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This page last updated:
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
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How to.. play American Football
IT'S a long time since anyone tipped me off my feet and onto my ass.
But when I joined the East Midland Saxons American Football team for a training session that is precisely what happened in the first hour.
And I can still feel where I landed on my tailbone everytime I sit on a hard chair.
I have to confess I was not looking forward to donning the shoulder pads and helmet of an American footballer. It is not a game I am particularly familiar with, and as far as I could tell most of it involves finding somebody on the opposing team wearing a different coloured shirt and pummeling the living daylights out of them.
As it turned out I was half right.
The team meets every Sunday at Stanground College from 11am to 3pm for training. It has been together for the last four years, and moved to the city this year having previously met in Boston and Spalding.
The majority of its members come from Peterborough.
But they weren't all the great hulking brutes I was expecting to see. As offensive line member Andy Coleman pointed out to me it is a game for all shapes, sizes and skills, as in some positions you have to stop people, in others the skill is to run fast to catch the ball, in others the ability to throw well or kick well is essential.
Quarterback Mark Kerr said: "It doesn't matter what level of fitness you are or how big or small you are, there is something you can do - that's the beauty of the game."
The training session began with a big group warm-up before the two parts of the team - the offensive and defensive side, squared up to each other for a quick run out against each other.
I joined in once I had been kitted up in shoulderpads, shirt and a helmet, which seemed to squeeze my ears when I put it on then rattled as I turned to look at things - proving, as I had always thought, that I do have an oddly shaped head.
It was a strange feeling, nervously standing in a pack of similarly kitted-out blokes before running downfield once the ball was kicked towards another group of people whose sole intention is to stop you getting down to the other end of the field.
I was pushed gently offline by one of the oppostion but I escaped toppling over at that point.
As a visitor I was taken around all the different parts of the team.
As someone who knows the rules of English football it seems strange that in the American version of it there are actually players who never get to touch the ball.
They are the offensive line, and they are the big heavies you often imagine when you think of American football. They are part of the tactical part of the game - they block opponents from getting past and help their own players cut through their ranks.
And a nicer bunch of blokes you wouldn't find, although you wouldn't want to be facing them in a game. I tried out a few of the tactical moves, and learned the stance which in theory stops you from being toppled by the opposition. Why I didn't use it later is beyond me.
They weren't bitter about being kept from the ball either - as their coach said: "They won't let us have the ball so we bought our own!"
The second group I joined was the running backs who were learning blocking moves. I was selected as a guinea pig to try to get to the quarterback.
I was supposed to run at him hard. I soon regretted actually doing that. The man I was placed against made me feel quite shrimpy. I have seen more poorly built brick outhouses compared to the padded up guy I was facing.
The whistle blew, I ran forward, and the next thing I saw was sky, accompanied with a high-pitched buzzing sound in my ears.
Two weeks later the bruise across my chest where he caught my chest pad is slowly disappearing and I am now able to sit down without wincing.
At the time though I was fine, although a little surprised, and glad I had gone to the trouble of buying myself a gum shield!
The final group I joined was the defensive backs. They are the players whose job it is to mark the opposition to make sure they don't catch the ball. Under the coach Cowboy I learned the codes of how to run back to receive the ball from the quarterback as well as the best way to mark somebody.
The players here were much more your slimmer, faster athletes, with the ability to catch or run fast.
The classes broke up for a scrimmage where the players put their newly learned skills into practice and I took a back seat - and tried not to think about my now throbbing tail bone.
I'm not going to attempt to sum up the rules of American Football here, suffice to say there are 11 members of the team on the pitch at any one time, but squads can grow in size to 35 or 40 to cover all the different positions a team has to cover.
The Saxons are in the British Senior League Division Two (Central), up against teams from Northamptonshire, Coventry, Merseyside and Manchester.
Their season starts in April but they are playing their first pre-season friendly at the college against the Kent Exiles on Sunday, February 27, kicking off at 2.30pm.