Created by Jon Hall in 1993, Sim Football was the first ever statistical based AFL fantasy game to be played in Australia . The first league was created with a view to keeping a bunch of cricketers occupied during the winter months, the game was 100% paper based and players would drop their teams in Jon’s letterbox prior to the 7pm Friday night deadline.

Over the years the game evolved, the introduction of the fax machine simplified team submission and Jon moved most of the management of the game to computer. Team submission by email was next and Jon created a series of macros using excel to automate much of the back end.

Most of the modern AFL statistical based games have been based in some way on the genius that is Sim Football, but there is nothing quite like the game of sim, it was designed for the connoisseur, and has stood the test of time.

Jon’s life ended in 2023 but he wanted the game he created to live on and continue to be played. We had to miss season 2024, there simply wasnt enough time to work out how he ran the system, but Sim Football was back up and running in AFL season 2025 and beyond. It is now operated on a modern application that was custom designed to run his game.