Youth Team Head Coach Nick Benning gives on how things are progressing with the Under-18s…
A key aim for the Eagles committee when founding the club was to bring competitive Youth American Football to the area.
Over the past few months we have been taking the first steps to doing just that.
We opened up our rookie try-outs to across the region to under-18s, and we’re very pleased to have had over 20 of them attend the Milton Keynes session alone, with further attendees at the St Neots and Northampton sessions.
Later in the year I was honoured to be appointed Head Coach of our first Youth Team, and along with several senior players – Chris Cowley, Neil Duffy, Kevin Kong, Jack Rice and Jack Davis-Fletcher – who also took their Level 1 coaching badge, we were pleased to welcome several of the try-outs back for their first real taste of American Football.
Since October we have been taking weekly sessions providing the lads with the fundamentals they will need for the game, initially working on the basics; Safety, Frame, Fitness, Movement and Technology.
Going forwards we have introduced passing routes, zonal coverage and of course the one they all love, tackling, with an aim to allow for a seamless transition from the Youth to Senior setups.
Although admittedly the conversion numbers were initially quite low with only eight or nine attendees at the early sessions, many familiar faces made it down over the following weeks.
Additionally we have been boosted with links to Sharnbrook School here in Bedfordshire, who have setup their own weeknight training session, and the support of the PE department at Bedford Free School.
The week after the Super Bowl saw our numbers swell to 25 keen youngsters.
We now have a regular core of around 15 attendees, the overall standard has been improving every week, and I think the other coaches would agree that we have excellent potential in the squad.
We aim to have our first friendly 5v5 game this summer, and to enter the team in the league in 2016.
As a long term goal we will have Junior and Youth teams here in Bedford, which will be followed by teams in Milton Keynes, St Neots and other parts of our region.
If you know of anyone under 18 who might be interested in giving the sport a go we’d love to have them on board, so get in touch!