Have An Alpha Gameday

It’s Sunday afternoon and it’s Gameday!

After a steady drive I arrive at the venue, I pull into the large car park, pick a space and stroll over to the stadium entrance. I’m greeted by the friendly and efficient staff, I surrender a few dollars, receive a wristband and I’m now inside the inner sanctum. Above the excited chatter of the fans, I can hear the Gameday announcer reminding us of the importance of today’s contest, it’s a play-off game! Edging closer, the familiar smell of barbecued “Football Food” wafts through the air, I’m a bit tempted, those chargrilled burgers look great! There’s a queue at the bar so I head for the soft drinks vendor (it’s important to always stay hydrated). Over to my right there’s a designated kids area with bouncy castles, and beyond that I can see the majorettes practicing their baton twirling ahead of their display. The players are out on the field going through their pre-game routines, the clearly marked lines and numbers contrasting with the somewhat parched grass. I check my digital programme on my phone to identify the key players and I’m good to go.

“Where you at?” I hear you say. Auburn’s Jordan Hare Stadium? The “Swamp” in Gainesville Florida? Maybe Texas A&M’s College Station? no, none of the above. I’m at Quibell Park Stadium in Scunthorpe!

My opening paragraph wouldn’t be an accurate description of what you might encounter at most Britball games, but the Scunthorpe Alphas haven’t just delivered on the field this season (going into the game I attended they were 8-0) they have provided a Gameday experience that stacks up and “Trumps” what most other British clubs provide. In the words of club Chairman Warwick Grosvenor, their mission has been to “Make Division Two Great Again”, and I’d have to say, they have delivered.

Grosvenor has been one of the driving forces behind the clubs’ success, so after he had put in a shift at middle linebacker, I sat down with him to get the background on the Alpha’s journey so far.

“The Alphas project started in approximately November 2017 with myself and a group of friends who had been involved in various programmes (sometimes together) in the region and further afield. We’d pretty much all spent time at Div 2, Div 1 or Prem level, and so we’d had a good insight into what good, and bad, looks like. Between us we have a range of transferrable skills and experience from our personal lives which synergised well. We agreed that we would like to play and coach together, but when it came to considering our options, we came to the conclusion that, if we didn’t want to have to travel miles and miles to join a team which matched our aspirations and ideas, we’d have to join a more local team. Over time, a collective vision came together, we ultimately agreed that our ambitions would require a high level of buy in and acceptance from already existing teams in the area, which we didn’t believe we could guarantee. That doubt, juxtaposed with our vision and resulted in a discussion which could loosely be summarised as, how hard can it be to set up your own team? This ultimately led us to where we are today”.

Grosvenor has pointed the club in the right direction

So, you’d decided to build it from scratch, what was the next step?

“In late January 2018, we held our first rookie recruitment day, which was underpinned and driven by a marketing campaign in the area. Combined with buy in from some other local players who were excited by the project we were articulating, we had over 100 attendees, of which roughly half formed our year one squad for our inaugural associate campaign. Everything we have done between then and now has been in line with an originally agreed 5-year plan – which we are currently on track to achieve, in spite of COVID!

Our club is built on the following foundations:

• Positive, supportive, family focussed but aspirational and competitive culture wherein no one person is bigger than the team and everyone is empowered to be the best that they can be.

• Continuous development and learning, understanding that no matter how good things are – it can always be better.

• Strong financial management – managing the club as a business, in order to generate enough funds to reinvest in the team and grow.

• Being curious about the art of the possible and asking ‘why not?’ – having ideas and being tenacious enough to make them happen.

• Utilising the skills and knowledge of everyone involved in the club to maximum effect and ensuring that the management of the team does not revolve around one person.

• Ensuring that we have and maintain a marketable, exciting brand that draws players, sponsors and fans to the club, and ensuring that brand reaches the right people at the right time (particularly via social media).

We bought into the vision of BAFA to professionalise our sport – although to be honest, it is something were already doing in terms of the way we conduct our business, prior to that being articulated by BAFA’s CEO. Many people now know one of our mantras for this year has been to #MakeDivision2GreatAgain. This means many things to us, but a large part of it relates to how we behave and conduct ourselves both on and off the field – including coaching and management.”

What other teams did you draw inspiration from?

