About 10Yardline.

Being based in Greenock, Scotland, is a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to watching pro American Football in the flesh. For anyone not familiar with Scotland, football of the 'Soccer' variety is the sport of choice, and teams like Glasgow Rangers or Celtic dominate the sports press here.

American Football is still considered a minority sport, but despite this, interest in the game has been growing recently. One factor for this interest is the likes of Lawrence Tynes of NFL fame, who was born right here in Scotland, and has become an ambassador for the game.

In addition, grassroots games have been part of the legacy left by the Scottish Claymores and these teams continue to grow and show the game to new players and supporters.

10yardline
10yardline was setup several years ago and exists to help promote American football in the UK and especially Inverclyde and the West Coast of Scotland.

What better way to do so, than by photographing the action, recording the plays, the fumbles and possibly even catch that elusive Touchdown along the way.

In addition, it also offers the people for whom the game really matters, the players, the chance to see fellow teammates and themselves in action. A record of their efforts, no matter what the games final out come.

Why 10yardLine?
The website is named after the area of the football field close to the endzones, from where the first two seasons of Trojans football were photographed, but the 10 yardline is also right in middle of the "Red Zone" an area of the field where for both team, the effort has to be turned up. Here every play is significant; every move a possible game winner or loser.

 

More about

Why American Football?
My interest in the game first appeared here in the mid seventies, when a long defunct UK Saturday sports program called "Grandstand" occasionally devoted a few minutes to the sport.

Usually this break from the normal fair of horse racing, wrestling and soccer occurred only after the pinnacle of the NFL season, the "Super Bowl".

This interest in the sport developed further when very snowy and almost unrecognizable pictures, complete with the voice of Nicky Horne, the first host of the new Channel 4/Cheerleader production, "American Football" show went live.

 

 

The show was credited with teaching the basics of the game to thousands of Sunday night fans, and Channel 4 assisted by publishing the Ken Thomas book, "A Guide to American Football" to complement the series and the learning curve.

The Show also imprinted Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Two Tribes" into the fans subconscious as the gladiatorial anthem of NFL action.

Live Action
"Strathclyde Sheriffs", a Strathclyde police team, and the "Inverclyde Crusaders" who played a couple of games in Greenock Morton's Cappielow park around this same time were my the first of my live games.

My own knowledge and enjoyment of the game grew with every year, including trips to several American Bowls in Wembley, London.

Unfortunately for both us and the Buc, our visit to the hallowed ground did not provide that winning spark, and we went down against the Browns in 89 and the Colts in 92.





Back home
Satellite TV appeared on the scene soon after my return from the USA and the dustbin lid fixed to the front of the house, started bringing better pictures and coverage of the games across the pond, not to mention some funny looks from my neighbours.

Screensport then Sky Sports leading the satellite revolution for us fans over here in the UK.

Then came the London Monarchs, the Scottish Claymores, and the World League of American Football, aka NFL Europe, aka NFL Europa, my chance to see near NFL standard professional players in action. Sadly this franchise and later the developmental league itself was disbanded.
But not before my interest had driven me to go for my coaching certificate with the Claymores, ok, my flag football coaching certificate ran by the Claymores in Glasgow.

I still believe that the draw of the Claymores team was about to see even larger numbers of people becoming interested in the game, and crowds were higher than most of the soccer teams could pull in. An average of 10K per game, not bad for a minority sport in Scotland that did not have Rangers or Celtic playing on the Hampden turf.!!
But it was not to be and the mantle now falls to the two NFL visiting teams that will play a third regular season game at Wembley, London on 25th October 2009.

West Coast Trojans and Inverclyde Phoenix.
After a low, where only TV filled the void left by the demise of the Claymores, along came an ad in the local paper, The Greenock Telegraph, announcing the inaugural game of the new West Coast Trojans football team.
That was nearly five years ago and despite the teams move to Renfrew I still aim to cover all their home games this season.

Inverclyde Phoenix have now filled the local gap and although they are still settling in, I have every confidence that they will become great ambassadors for the sport in this area.

Hopefully given time, pictures taken at all of these games, Trojans, Phoenix, Claymores, American Bowls and Tampa visits will eventually make it onto this site.

So if you are interested in the great Gridiron game, keep coming back.

10yardline bringing home the action on the field