xpLosION to go off with a bang

5th Nov 2009

The Uni­ver­sity of Birmingham’s flag­ship Amer­i­can Foot­ball event takes place this Sat­ur­day, with the Birm­ing­ham Lions tak­ing on the Lough­bor­ough Aces at Bourn­brook. The game, ‘xpLo­sION’ sig­nals the start of the 2009 BUAFL (British Uni­ver­si­ties Amer­i­can Foot­ball League) season.

The 2008 game against the Bath Killer Bees was a walk in the (very wet and windy) park for the Lions, as they shut out the vis­i­tors 29–0. That maul­ing was very much a sign of things to come for the Lions as they ram­paged their way to a per­fect reg­u­lar sea­son (8–0) and then a per­fect play-off cam­paign, defeat­ing the New­cas­tle Raiders 42–2 in the final.

The Lions have con­sis­tently been one of the best teams in the coun­try. They have won their divi­sion for the past six sea­sons, five of which were done with eight-wins-out-eight reg­u­lar sea­son records and they have also made the play-offs every year since, and includ­ing, 2001. As well as their 2009 tri­umph, the Lions also took the national hon­ours in 2005, defeat­ing the Glas­gow Tigers in the final on that occasion.

With such a pres­ti­gious record, the Lions – led by Coach Tony Ather­smith – will once again be a force to be reck­oned with this com­ing sea­son. Coach Ather­smith was named last year’s National Coach of the Year, lead­ing a host of such awards bestowed on Birmingham’s Amer­i­can Foot­ball squad. Quar­ter­back Tris­tan Var­ney, who starred in last year’s xpLo­sION game, was named as the league’s offen­sive MVP. Var­ney was joined in the league’s MVP team by nine other Lions play­ers, includ­ing cap­tain John Zinkus (WR), fel­low wide-receiver Tunde Ogun­lesi, offen­sive line­men Craig Har­ris and Simon Arinze, defen­sive line­men Bessala Bessala Nyada De Bes­beck, Kyle Bur­rows and Matthew Strong, line­backer Tim Mobbs and defensive-back Greg Free­man. Wayne Hill, of the coach­ing staff, was also named. Another player to watch in the com­ing sea­son will be Dan Con­roy, who is in Poland this week­end with the Great Britain Under-19 setup.

John Zinkus, team-captain, gave us the low­down on how prepa­ra­tions for the big game have been going: “We’ve had a great intake of over forty fresh­ers so prac­tice has been of an extremely high tempo, with every­one work­ing hard. The promise of a shot at Lough­bor­ough in the first week of fix­tures has really spurred every­one on.” Of course, Amer­i­can Foot­ball is not a par­tic­u­larly com­mon sport this side of the Atlantic, and is vir­tu­ally non-existent as a pas­time for chil­dren and teenagers grow­ing up. Zinkus explained how the new recruits were deal­ing with the wealth of knowl­edge they had to intake, “The task of edu­cat­ing the new play­ers – not just with regards to our team’s play-book, but also in teach­ing them the rules of the sport – is no easy task. How­ever, our coaches and vet­eran play­ers have done a great job. The will­ing­ness and enthu­si­asm of the rook­ies to learn is always a sur­prise every year.”

QB Var­ney echoed these thoughts: “Train­ing this pre-season has been intense. We have a wealth of new tal­ent this year and no start­ing posi­tions are decided until our first game. Com­pe­ti­tion between vet­er­ans and rook­ies is high.”  Some­how, I think Tris­tan might be safe in terms of his start­ing spot though! While many play­ers are new­com­ers to the sport when they take it up at uni­ver­sity, Var­ney was already expe­ri­enced in the sport. Hav­ing grown up play­ing rugby, he tried his hand at Amer­i­can Foot­ball after watch­ing it on tele­vi­sion. He joined the York­shire Rams at six­teen, and then trans­ferred to the Sheffield Tom­a­hawks a year later – where he reached the play-offs.

Both Var­ney and Zinkus remained cau­tiously opti­mistic about fac­ing the Aces in their open­ing game, with ‘exe­cu­tion’ seem­ingly the key word put out by Coach Ather­smith. “Against a well coached team like Lough­bor­ough, exe­cu­tion is key; xpLo­sION will cer­tainly be a chal­lenge for us but if we avoid mis­takes and take advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties then the score line will take care of itself,” were the thoughts of the star QB. Zinkus car­ried on this train of thought, and also said that a much, much, closer game should be expected than last year’s lop­sided win: “We fully expect Lough­bor­ough to pro­vide our biggest test at xpLo­sION yet. They are a pow­er­house team in the North­ern Con­fer­ence and are always up there come play-off time. How­ever, I have the utmost con­fi­dence that our coaches will pre­pare us fully and that our play­ers will exe­cute on the day. This, com­bined with the great sup­port we get from the Birm­ing­ham faith­ful, will hope­fully result in a Birm­ing­ham victory.”

Indeed, xpLo­sION is always one of the best-supported sport­ing events in the Uni­ver­sity cal­en­dar; com­plete with per­for­mances from the Birm­ing­ham Pussy­cat Cheer­lead­ers and the Uni­ver­sity Dance Squad, as well as a fire­work dis­play. xpLo­sION is free to attend, and will be on Sat­ur­day 7^th Novem­ber, with kick-off set for 6pm.