Continental Football League (1967-1968)
Tombstone
Born: 1967
Moved: 1969 (Portland Loggers)
First Game: August 26, 1967 (W 52-3 vs. Victoria Tyees)
Last Game: November 30, 1968 (L 30-23 @ Orlando Panthers)
CoFL Championships: None
Stadia
1967: Santa Ana Stadium
1967-1968: Anaheim Stadium
Opened: 1966
1967-1968: La Palma Stadium
1968: Orange Show Stadium
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owners: Charles Schlegel, Vic Saman, et al.
Our Favorite Stuff
Continental Football League
Logo T-Shirt
Variously described as everything from “semi-pro” football to the “third Major League” behind the NFL and AFL during the late 1960’s, the Continental Football briefly established a sprawling network of pro football clubs that stretched from Florida to Mexico City to British Columbia. The Continental League helped launch the careers of Hall-of-Famers Bill Walsh and Ken Stabler and other NFL stars of the 1970’s including Otis Sistrunk, Bob Kuechenberg and Coy Bacon.
Our friends at Old School Shirts make the only Continental League shirt we’ve found and like all of their retro Americana tees, it’s soft and fits great!
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Background
The Orange County Ramblers were a superb minor league football team that enjoyed a brief two-year existence in the late 1960’s. Under Head Coach Homer Beatty, the Ramblers assembled a 21-3 record over two regular seasons in the Continental Football League. The CoFL (1965-1969) existed one rung beneath the NFL and AFL and lived up to its ambitious name, with franchises stretched across the United States and Canada. Only one minor league squad in North American could lick the Ramblers – the Orlando Panthers, who defeated the Californians in the Continental League championship game in both 1967 and 1968.
Good as they were, the Ramblers couldn’t sustain much of a following in Orange County. The team tried several venues in Santa Ana and Anaheim. The team’s best crowds, announced in the 8,000 – 10,000 range, came during a late season stretch of games at Anaheim Stadium in 1967. This included a gathering of 8,730 for the Continental Football League championship game on December 10th, 1967. But when the Ramblers returned to the 43,000-seat Major League Baseball venue to start the 1968 season, the fans failed to come with them. The Ramblers failed to crack 4,000 fans for a single contest in 1968 despite a league-best 11-1 record. The team moved to San Bernardino midway through the season in search of more fans (or at least cheaper rent).
The Ramblers’ final appearance was a 30-23 loss to the Panthers in the Continental League championship game at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando on November 30th, 1968.
The End
The Ramblers were expelled from the Continental League in the spring of 1969. The team’s player contracts were originally assigned to a group hoping to put a new franchise in Hawaii. When those plans fell through, the contracts were given to a hastily-organized group that entered a Portland, Oregon franchise (the Loggers) into the CoFL just weeks before the 1969 season kicked off. The Continental League folded at the end of the 1969 campaign.
Trivia
Members of the Ramblers acted as stand-ins for the Green Bay Packers in Otto Preminger’s 1968 film Skidoo, an infamous counter-culture comedy flop starring Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing and Groucho Marx in his final film appearance.
Orange County Ramblers Shop
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Outsiders II
by Bob Gill with Tod Maher & Steve Brainerd
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One Response
I’m shocked this article doesn’t mention the fact that the Ramblers “played” the Green Bay Packers in the infamous flop movie “Skidoo” in 1968. Per wiki:
“The Orange County Ramblers were featured in the 1968 film Skidoo, in a credited role as stand-ins for a nude Green Bay Packers team. The Ramblers offense is seen, from behind, wearing nothing but helmets, during a scene in which a security guard is hallucinating due to the effects of LSD.”