The schedule for the 2010 BAFACL Flag season has been released – and it’s not going to be an easy one for the Sharks.

Due to a late start to the season to resolve the fall out from the BAFA / BAFL split and availability of other teams, the Sharks now face the daunting prospect of playing six away tournaments in just six weeks. Starting with the last weekend of May, the Sharks will travel to Leicester (x2), Basingstoke, Coventry (x2) and St. Albans, resting through July, before ending the season with two home tournaments in Chichester.

It should make for an interesting and exciting season!

Full Fixtures:

Sun 09/05/2010 – Woodham

Jets vs Woodham White

Woodham White vs Woodham Black

Woodham Black vs Eagles

Eagles vs Jets

Sun 23/05/2010 – Wales

Rebels vs Wales

Rebels vs Kings

Kings vs Wales

Sun 30/05/2010 – Leicester

Woodham Black vs Sharks

Woodham White vs Eagles

Woodham White vs Woodham Black

Eagles vs Sharks

Sun 30/05/2010 – London

Horde vs Jets

Horde vs Rebels

Jets vs Rebels

Sun 06/06/2010 –Basingstoke

Sharks vs Horde

Kings vs Wales

Rebels vs Sharks

Horde vs Kings

Wales vs Rebels

Sun 13/06/2010 – Coventry

Woodham Black vs Sharks

Woodham White vs Wales

Woodham Black vs Jets

Sharks vs Woodham White

Wales vs Jets

Sat 19/06/2010 – St Albans

Horde vs Jets

Horde vs Kings

Jets vs Kings

Sun 20/06/2010 – Leicester or Coventry

Woodham White vs Sharks

Woodham White vs Rebels

Woodham Black vs Wales

Woodham Black vs Rebels

Sharks vs Wales

Sun 27/06/2010 – Coventry

Wales vs Sharks

Wales vs Jets

Sharks vs Jets

Sat 03/07/2010 – St Albans

Eagles vs Sharks

Eagles vs Kings

Sharks vs Kings

Sun 11/07/2010 – Leicester or Coventry

Woodham White vs Horde

Woodham White vs Kings

Woodham Black vs Horde

Woodham Black vs Kings

Sun 18/07/2010 – Leicester or Coventry

Woodham White vs Rebels

Woodham White vs Horde

Woodham Black vs Rebels

Woodham Black vs Horde

Sun 25/07/2010 – Woodham

Woodham White vs Eagles

Woodham White vs Jets

Woodham Black vs Eagles

Woodham Black vs Jets

Sun 01/08/2010 – Chichester

Horde vs Rebels

Horde vs Sharks

Rebels vs Sharks

Sun 01/08/2010 – Coventry or Leicester

Woodham White vs Wales

Woodham White vs Kings

Woodham Black vs Wales

Woodham Black vs Kings

Sun 08/08/2010 – Wales

Eagles vs Horde

Eagles vs Wales

Horde vs Wales

Sat 14/08/2010 – Leicester

Jets vs Rebels

Jets vs Eagles

Rebels vs Eagles

Sat 21/08/2010 – Chichester

Jets vs Kings

Jets vs Sharks

Kings vs Sharks

Sun 29/08/2010 – Basingstoke

Wales vs Horde

Eagles vs Horde

Wales vs Eagles

Sat 04/09/2010 – London

Eagles vs Rebels

Rebels vs Kings

Eagles vs Kings

Finals TBC 18/19 or 25/26 September

photo credit: Anderson Mancini

The much awaited and much delayed 2009 season finally kicks off this weekend as the Chichester Sharks host the Leicester Eagles and London Rebels in a 3 way fixture.

The 3 matches will be played at a new venue this weekend – Bourne Community Leisure Centre in Southbourne (map)- with kickoff scheduled for 12 noon.

This will be the first competitive league match the Sharks have played since the heartbreaking lost to the Eagles last August, which eliminated them from the BAFL Flag Championship playoffs. The Eagles are expected to again play to their usual high standard, whilst new boys the Rebels bring their high scoring attack to the league.

Sharks players are to arrive for warm ups and a light scrimmage at 11 a.m. All players must wear gum shields for the games and wear shorts with no pockets. Sharks players not in possession of a team shirt as yet should wear a white tshirt or football jersey.

I’d also suggest plenty of water and sun screen as it’s going to be a hot one!

Well done to all who participated in the trials for the Crusaders regional programme this weekend in Chichester. There was a very good turn out with 17 players in attendance.

Dayle Kirby and Dave Lee put the players through a variety of tests including the 40 yard sprint, 3 cone drill, db drill, snapping, throwing and scrimmages.

This was the second trial session, following one in Coventry recently. All players will be notified of the result of their try out this week. If successful they will join the Crusaders regional squad and have the opportunity to be selected for the Great Britain Lions squad that will attend the European championships later this year.

(Click images to see a larger version)

Well done to all those who participated today in friendlies with Peter Symonds Sabres and the Zombie Horde of Basingstoke.

It was an incredibly cold day but that didn’t stop some great football being played in good spirits. I don’t have the actual scores to hand but the final results stand as:

Horde beat Sabres

Sharks beat Horde

Sharks beat Sabres

(EDIT: Horde 45 – Sabres 20, Horde 20 – Sharks 47, Sharks 13 – Sabres 12 – Thanks Martyn)

Thank you very much to both the visiting teams for joining us today. Hopefully, you enjoyed the day as much as we did. Despite all the shivering!

Special mentions today, go to our 6 new players – Charlie, Ben, Darren, Mike, Alex and Rob. At the start of the day they had 1 training session of flag football between them (Rob), but by the end of the day they all had contributed strongly to the two wins we got today. It’s no small feat to step straight into two games on your first day, and especially to perform at the level you all did.

Alex had a particularly impressive start to playing on defense, making several tackles for short gains on running plays. Rob, Charlie, Darren and Ben made some great grabs and helped keep scoring drives alive. And Mike was a ballhawk in at Safety. Mike and Charlie’s previous experience playing kitted football was very evident today.

What was even more impressive, was that we played – and won – two games where 60-80% of the defense were first day rookies – and on a couple of drives in the last game, it was up to 100%. So well done to you all.

Congratulations to Scott too – winning his first ever start as QB today against the Sabres.

Hopefully we’ll have a few more friendlies before the season starts in April. And with a bit of luck, we’ll see all our new rookies back for more training over the coming weeks.

Anyone not defrosted yet?

Dayle mentioned this in the comments of the previous post, but I thought I’d better highlight it with a post of its own. Here is the plan for the next few weeks. Please make every effort to be available for each date.

Sunday 10 August: training from 10.00 in Chichester

SATURDAY 16 August: tournament in Coventry

Sunday 24 August: HOME tournament at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham

Sunday 31 August: training from 10.00 in Chichester (possible friendly tbc)

SATURDAY 6 September: National Finals in Doncaster (if qualify)

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!