'NFL Presence Inspired Us' - Wembley Stallions' Warren Smart
After making the play-offs in their debut season, Wembley's Head Coach tells us about the influence the NFL International Series had on his team's progress...
The NFL is gearing up for it's 9th season at Wembley, so it’s somewhat surprising that it’s taken so long for domestic American football to take hold in that part of London.
Still, a couple of years back, a man’s wife told him to ‘get off the sofa, form a team, and form it close,’ and the Wembley Stallions were born.
That man was former London Olympians Head Coach Warren Smart. (Below)
“North West London had a massive hole with football, compared to the rest of the capital,” he says. “I live in North West London and I was fed up of travelling to teams.”
In a city with four existing teams already – the Warriors and the Olympians in South London, and the Blitz and Hornets north of the river – it might not have been immediately obvious that there was demand for another, but the NFL’s on-going love affair with Wembley has apparently had the desired effect on the local population. Of the 77 players who kitted up and played for the Stallions during 2015, 44 were complete rookies, and only 8 had played senior ball before.
Asked if the team took inspiration from the NFL, Warren enthused: “Absolutely. I think there’s definitely a link with being in Wembley, being near to the stadium, that puts us over and above any other London team. There are better teams in London, but the people that come to us from our local boroughs feel a link with the NFL.”
The Stallions have made a point of establishing a connection with NFL UK, including helping to run last year’s International Series fan zone on Regent Street and providing staff for the Jaguars Hope to Dream charity event, as well as running after school clubs around North West London, but it’s on the pitch that they have really stated their claim to the city. Their impressive 6-4 record included an opening day win over the Blitz B team and a 41-0 swatting of the Hornets (who had beaten them earlier in the season), which saw them finish second in the SFC2 East behind only the eventual undefeated SFC2 champions Bury Saints, making the play-offs in their rookie season.
Of the Game 8 win over their North London rivals the Hornets, Warren said: “That was probably the first game where we walked away and went ‘that’s what it should look like, that’s how it should feel.’ We’d settled down and gotten to know each other, the coaches had studied all the game film that we could get, and the players finally were beginning to understand what a game plan looked like and how to execute it, and the game went almost exactly as we planned it.”
However, he was under no illusions that this meant the play-offs would be a stroll. Ranked sixth across SFC2, the Stallions were drawn away to Bristol Apache, and the game ended in a 32-17 defeat, with the Apache going on to lose to Bury in the final.
“I like away trips, you get a really good attitude on the bus, and everyone was very excited. The guys really bought into it, and it was great to see them turn out en masse at Bristol. But I think those of us who had experience knew that we would struggle once we got on the field – play-off football is so different from the regular season, with that pressure of being in a knockout environment. With more experience, we would have competed better – we scored on our opening drive, but then they scored on their opening drive, as soon as the kick-off was fielded. That put our defence in their shells and got them a bit scared, and it took nearly half the game to recover. As much as the Hornets game was an example of a game plan coming together perfectly, against Bristol it kind of fell apart.”
Still, the expectation-surpassing season has only strengthened the team’s ambitions. Warren insists the Stallions aim to be competitive in the Premiership within five years, and, while he admits they need to walk before they can run, wants them to become contenders for the National Title, territory that has been dominated by London’s Blitz and Warriors for more than half a decade. “There’s no point being in this sport if you’re not ambitious and competitive!”
He does have previous. He and his assistant head coach Sean Mitchell rebuilt the London Olympians after their 2008 hiatus, taking the reigns in 2008 and leading them to an unbeaten SFC2 championship in 2010 where they scored 553 points and conceded just 60. The foundations they laid saw the O’s return to the Premiership within the next two years.
With plans to acquire a stable of 15-25 coaches, recruit players from Warren’s school outreach programme, and expand into women’s, U19 and U17 football over the next year, the Stallions will be hoping for a similar rate of progress.
The Stallions are holding a tryout day on Saturday November 7th. Details from headcoach@wembleystallions.com
Header image courtesy London Blitz Facebook Page. Secondary image courtesy Wembley Stallions Facebook Page.