Nick has Olympic ambitions

Border City Centurions head coach Nick – Nigel – Weston has helped grow the Carlisle based non-contact American Football team into a powerhouse in the UK National Flag Football League Division One.

They currently top the table with a perfect record, and they are on course for promotion into the Premiership.

And with just three years to go until the sport makes its debut at the LA Olympics, the team sit front-and-centre for potential Team GB squad selections.

Former Annan Academy pupil Nick formed the Cents three years ago, following the sudden death of his mother Delna.

Nick said: “My mum’s death was quite surprising. I decided the next week to get a few friends out, get an American football and head to the park.

“Within a year we had joined the league and it took root from there. “

The 51-year-old has been a big fan of American Football since his teenage years. In 1989, after meeting an American high school coach on a teaching sabbatical in Keswick, Nick was set to jet off to the States to study and play the sport in Pittsburgh. However, a broken arm weeks before the departure date scuppered his plans.

Nick ended up moving down south to work. During this time he turned out for the Manchester Titans, while, more recently, he was on the coaching team for GB at the World Championships in Canada.

Flag – a rapidly growing, high-skill, non-contact format of the game – represented an accessible route back into the sport.

Nick added: “The contact game has never quite taken off here (in Cumbria and South Scotland). There’s such a rugby focus, so the two were never compatible.

“There’s two million people playing flag around the world right now. It’s one of the fastest growing sports on the planet. The NFL is putting a lot of investment behind it.

“It’s a fully inclusive game. Because it’s non contact it’s got a really good vibe about it, you never get hostility.”

For the most part, flag football replicates American Football, but instead of tackling players to the ground the defensive team must remove a flag from the ball carrier.

It still commands great levels of skill, fitness and physicality, Nick added: “You’ve got to be a sprinter, you’ve got to have good hands and you have got to be able to jump off the ground to win the ball.”

So far, so good this season for the Cents. They sit top of their division after winning each of their opening ten games.

They most recently defeated Division One North B leaders West Yorkshire 55-12.

However, a road trip to Manchester this weekend will prove a tough test, with a gruelling triple header of games against the Wirral, Lancashire and West Lancashire.

Nick added: “If we get promoted into the Premiership the teams will become a lot better, and it will open up the opportunity to qualify for European tournaments.”

Flag football has been embraced by both the NFL and the International Olympic Committee, who have cleared it for immediate inclusion in LA 2028.

Growth at the Cents has been rapid. There are now over 100 members from across Cumbria and South West Scotland throughout the adult and junior sections, while there is a handful of Annan based players – including star performers Chris Brown and Dom Lewis.

Make no qualms, Nick, who works as a senior project project manager for a major bus operator, wants to be in LA in three years’ time. He also wants to help flag football players become Olympians.

He said: “I don’t think there’s a more wide open sport in the UK right now that’s on the Olympic pathway.

“Anybody who is quick enough and has good hands, there’s absolutely nothing stopping them.

“I’m 100 per cent going to put my hand in. I would be going after being the head coach of the GB team. My CV will be how my team does.

“In our team there’s three guys right now I could see being of a good enough level to go to a trial and give them something to think about.

“All I want to do is build a platform here. If somebody has aspirations to get into the Olympic squad, we have a team that can give them the vehicle to get there.”