Do you love American football? Do you wish you could play American football? Do you wish you had a local American football team? If the answer is Yes, Yes, and Yes, what are you waiting for?

Start your own American football team.

If that sounds slightly ridiculous, think again. Starting an American football team doesn’t have to be that difficult – there is an easy route. Flag football.

Flag football is American football without the helmets and crunching tackles, but all the fun of passing, catching and galloping runs. What’s more, flag football doesn’t cost anywhere near as much as kitted American football.

To play flag football, all you need is an American football, flag football belts, a patch of grass and a bunch of mates. If there are 10 of you, great, you can play a game amongst yourselves. Even better, if you have at least 5 players, you can join the British American Football League and compete in BAFL Flag.

The flag football league has conferences in England and Scotland, with teams in Glasgow, Coventry, Edinburgh, Leicester and Chichester, amongst other places.

New teams are always welcome, so why not start your own?

There are some pretty big cities that currently don’t have flag football teams at the moment. Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Cardiff, Southampton, Newcastle, Bristol, Reading, York, Nottingham, Plymouth, Cambridge and Brighton, to name just a few. Perhaps you could start one?

What next?

Read the Flag Football Rules

Download this great guide to starting your own Senior Flag team from the London Rebels

Fill out the BAFL Individual Registration Form 2010

Get more info about coaches, referees, transfers, etc. (this will prompt you to Save a .zip file containing all the documents)

Find out more about Flag Football & American Football

And if you want any help with coaching, get in touch with us at the Chichester Sharks. New teams are welcome to come train with us to help get to grips with the rules and techniques. We can guarantee, you’ll have a lot of fun, and you’ll learn some useful stuff for your new team.

So, get your boots on!