    1. Hi Kevin

      Yes, there’s a lot of support, I’ve been surprised myself at just how much. And the amount of interest in the U.S.A. is amazing, as you say.

      Don’t worry about posting. I’m glad to see any and all posts and your stuff is really interesting because it’s different. I know activity has slowed down a lot since the early days of lockdown, when it was quite busy. But it’s good to keep the momentum going and I’m glad to see your posts. I think it’s brilliant too that you have done 17 seasons already – that’s good work.

      Just keep posting as and when you have news, as I say, I’ll certainly appreciate it, and I think others do. There’s always plenty of readers of the posts even if they don’t always like or comment on them.

      Alex

  30. Hi Alex

    Well, season 19 has been a bit of a trial domestically. I’ve made some errors as most of my set up is manual imput and recently realized that a few teams had the wrong W, L, D, tally. I’m bouncing between several leagues which hasn’t helped either. All the numbers start to look jumbled after a while. With little or no automation it’s become a struggle.

    Anyway, I’m telling you this as Season 20 ( no I’m not giving up) will be streamlined further to help eliminate some of these errors and additionally create more realism. On that note my leagues are starting to drift away from MLS reality which I feel is not good as one needs that connection back to real life to maintain interest….IMO.

    So, when the current season ends I’ll post a samll amount of content on FB and then move into Season 20 with more of an MLS style set up. Conferences, play-offs and a cup final. This is how North America soccer works as opposed to the European set up. Hopefully all this will alleviate some of the issues I’m running into and I wanted to let you know about this first.

    1. Hi Kevin

      Thanks for sharing this, Kevin, it’s interesting news. I’m quite excited about it because the MLS setup is one that I really like. We in Europe, of course, have the tradition of larger divisions with promotion and relegation, but there is something nice about the simplicity of a regular season followed by playoffs, with one major title instead of the plethora of trophies we play for here. So, I’m going to be very interested to see this when you get round to doing it. 🙂

      Alex

  31. Hi Alex
    Project 20 (Season 20) is well underway and reaching about 30% completed. Under the new branding of the NSL – National Soccer League, the 24 US based teams are divided in East and West Conferences. Within each conference there are two groups of six teams.
    In the Opening Phase each team plays 10 league games (home/away) in their respective group with points gained going towards overall standing (12 teams) as opposed to group standings.

    After 10 games are completed in each conference we move on to the AT & T Cup where the two conferences are mixed into Division A & B based on their NSL standing – and then groups again just like the NSL. They play another 10 league games followed by the play-offs to determine the AT & T Cup winner.

    Points accumulated in AT & T play will be added to the teams tally from the first 10 games in the NSL League play. The Closing Phase of the NSL is then played with another 10 games followed by play – offs to determine the NSL Champion. #1 in each conference gets a first round bye.

    Each team ends up playing 30 league games and during the season there are “reset points” where form dice will come into play as well as a change in ranking depending on performance. Teams can also be shuffled between Conference groups based on the Conference standings.

    To top it all off there is still the Memorial Cup as well! It was a little complex to start with but once I got rolling it’s moving along quite nicely. 🙂

    Oh, we are going into a 28 day Covid lockdown tomorrow and just to add good measure to panic buying there is 15 cm of snow forecasted for today. 🙁

    1. That does sound complex Kevin, but as you say once you play it you will get the hang of it. I’m looking forward to seeing the updates. BTW, in the play-offs, how many teams qualify from each conference?

      15cm of snow, that would be a lot here but I guess it’s par for the course in Canada. I know my folks in Winnipeg say they regularly get like a metre or more of snow at some point over the winter (eek!). We rarely get more than a centimetre or two, and some winters we barely get any snow at all, although there usually is some in the mountains. In fact, there is snow in the hills beisde us right now, but nothing down at our level.

      We’re still in a partial lockdown here too. I’m just so glad to have the footy games and the Facebook group to get us through it all.

      So the Retro League has finished so the next thing will be my World Cup project. I’ll post up the progress as I go along.

      All the best.

      Alex

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  33. Hi Alex,

    I have been busy doing re designing my spreadsheets for my version of Logacta (Love Xlookup in microsoft 365). Thanks to your 24 team spreadsheets I have now got all the EFL set up as master templates along with the national league and of course the premier league. I have also got the North and South National Leagues but as 24 team leagues not 22. My latest spreadsheet I am aiming to recreate the FA Cup right from beginning with Level 10 Non league teams in it. But…. now I have come across a problem, my national leagues north and south have 2 too many teams in.

    So, now I think I will have the National Leagues North and South with the correct 22 teams in each. I have looked on the website on how you workout the fixtures using the scientific method. However I am having brain fog trying to use your method to create fixtures for a 22 team league.

    Any guidance would be appreciated.

    Thanks

    Mark

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