One of the University of Stirling’s newest sports clubs is Flag Football. Flag football has been gaining momentum across the UK and Europe. Brig caught up with flag football president, Yaser Lamsatfi Hanafi.
The simplest way to describe flag football, is that flag football is to American football what touch rugby is to rugby.
Where American football is 11v11, flag football is 5v5 and is much faster paced than the traditional game.
Yaser got into flag football because he played American football and eventually thought “Why don’t we have a club? It was gaining traction, and then it got declared for the LA 2028 Olympics, and I and two other people were like the University doesn’t have flag football even though we host NFL UK, which seemed a bit weird. That’s why I got into it, to set it up.”
So, they spent the summer planning and working out if a flag football club would actually work. They had weekly meetings, hosted taster sessions, and after a lot of hard work flag football became a club.
When asked what it is like going from contact American football to flag football, Yaser commented “it hurts a lot less, but the main thing is the lack of equipment. The only thing you need to bring is football cleats and your water.”
The lack of equipment leads to other benefits. Yaser added that he believes “the entry price is the best thing about [Stirling’s club]. We offer the lowest entry fee that you can, because we want to charge students the least amount as possible, because we don’t really need equipment.”
When asked what flag football offers that American football doesn’t, Yaser highlighted that “it’s accessible. The reason [flag football] is becoming more popular is because its more accessible. Countries in Africa, they’re focusing on flag football, Europe, they’re focusing on flag football. Women’s contact is not as popular as women’s flag football now, just because it’s so easy to implement. You could go to a high school, give them a just a set of flags, a ball, and then that’s it. You don’t need pads, you don’t need helmets, anything like that you don’t need.”
Finally, we asked Yaser why you should join flag football. While Yaser stressed the importance of joining any club or society, he thinks you should join flag football because “its new, so there is no possibility that you are going to be the worst at it, it’s a new sport, you’re new to it, and we’re all learning,” even adding “I’m not very good, but I’m learning, and I’m getting better.”
Starting in January, there will be two flag football BUCS leagues – an open one, and a women’s only one. While women are allowed to play in the BUCS contact American football league, there isn’t a female only one. Yaser hopes that in the coming years due to the rate flag football is growing at, that “it’s going to explode before 2028”, and he urges anyone who’s interested to “get in on it now”. Yaser added that if Stirling could boast a women’s only flag football team “that would mean so much”.
So, if flag football sounds like something you want to try, or if you are just wanting to try something new, why not try flag football?
Image Credit: University of Stirling.
Student journalist and Sports Editor for Brig Newspaper
