FFWC Blog...
NFL Flag Football World Championship PR Director Michael Preston is in New Orleans to recap each day's events from the tournament. Expect to hear from some of the players and coaches taking part in the FFWC too...
Wednesday, August 8, Thursday, August 9 - Back online...
Internet connection problems in the hotel put paid to Wednesday’s blog, so here is news of the past two days of activity.
A lot has happened in the past 24 hours. The Woodham Warriors finally arrived on Wednesday from County Durham in the north east via a Manchester Airport power outage and a night spent in New York City where the team made the most of an enforced stopover by seeing the sights in Times Square and hanging out at the ESPN Zone.
The English team arrived just in time for lunch at the famous Mothers Restaurant in New Orleans where there was plenty of gumbo, jambalaya and po boys on the menu. While some teams were content to walk off the meal by wandering back to the hotel in the stifling heat, the ever-enthusiastic USA team headed to Tulane University for a final practice ahead of the first round games.
Wednesday morning was spent at the NFL YET Center in an area of the city that had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Riding on one of the school buses that are shipping the teams around the city this week, one member of the Canadian entourage remarked that we must be lost since all the windows and doors of the area’s houses were boarded up and there was a fence surround to keep people out. But we were in the right place and the scene that greeted the overseas visitors certainly brought home the message that Katrina truly destroyed all in her path.
Any parents of these youngsters whose sons or daughters are reluctant to handle chores in the back yard such as cutting the grass will be pleased to know that every one of them either dug holes, planted plants or laid mulch down in a string of international gardens that now decorate the outside of the NFL YET facility.
The local New Orleans youngsters who make the most of the facility were keen to help and when the opportunity arose, they took on all-comers at air hockey, pool and foosball inside the center. The Canadian team even held a brief flag football game with a group of local kids and coach Matt Hill claimed to have suffered his first defeat of the tournament.
Wednesday night at the Aubudon Swamp Museum was a fun evening filled with yet more fine southern cooking, baby alligators that could be petted by the brave among us and a superb performance by local musicians Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys. Only 17 years old, the Cajun fiddler wowed the audience with her blues violin playing and singing.
The draw for the groups that will be played on Thursday consisted of a series of coin tosses and a random Plinko game. It’s hard to explain, but it resulted in the three European teams facing each other, just as they had before World Bowl XV in Frankfurt in June. The teams exchanged gifts, as has become the tradition at the annual welcome dinner. Among the gifts were pins, t-shirt, hats and key chains.
Thursday was all about the NFL Flag Football. The Saints facility proved to be a fantastic venue for the teams and as an added bonus, calling the games over the loudspeaker was Jerry Romig, the long-time Voice of the Saints.
Once the first round of games had been played and three teams – Mexico, USA and Austria – remained unbeaten, everyone boarded the buses to head to the Blue Bayou Water Park.
Check back for some photos from the rides tomorrow, once my camera has dried out.
Tuesday, August 7 - And then there were eight...
As the travel-weary teams settled down for the night at the Astor Hotel in the French Quarter, just two more teams remained en route.
Defending champion Thailand was due to arrive around midnight and the team that has suffered the longest delay on a day when weather patterns on the east coast have disrupted several team flights, England, will be the last to arrive.
The Woodham Warriors from County Durham have waited several years to qualify for the FFWC, coming close in previous qualifying campaigns – and now they will have to wait a while longer. Their families and friends have arrived, checked in and taken in some of the sights in the Big Easy, but the seven players and two coaches are spending tonight in the Big Apple, stranded overnight in New York awaiting an early flight to New Orleans. The team’s problems began at Manchester Airport in England where delays meant the Warriors missed their connecting flight at JFK.
But the good news is that their free Reebok apparel and a warm welcome – and warm weather – awaits them in New Orleans.
Their travel day long behind them, Team USA resumed practice at Tulane University where a reporter from the Times-Picayune newspaper interviewed several members of the MAR JCC contingent. You can read all about the FFWC on the newspaper’s Nola.com website from Thursday onwards.
Even an 8.30am practice was subject to sweltering heat and burning sun that even the youngsters from Miami found stifling. Listening to players Michael Karp, Jonathan Salk (seen catching a ball, right) and Gavin Block answer the reporter’s questions there was one constant answer that sums up the US team. “We’re all about teamwork,” said Karp. “We’re all good friends on and off the field and it is the chemistry on this team that makes us successful.”
Tomorrow on the FFWC blog... the teams contribute to a Katrina service project and learn their opponents for the tournament.
Monday, August 6 - The Teams Start Arriving...
New Orleans is ready to welcome the ten teams to the NFL Flag Football World Championship.
A giant banner hangs outside the Astor Hotel located on Canal Street on the corner of the famous Bourbon Street proclaiming the arrival of the 12 to 1-year olds who are now en route to the Big Easy.
