Team of the Week: American Football

As one of the smaller teams at Edinburgh with only 40 members, the American footballers are far from exclusive and are making serious waves on the Scottish American Football scene.

With the season just about to start, club President/ Captain Gregor Leslie (otherwise  known as ‘wifty’ for undisclosed reasons) has high hopes for the team, including grabbing a spot in the play off and beating their main rivals, Napier (of course).  With plenty of hot new talent (and I don’t just mean on the field) they seem well on the way to this. Linebacker Matthias Ribka is one of their rising stars, having had years of high school experience and has proved himself a key member of the team at the recent scrimmage against Glasgow.

Gregor Leslie (Club president) and Cal Vickerstaff (Social sec)

However, it’s not all charging around a field and wearing bum pads for the members. The club has a lively social scene too, under the organisation of social sec Cal Vickerstaff.

The social side is something that fresher Finn Rhys, who plays safety, finds a particular highlight of the club, describing the socials as “pretty good” and the club as ‘”really friendly” with a recent animal themed one getting a special mention (Shout out to the kit sec who went as a cat in full black spandex). Cal was also quick to note that although “annoying the President” was a commonplace social activity, it was certainly not the principal source of club enjoyment.

The club is in theory meant to be mixed, but for reasons unknown lacks any female members, meaning that socials are teamed with the women’s football club.  With the Pear Tree pub as their sponsor, many of the socials are held here including the NFL Sundays where the team enjoy food and screening of the game.

American football without the American climate

So, whether you fancy doing a bit of wide receiving or pretending to be Chad Michael Murray in “A Cinderella Story” , the American football club will be sure to welcome you with open arms. Just don’t say that it’s rugby for wimps- it’s not, they don’t like that and you’ll be used as tackle practice.

Does this look like rugby to you?