Last night I watched a Monday Night Football game from 1980!

[AsahinaKimi]

This was on Youtube. It was the Oakland Raiders (Jim Plunkett) vs The Pittsburgh Steelers (Terry Bradshaw). Coaches were Tom Flores vs Chuck Knoll.

The Monday Night announcers were Howard Cosell, Don Meredith, and Frank Gifford. The Raiders beat a very beaten up Steelers Team, (on the side lines, were Lynn Swan, Franko Harris, Jack Lambert out with injuries.)

Playing for the Raiders was Art Shell (Who later became the Raiders Head Coach) Matt Milen, (who later played on the 49ers Superbowl teams) and very impressive was Kenny King!

The game was broken into 14 segements (Unfortunatly segment #11 had disappeared) and included every thing including advertisements for things like Miller Beer, Chewing tobacco, Financial companies, the Chrysler Buick, and several Airlines. Its fun to see those ads too btw.. a diffrent
world back then.

I won't mention the final score incase you guys would like to watch the game. Maybe some of you remember that Monday Night Football game.. I also did some searching ahead..and found out, that the Raiders went on to the Superbowl and beat the Philadelphia Eagles. I think some one referred to it as a stunning upset.


The thing about this is, that when this game was played live, I was under 12 years old!! Though my father dragged my family to Candlestick park and we had season tickets, I probably didn't
always sit in his lap watching Monday Night Football back then. I didn't learn to appreciate it till I was older. Still... This game was amazing to me.. I really think Football has changed a lot
since then.. Sure seems that way..

Part one starts here (1/14) (A clue to watching them all, just change the search box number upwards and you will find all the games ..with the exception of #11 which seems to have vanished. I don't think much was missing because the score didn't change drastically during the missing time period.)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl0wkuGMDLk

[OriginalGeek]

1. While I don't remember that particular game

I have no doubt I watched some of it. I would have been 16 or 17 depending how late in the season it was and I watched every football game I could back then. I usually had to go to bed before they were over but I often tried to get away with just watching with no sound on a 13" B/W TV I had in my room. I was safe as long as my mother and stepfather's door didn't open (In which case they would have seen the glow underneath my door and made me turn it off)

I loved Howard Cosell as an announcer and I tried to always make it to when Dandy Don Meredith would sing "Turn out the lights...the party's over..."

MNF was never the same after they left.

I was almost certainly pulling for the Raiders as I was and still am a Cowboys fan and especially back then I wished ill on Pittsburgh every chance I got lol. (Back then they had beaten us in a couple Superbowls so they were the enemy.)

[rurallib]

2. were you familiar with Cosell? If not what did you think of him?

[Faygo Kid]

3. I was. He was courageous standing up for Ali.

I liked him. He did some terrific interviews.

He was also pompous and could be downright nasty. At the end, he was awful; hated sports. But he was one of a kind, and could be very thought-provoking. Miss him and a lot of the others of that era, like Jim McKay and Chris Schenkel.

[AsahinaKimi]

4. I loved his laugh...

Seems Dandy Don always had him in stitches in the booth. They seemed like they had a lot of fun. Frank Gifford seemed a bit stiff though.

[OriginalGeek]

5. Oh I only knew him from MNF

I was just a kid then but I loved hearing him call a game.

[some guy]

6. Thank you.

That was kind of fun. I'm sure I hadn't seen that game before. At the time, I was just beginning my IT career, learning computer operations. Running an IBM mainframe, complete with card decks and card readers / punches. :D

For the adverts, I like the Lanier "No Problem Type writer" - an early desktop personal computer. It's interesting that they sold it as a typewriter, rather than a computer.

For the game, the stand out aspect was the complete lack of shotgun quarterback plays, even though it was being used by some teams in the league at the time.

eta - the interesting player was that young kid Todd Christensen Oakland had got from Dallas and was trying to convert into a tight end. I think he might have a shot at making it in the league at that position. :rofl: