'Anyone Can Beat Anyone' - Birmingham Bulls' Mark Pagett On SFC1

We catch up with the head coach of Britain's longest-competing American football team after their first season in the Southern Conference...

It’s been a difficult decade for BAFA’s longest-running team.

During the sport’s boom time in the 1980’s and 90’s, they were one of the biggest institutions in the country, often gating around 7000 spectators for home games, but as the bubble burst, they felt the squeeze. They won their last national championship in 1995, and as teams started folding and going on hiatus around them, they found a lifeline through merging with their B team, established in 1996. They reached the national final three more times, in 1996, 1999, and 2000, but as football started to recover and grow again, things only got more difficult for the Bulls.

The advent of the Coventry Cassidy Jets and Tamworth Phoenix in the mid-2000’s lured away their experienced talent and sucked out their recruitment power, and the results started to suffer. They were eventually relegated from the Premier League in 2008, before finally making it back for the 2012 season, but they struggled to capitalise on the forward momentum, and after three losing seasons were relegated again at the end of 2014, to be placed in the SFC1 by BAFA.

Possibly the Bulls’ longest ever serving player Mark Pagett, who joined in 1993, was there for all of it, and is now the team’s head coach.

“We were treading water in the Premier League North to be honest. We could never manage our way past Tamworth and we always struggled against Kilbride, and we were fighting it out for that middle ground, which wasn’t much fun. Then we got relegated. As a head coach it’s frustrating as hell, but as a guy who cares about football, I think it’s been brilliant! This year in this division, anyone could beat anyone. Even in the games we lost, there were so many individual moments that could have gone one way or the other and seen us win the game. As a coach, you had to really prepare for every game, because you knew every little moment was going to make a difference. You just want to give your team that edge.”

It was a funny old season that saw them finish third from bottom with a 4-6 record in the high-scoring SFC1 division - with the second fewest points conceded, a run of five consecutive defeats, and as the only team to beat eventual champions Farnham Knights. They played the whole season without a recognised quarterback, and five games without an Offensive Coordinator.

Without a deep passing game to speak of, the Bulls had to lean hard on their stampeding run game, but once defences clocked onto this, they found themselves up against a gauntlet of loaded boxes. They tried to compensate by padding their playbook with short throws and misdirection plays to stretch the opposition linebackers, but with uncertainty between the Centre and their rotating makeshift QB’s leaving them clambering to recover as many as a third of their snaps, Mark says there were times they were unable to even hit a bubble route.

In the Farnham game, though, things went their way.

“Farnham were quite susceptible to our heavy run – we’ve got some great backs,” he says of the thrilling 28-26 victory. “Dean Thomas, Rob Brown, Mark Bonazebi (#34, above), Tyrone Johnson; they’re all athletes, they work hard off the field, and they can really shift.” Birmingham pummelled their way to a two-score lead by half time. Farnham switched up their game plan and passed the ball more often in the second half to claw their way back to within two-points, but the Bulls picked them off on their final drive to win the game. “If they had come out passing in the first half, it might have been a different story,” the head coach admits.

With that being their third win on the bounce, they would have hoped to build some momentum, but their offensive co-ordinator stepped down for personal reasons. It was no coincidence that they subsequently went five games without a win, failing to even score 10 points in four games until their game 9 defeat to Ouse Valley Eagles – when they scored their first passing TD of the season.

However, with the play-offs out of reach, Pagett handed the OC role to line coach Gaz Hodgen for game 10 against the Cambridgeshire Cats, and watched in awe as his previously thrifty offence racked up a 50-0 victory. Obviously, they gave Gaz the permanent job immediately.

The Bulls haven’t stopped since the season finished. They know their strengths and are addressing their weaknesses.

“The quarter back situation has been horrendous, but we’ve got two or three guys that have fallen out of the sky into our laps, and they’re a bit special. The receivers are already amazed at the difference. If we can get a passing game to go alongside our running game, it would be really special.

“Over the last couple of years, we’ve really focused on getting the guys’ confidence up, making them feel they were world beaters even when they were getting beaten by the likes of Tamworth and East Kilbride, and it was a good approach, but this year we’ve changed it round a bit and really focused on critiquing and improving the players’ fundamentals. It’s difficult for the players to take because it can feel like you’re blaming them for the losses, but you’re not being negative. It’s a lot like martial arts training, American football – little things like hand placement, where you put your feet and how much weight on each foot, they really matter.”

One of the difficulties Birmingham had faced with planning for the future, was having to fold their U19 team due to a lack of funds. Along with Sandwell Steelers and Tamworth Phoenix, they pooled their youth players with the coaching staff from the University League’s Birmingham Lions, to form a Lions Junior side, which reached the National Final this season. The Bulls now hope to have those players back in their senior side next year.

"We All Want The Bulls To Be Great Again. We All Feel Strongly That This Is A Special Club."

To borrow a cliché from this country’s more popular football, the Bulls are in a transitional period. But things are getting better. They’ve focused on getting themselves together off the field, with a hardworking committee and a new coaching staff. This was Mark’s first season as head coach after admitting that the team needed coaches more than it needed ‘ageing offensive linemen’, and believes with the foundations they’re laying they’ll start to see true results next season.

“When you’re strong off the field it helps you focus on your football. It’s been really hard in 2015. We started and there was a lot of assumption that because we’d come down from the Prem, we’d be walking over teams, people thought we’d be beating teams by 50 points etc. But we had very few players with more than two years experience, so when you look at it like that, 4-6 was a very successful season. We all want the Bulls to be great again, we all feel strongly that this is a special club.”

Interestingly, the longest serving member of the country’s longest competing club tags his optimism for the future with a hint of nostalgia for the glory days – not just the success, but a specific rivalry that has long been dormant.

“Now that we’re in the south division, who knows?” he ventures. “In a couple of years we could be playing the Olympians again! We’d love to see one of those games again, because we had some great ones.”

Images by long-time Bulls fan Mick Talbot. Mick's book about the team's heyday is available to purchase here.

The Bulls are holding open tryouts on Oct 24, Nov 7, Nov 21 and Dec 5. More information is available here.