The ‘home’ USA team is already here. There are about 65 family and friends also, arriving by the hour, ready to cheer on the team that was crowned FFWC champion in 2004.
Coach David Fried and his six players arrived over the weekend and wasted no time in finding a practice field. There are plenty of parks and open spaces on which to throw the ball around, but the Michael-Ann Russell MAR JCC youngsters did it in style on the turf field at Tulane University on Sunday and earlier this morning. They’ll be back there on Tuesday, working out under the watchful eye of a reporter from the local Times-Picayune newspaper.
Coverage of the Miami boys has been good back home too with ABC, NBC and the Miami Herald all taking interest in either team practices, a visit to watch the Miami Dolphins practice, where head coach Cam Cameron offered words of inspiration, or to the Florida Marlins where the team threw out the first pitch.
The Adachi Gauken Junior High School Wild Bears were due to arrive at 10.30pm local time, but have been delayed and are expected to fly in after a stopover in New York some time after midnight. The Japanese youngsters are sure to be tired after a 32-hour trip, but once in New Orleans the excitement of the FFWC is sure to lift their spirits.
China’s representatives from the Shoushi Shiyan Middle School are the first scheduled arrivals on Tuesday morning, then by mid-afternoon there should be a steady stream of arrivals at the Louis Armstrong International airport, beginning with Korea and Mexico at 3pm, while defending champion Thailand will be the last to arrive close to midnight.
As USA coach Fried said: “They’ll all be tired, but there’s nothing quite like this competition to banish the jetlag and get people excited.”
Tomorrow on the FFWC blog... Hear the teams' first impressions of New Orleans and get the inside scoop from Team USA practice here on Tuesday evening.
Here's where the 2007 FFWC blog began, back in Frankfurt, Germany, where three teams qualified from the European Schools Final on Saturday, June 23.
Much of England has been underwater this week since a month's worth of rain fell in the space of only a few days, so it seemed fitting that an English team should qualify for the FFWC – in the rain.
The Woodham Warriors from County Durham in the north east of England will represent the UK having seen off the challenge of Italy’s champion in the third place playoff at the European Schools Final in Frankfurt, Germany. There were a few nervous moments when a two-touchdown lead was halved just before halftime, but the Warriors pulled clear to triumph 40-12.
Read the thoughts of Warriors #32 Craig Woodhead as he looks back on the trip to Frankfurt.
I sensed as much relief and certainly disbelief as excitement to be heading to New Orleans for the world finals when I chatted with the team and coach Jon Tait afterwards. It took a while for the reality to sink in that they will rub shoulders with New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, himself a former flag football player, and watch NFL preseason action in the Louisiana Super Dome as part of their visit. None of the team has been to the United States before, so it should be the trip of a lifetime.
The Warriors have been so near and yet so far in previous qualifiers. Last year they also claimed third spot in the European finals, but missed out on traveling to Cologne for the FFWC because only the top two Euro teams made it through as Germany had already qualified as hosts. I also remember them playing through the rain in vain in Scotland a few years back. Perhaps some stormy weather will descend on New Orleans to aid their cause!
The FFWC also welcomes back some familiar names in the other European teams that will be heading Stateside in August. The Wenzgasse Vikings from Austria were a popular fifth place finisher in 2004 when the FFWC was held in Vancouver, Canada. Head coach Jurgen Getterbauer will again lead Vienna’s finest. In 2004 his team went 3-1 in group play, lost a close quarter final to Japan and then beat Germany into fifth spot.
The Vikings won the European Schools Final in the shadow of Frankfurt’s Commerzbank Arena as part of the World Bowl XV Power Party celebrations with a 34-25 victory over Spain’s traditional powerhouse Pere Vives Viches from Igualada near Barcelona.
The Spanish, or I should say Catalan, youngsters are always popular at the FFWC and one of their contingent usually wins one of the offbeat awards the players like to vote on among themselves when things wind down at the end of the tournament. I can confirm that Pere Vives Viches again has several contenders for the ‘best hair’ and ‘longest hair’ categories.
The big difference this year is a new coach in teenager Jordi Sanchez and six new team members. “We are very happy to go to New Orleans and get the chance to play versus the best teams of the world,” said Jordi. “We are also a little bit sad that we lost the final.”
Any disappointment they felt vanished during the second half of the NFL Europa championship game, World Bowl XV, when the European finalists were paraded before the deafening 48,125 fans inside the impressive stadium in Frankfurt. The winners received their medals and trophies on the sidelines and even spent some time at close quarters watching MVP Casey Bramlet lead the Hamburg Sea Devils to victory over the Frankfurt Galaxy.
Next stop… New Orleans…