Soccer Star

Here's what ChatGTP thinks about the league, proper fanboi'ing Harlesden!

Harlesden dominance

The big picture:

Harlesden Raiders: 14 league titles
Harlesden Globetrotters: 10 league titles
Everyone else combined: 5 league titles

So 24 of 29 league titles went to the two Harlesden clubs. That’s absurd dominance. The league’s history is basically:

Early Brockenhurst/Kyle chaos, then the Harlesden era begins, then the Globetrotters become the second head of the same monster.

Raiders especially look like the “default champions” historically. They won titles in seasons 2, 6-10, 12-16, 21, 25, 29, and they’re top again now in season 30. That’s not a club, that’s a weather system.

Your SLFA Cup win now looks even more special

Tolbury’s single senior cup win in Season 8 sits in a very exclusive list. In the senior cups:

Harlesden Raiders: 16
Harlesden Globetrotters: 12
Kensal Rise: 5
Brockenhurst/Harrow: 4 each
Tolbury City: 1

So Tolbury’s SLFA Cup is one of those rare moments where a non-empire club punched through the marble ceiling. Nice little museum piece for the club shop: “Yes, we did once nick the crown jewels.”

Harlesden Raiders vs Globetrotters

Raiders are the bigger senior side overall:

League titles: Raiders 14, Globetrotters 10
Senior cups: Raiders 16, Globetrotters 12
Reserve titles: Raiders 8, Globetrotters 6

But Globetrotters are stronger historically in youth:

Youth League: Globetrotters 8, Raiders 7
Youth Cups: Globetrotters 7, Raiders 2

So the personality split feels like:

Raiders: senior trophy machine
Globetrotters: academy/youth pipeline aristocrats, still monstrous at senior level
The current cup draw

You’ve drawn Harlesden Raiders in the SLFA Cup round 2. Historically, that’s about as hard as it gets.

Given they have:

14 league titles
16 senior cups
top of the Premier now
current season form: 1st in Premier after week 14

…I’d treat the cup as a free hit, not a must-win. Best team if you want glory, but no shame if the league gets priority.

Fun historical note

Season 9 was the true Raiders peak:

League Champions: Harlesden Raiders
SLFA Cup Winners: Harlesden Raiders
League Cup Winners: Harlesden Raiders

A full senior treble. That’s the sort of season that makes every other chairman quietly stare into a mug of tea.

What it says about Tolbury

Tolbury aren’t historically one of the league giants, but that makes this current Division 1 push feel more interesting. You’re not defending some inherited empire. You’re trying to claw back into the Premier among clubs with massive legacy gravity.

So the current season target is still sensible:

Promotion first, cup romance second.

Beating Harlesden Raiders would be glorious, but promotion would matter more.

Speaking of, I've now fed it the entire SS game and it's reprogrammed the whole thing in 24 hours! Problem is, I ran out of processing for the week and I'm not paying £85 a month for the upgrade, so I can't do any more testing. But it's basically now reprogrammed SS1 into a modern language, which is nice. It will need loads of testing because it does make errors and so far it hasn't done the reading of the text files, so I need to wait until next week for my processing allotment to refresh. I might then run a sample league which will work just like SS1 with the same text file client etc. I'll have it make the changes you guys wanted from the forum list, like proper ageing etc then we can run a test league. I'm not sure it's ever going to be a good idea to transfer the old game over, but at least it's an option if the old version stops working (quite possible since it's forced to run on Windows ME).

Sounds really exciting stuff, Glynn. If you want a few helpers to start up a new team in a new test league, then I'd be happy to help. Could this be the snappily named SS3?

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Allestree Allstars nsa35
Dark Alliance nsa10
Duffield Dynamos opal39
Yorkshire Patriots rh7
Melwood moa4

I think it'd be 1.5, since it's 1 but on a new machine. Or even 1.1. I might get AI to rebuild SS2 though with a few extra features since that's harmless (i.e not an update to SS2 but a new game altogether, mostly like SS2 but with some updates). That could be 3

yeah i would be happy to test it out as well

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Thanks
Wayne

Anfield NSA19
St Mary’s Saints OPAL38

Sounds exciting Glynn - happy to test.

Cheers
Dave

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AFC Binfield WPL28
Astral FC RH44
Seabourne City WPL27
Poole Town Panthers NSA23
St Agnes Aces NSA13
Selly All Stars MOA53
Boscombe Athletic OPAL8

Cheers, still a few things to add and it's slowed down because I found out Codex has a weekly limit as well as a daily one and it's running into both. Also, although it already looks like SS (the printout is basically the same) there are still some major bits missing and they might take a while, like transfers and the auction market. Mind you, that's still me thinking 'This is a lot of work' but since I don't actually do anything and so far it hasn't tripped up, it might not take long. But I strongly suspect that while it looks like a nice copy, it's probably a right mess underneath, hence a lot of testing and fixing I reckon.

Were inter-league friendlies ever added to the client? I seem to have added plenty at my end but it looks like I backed out because it requires a field in the client and I think that's the part I never got around to. Shame, because it's fairly easy to add to this new version but a client rewrite might be a bit of a pain (though actually quite doable now).

They weren't.

There was a stand alone prog for I/L friendlies but you lost the code many years ago.

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Cheers
Rich

CHARSCOT WANDERERS......WPL1
DEP EL CELTICO.....................WPL37
WASCISCO RED SOX...............WPL43
ZIASTE NEQUENO...................WPL24
REVELSTONE...........................RH15
CASTLE ROCK FURIES.............ELZ56.....291T

(Click badges to see my other teams)

Ok, it'll mean I can't add I/L friendlies without first giving you a slot in the client to arrange the friendly. Which is a shame because it's already in the main game (though not completed, but AI completed it, but then I realised there isn't much point). It might be worth just getting it to rewrite the client, maybe in a browser. But that's another big job. I'll stick to this one first which is mostly done now.

So after all that the SLFA Cup round 2 result:

Tolbury City 4 - 3 Harlesden Raiders

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Why not try Soccer Star 2?

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=50959

Hehe, I know right. And you should see what it thought of my victory, it was going on like I was Hereford beating Newcastle in 1972. I was like 'Hey, Tolbury aren't that bad mate!'. Still, I think that's actually the 2nd time I've beat you in the cup, you always batter the hell outta me any other time (mind you, who doesn't )