“We see clubs like Tamworth, Manchester etc. as the example for us to look to – and we aspire to replicate their success over time. We repeatedly say that just because we are in Division 2, this does not mean that we have to conduct our business in the way that Division 2 is traditionally perceived by many in the British American Football community, we may not be professional, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t conduct ourselves like we are. We take the sustainability of our club as well as integration with our community seriously. Scunthorpe is an industrial town that doesn’t get a lot of great press, so we want the people of our community (and in particular, young people) to have somewhere to go where they can feel enthused, part of something positive and constructive, and direct their energy in a way that progresses them in their everyday lives and approach to life. Included within this is our gameday experience, which we work incredibly hard at to make into a spectacle. We want people to be exposed to our sport, and whether they have a direct relationship with one of our squad or just have a passing interest, we want people to be excited to support us. This does of course aid our financial sustainability as a happy consequence. This overarching vision has been bought into by everyone involved in the club, I think because we can articulate it so clearly. We know who we are, and we know where we want to go. As a result, we have a strong team identity that results in consistent buy-in, this translates to strong attendances at practices and players wanting to be a part of something that they can so clearly understand and feel, and an organisation that, from top to bottom, is moving in the same direction”.

Beyond the field you clearly have a strong structure in place, how has that translated to the playing performance.

“It hasn’t been easy, and in our associate year (and the COVID year after that) we took our medicine against some very strong teams. But we knew that it was part of the process of blooding our rookies, developing our squad, building our coaching staff and working towards the 5-year plan.

As you can probably tell from these words, I am very proud of what we have achieved in the time we have existed. I am the chairman of the team and perhaps recently become a bit more known in the American Football community as a result of podcasts etc. than the majority of our management and coaching staff. But they are the real engine room of the team. The work they put into the club, unpaid, is nothing short of incredible. From Jacob Brown, our kit manager, to Justine Robson, our Gameday Manager, to Nick Tomaszewski, my Vice Chairman (and project manager extraordinaire), our Player Liaison Officers and everyone else, they are all amazing people, with amazing drive, incredible ability at what they do, and they make my life relatively easy. Yesterday I had a comment from one of our players where he said, “we wouldn’t be here without you”. As flattering as that is, it couldn’t be further from the truth. The club (and I) couldn’t be here without them”.

Tomaszewski and Grosvenor, both players and project managers

As a club, you’ve certainly made “Division Two Great Again” this season, where do the Alphas go from here?

“As for what comes next, we have our 5-year plan in place, and we will review it at the end of the season. At time of writing, we are preparing to travel to Invergordon to face the Highland Stags, and as a club we will not turn our attention further than that until the time is right. We will debrief this year when the season ends (hopefully later rather than sooner!). But in more general terms, our priority is to continue to develop our youth, in particular grow our U19 team. We aspire to have an U13 flag team, and we would like to start a Women’s team as soon as possible. All of these things require people and resource, and to ensure we deliver a quality product across all areas, it’s important we have the right people in the right places to make sure these things succeed, whilst not stretching those people too thinly. But I have no doubt, we will reach that point sooner or later. Outside of that, we continue to learn and grow on and off the field. We are always recruiting players, management team members, and coaches. If your values align with ours, you are welcome. #BeAlpha”.

The Scunthorpe Alphas clearly have all the ingredients in place to support success on the field. To get a feel for how the playing side has developed, I spoke with Head Coach Alex Robson. Mindful that he wanted to increase his Football IQ before leading on a “new build” project, Robson spent time with a number of programmes to develop his coaching style and help him craft his own playbook.

“The time I spent with Coach Chesters at Sheffield and Coach Messom at Nottingham Trent was extremely helpful. It made me realise that player management is a big key to success. With the Alphas I wanted it to be all about the culture and I feel that’s what I’ve managed to achieve here. Plotting a course through the BAFA associate team process with essentially a team of rookie players wasn’t easy. I wanted to give all the players some game time to see how they would perform, at times it was hard, but we persevered and came out the other side stronger for it. The back-office set up here is great, so it allows me to concentrate on game-planning and coaching. I also have a great group of assistant coaches, who work with me towards a common goal”.

Robson works hard to get the best out of his players

The win on the day moved them to 9-0 for the season, meaning they got their reward of promotion to Division One, but that’s not the end of the Alphas project, more a landmark on the journey. Next season they will be playing some more technically adept teams, but I doubt that anyone will provide a better Gameday, from what I’ve seen, there’s is the Alpha experience!