Football- The Beginning - posted June 7th 2007
Essentially my interest and (as has clearly transpired) my playing of American Football all stems from Super Bowl XXXV ( that’s 35 to you and me , or “ you know , the one in 2001’).
I can vividly remember staying up that fateful night/morning ( at the age of 11 that’s quite a feat ) to watch a game I didn’t understand , being played by ridiculously large men with some sort of giant party occurring have way through ( I guess that’s why its called sports entertainment ) . Needless to say , I was transfixed . The final score was 37-7 as the Ravens beat/ destroyed the Giants and I remember thinking that if I was going to ‘get into’ the sport I would have to support a team that was both successful , respected and yet very much likable . But then I remembered that I’m English and enjoy emotionally crippling pain so naturally I chose the loser( as opposed to the winner) of Super Bowl XXXV : the New York Football Giants .
What has followed is about 7 years of serious emotional (see Eli Manning) and physical distress . Yet, thankfully, it has given me an understanding of the sacrifice necessary to play the game itself and so when, after serious consideration, I decided to get involved in the sport at the beginning of the year by joining the London Blitz, I did so fully aware of the nature of this most gruelling sport. Yet I was still shocked. The sheer pace and violence of the game was like nothing I had anticipated and despite being something of a natural sportsmen (if I may so myself) I still found myself out of place on many a play , desperately clutching at the air around the ball carrier or being drilled into the ground by a blocker .
Yet the very nature of the London Blitz Youth Team ( formally something of a force in youth football before its dissolution some years ago I am reliably informed ) meant that everyone was a rookie and we were all approaching a game very much foreign to us ( at least in putting it into practise). Yet the whole team , straight from “Rookie Camp” in December to our first game against the Warriors , has shown a level of commitment and loyalty to one another that I have never seen in the various other sports teams I have been on . Perhaps that’s what is missing from UK sports , a sense of togetherness and brotherhood that is so essential to American Football . Perhaps.
TPB!