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A bit about 'Britball' | |
The Gateshead International Senators are North East England's longest established and most successful amateur American (Gridiron) football club. All UK gridiron is amateur. Home games are played at Gateshead International Stadium, a world class athletics venue.
The British season runs from April until July or September, depending on whether the team is successful enough to make post-season play-offs. The League (the BAFA Senior League, established by the governing body of the game in the UK, the British American Football Association) is structured into two divisions, each division being sub-divided into Conferences based on regions mainly to cut down travelling costs in a league where players pay to play.
Division One consists of fourteen teams in three regional conferences. These tend to be the bigger and richer clubs (Senators play in Division One North but we're hardly rich), although Britball as a whole has fallen on hard times compared with a few years ago. Division Two has eighteen teams in four conferences.
Some of the bigger, mainly southern clubs broke away for 1997 to form the "Big Six", but such is the transient nature of UK gridiron that they lost teams, and English teams now play in the one league again. Some famous names have disappeared from the scene in recent years.
One of the saddest as far as the Senators were concerned was the demise of the Glasgow Lions. This powerhouse team, which bred Claymores' star Scott Couper among others, was always a contender for the UK Championship, and was a regular opponent for the Senators in the heyday of UK gridiron. But then some of the southern English teams refused to travel to Glasgow to play them, although the Lions were willing to go to London etc., and even offered to meet at, say, Derby. In the end all Scottish teams left BAFA to found a Scottish League, putting an end to a single UK league structure. Of course, the Lions dominated this league, but even they too could no longer survive, and followed so many fine clubs into oblivion. There is now a single British league again, but still the patient Scots often have to travel south to meet southern teams half way.
Why has this happened? American football became popular in the UK when Channel 4 TV started showing NFL highlights at 6 p.m. on Sunday evenings in the early 1980s. This soon attracted a large audience and led to clubs springing up all over the country, one of the earliest being the Tyneside Trojans, one of the "ancestors" of the Senators (see Team History). Many failed to last, and were replaced by others. At one time there were over 100 clubs in the UK. League sponsorship came from Budweiser and later Coca-Cola. It was at this time that links were established between the NDMA (the top league in the UK at the time) and the NFL, which led to the twinning of the Senators with the Miami Dolphins. Much of the interest was from young people, who took part and if too young, formed youth teams or watched. There is still a youth league BYAFA, and a college league. Of course, it was always going to be minority sport, given the domination of soccer, and the established sports such as rugby and cricket.
In a sense, the viewers were one cause of the game's decline. Enthusiasts wanted live action, and this week's games, not highlights a week late. Channel 4 complied, with the result that the programme moved to late night because of the time difference, and lost its young audience. C4 tried to make up for this with Saturday morning shows, but this was competing with soccer and the various activities that lively kids take part in on Saturday mornings - even just shopping with their mates. Also, it must be said that there were those in the soccer establishment who saw Gridiron as a threat, and did what they could to decrease the popularity of the sport.
The loss of American football to satellite TV meant that it was only available to a minority audience, and Channel 5 continued with the C4 policy of late night shows that young people either didn't know were on or couldn't watch anyway.
It has also been said that American input itself led to the decline, by taking out too much money and attempting to run an amateur sport in the fashion of American leagues. Some players and coaches got much too greedy and outspent the game.
Britball is now without a major sponsor, and many clubs now operate at a lower financial level, having to manage without sponsorship. (The Senators have no current team sponsorship, apart from hospitality arrangements.) The game is still settling down in the UK and has yet to find its level. Clubs still collapse and/or merge, as Tyneside Tigers and Stockton Gators have joined forces with the Senators over the last few years.
Oh, if you are a millionaire businessman who likes Gridiron, give , the Club Chairman, a call. He would love to hear from you!