My Journey Into The Wonderful World Of Flag Football...
Hello everybody. I'm Tom, a normal teenage boy (if you believe in oxymorons).
Recently, I was approached by Andrew as regards to writing some stuff about the team and the sport in general so as to increase awareness of it within the community.
As a budding writer, I practically tore his hand off, as any opportunity to do some writing is both enjoyable and a great way to get my name about in the industry, which is particularly important in this day and age with jobs being so few and far between. I look forward to being able to write lots of articles and reports for you over the foreseeable future. Hopefully, you will eventually grow to know my name.
I must confess that prior to taking up this fantastic opportunity, I had absolutely no idea how any of the sport's aspects worked and found the whole idea of American football thoroughly confusing. However, having read a few articles and such, I think I have the basics of flag football pretty much straight. Therefore, I should be able to give you a reasonable overview of how the sheer basics of the game work.
Flag football is the non-contact version of traditional American football and allows beginners to the game an easy way to get to know the sport before progressing into the rough and tumble of the main game. It contains all of the running and catching etc that is associated with the main game, but the tackling aspect is replaced by small flags that are worn on the hips of each player. When this flag is removed, the ball must be passed on. These rules are similar to that found in tag rugby, which serves a similar purpose in that it introduces beginners to the game of rugby without all of the emphasis on contact that often puts off potential players.
As you can see, the rules are very simple, so the game is very easy to get to grips with, which is especially useful to people like me who have absolutely zero previous experience of the sport in any of its forms, so really do need to start at the very bottom in terms of knowledge. With the help of qualified coaches who really do know their stuff, I believe that anybody could get up to a reasonable level of ability in this sport.
Perhaps the best thing about the Coventry Bears and Huskies set up is that you don't need to purchase any of the plentiful and no doubt expensive equipment that adorns professional American footballers. For your first sessions, some generic sports kit and a pair of football boots or trainers will suffice.
So that's it for my introduction to this little known sport. I'm sure you will see plenty of my work around in the very near future as I continue to follow the fortunes of this club in all of their endeavours.
Tom Beasley (tombeasley1994@gmail.com)