Dave's Claymores Page
View from the Cheap seats, 2004 season

Thunder 27 at Claymores 19
First Claymores home game on a Saturday and although the weather didn't start out too well it had cleared up by matchtime and became quite sunny through the afternoon. The change of regular day, from Sunday to Saturday didn't appear to bring out any extra fans however and although Saturdays throughout the season would suit me better (won't happen because we clash with the soccer season), the queues to get through Glasgow are much worse than the Sunday. End result was we arrived at Hampden with 25 minutes to match time and the backfields party (or is that now the endzone party) finished. Our numbers were up to 7 this time as one of my boys brought along his girlfriend (I should run a bus)

One thing I did notice was leaflets explaining the new rules of engagement with players. Fans are now allowed down to trackside after the match to support and collect autographs from the players. A welcome first step in the return to the good old days when access to the players was readily available.

The game itself was also quite enjoyable with our offence proving that it could move forward under new starting QB Tom Arth. I thought we looked much more assured this week and was pleasantly surprised to find that our offence was on the field a full 13 minutes longer than the Thunder's. With a ten point lead in the first quarter things were looking good and even at half-time it was hard to see where the Thunder were going to get points from. Disappointing then that we lost, which was down to our inability to get TDs when in the red zone and an attrocious double fumble by our offence which gave the Thunder the lead, which they increased later when Tom Arth tried too hard to make something happen and threw into double coverage only to be picked off by the Thunder CB who took the ball to the Claymores' 30yd line. From there the Thunder went further ahead with yet another TD. With an 8 point game and 3:30 on the clock it was still possible for the Claymores to tie but they come up short on a 4th down and 9 play and turned the ball over for the Thunder to wind down the game

It was a good bit harder for our defence this week and they have struggled to hold back the NFLE's top two teams, but they competed well despite giving up some big plays. Congratulations to LB Ryan Myers for breaking the club record for most tackles in a season with one match still to play, just disappointing that LB Jimmy McClain was injured before he could duplicate the feat. It would have been something to have two people break the record in the one season (kind of shows our offence in a poor light though).

WR Scott McCready has come on well in the last two seasons and this season, as at the weekend, he was our clutch player but Arth still had the vision to find other receivers and the confidence, during one busted play, to throw to our other national WR, Scott Couper, for a crucial first down. Scott has very much had the thin end of the wedge from our other QBs this season with little coming his way.

No bad mistakes on special teams this week, the kicking unit can take credit for 12 of our points and our punt and kick returners never coughed up the ball at all.

Galaxy 15 at Claymores 13
With the Mini rugby season all but over it was an opportunity for all six of us to make the pilgrimage to Hampden to watch the Claymores third home match of the season, against the high flying Frankfurt Galaxy.

We had an unprecedented 15 extra minutes outside Hampden before kickoff this time round. Just long enough to buy our annual mini football to replace last year's lost one. It's a cheaper looking ball this year, lighter, softer and more like a thick balloon (You'll gather I don't much care for it. plus it was 42% more expensive than last year. Still the kids are happy enough with it)

On to the match and much of the same fayre from the Claymores' offense again this week. They still haven't got it right. Unable to run, unable to find the open receivers or even look in their direction as I noted on several occasions, which was worrying as the offense has definitely improved so this comes back to the quarterback not checking down each receiver. Still at least they carried some threat and spread passes to a variety of catchers. They also didn't get the time of possesion they deserved because of mistakes elsewhere this week. It was to much to hope that the previous one point victory was going to boost them to a stellar (or even good) performance this time around.

Special teams cost us this match however, even though they also accounted for all our points. Two muffed catches, both of which should have been dealt with better, killed off opportunites for our offence and handed the Galaxy lifelines they didn't deserve. Unfortunately both gaffs came from the same player, one an attempt to stretch for a ball that was falling short, resulting in it bouncing off a leg and the other an attempt to get up and run with a ball collected off the turf and being stripped by the inrushing defence. I appreciate that these boys are trying their best to make something special happen but there are times to do the 'smart' thing and play safe, which we didn't.

Let's credit special teams for what they did do this week, though. Like Rob Hart's two field goals which kept us close going into the half (and gave Rob the record for most points scored in NFL Europe) and Herb Haygood's 95yd punt return for a TD which put us back in the game seconds after being put 9 points behind.

'Where there is hope , there is Defense' and our D were the shining light of this encounter. When our offense spluttered the defense were there to limit the damage, blocking the Galaxy's punt on their first drive,getting their first interception of the season on the Galaxy's second drive inside our end zone and following up with several sacks during the game. When our return specialists boobed, they were back again and limiting the Galaxy to field goals and 1 TD. Previously the Galaxy had not failed to score less than two TDs per match but they didn't get much opportunity this time round. The D played tough all game and with only two points difference in the fourth quarter I really believed they would show us the way to winning this one but it wasn't to be, as they uncharacteristicly gave up several big plays that let the Galaxy into field goal range and ultimately to hold on to the ball until the clock ran out.

Disappointing result in what was another close, low scoring game. Made enjoyable, nonetheless, by great defense. We are out of contention for the World Bowl (we knew that anyway) but let's upset some apple carts on the way.

This weekend was the worst offensive performance of any American football game I have ever seen. 'Inept' might just describe the combined performance of both the offences. The Admirals were almost as poor as we were.

That was only one of the drawbacks of the day however (albeit the major one), the first was the kickoff time being an hour earlier than usual. I'll probably have to accept that this might be better suited to others who have trains and planes to catch, ala 'Shuggie Chedderhead' (or is that Preston ? They are a bit like Ant and Dec those two.) who flew over from America just for the match and returned straight afterwards and even managed to get a few column inches in a national paper for his efforts. Mucho respect for someone who has blown more money on one game than I will in an entire season (or two).

The earlier kickoff means less time for us as a family to get across to Hampden as the junior Rugby season is not quite finished and there are still one or two matches for the kids to play, so the resultant loss to the Claymores this weekend was four of our number with only two of us racing across country in a little under two hours to make it into the stadium just as the kickoff was about to get underway. Thankfully there were no problems with the journey and my much maligned vehicle of the last few seasons has been replaced with a spanking new model, so I no longer expect radiators to boil over or exhausts to blow.

My first thought, on entering the stadium, was 'poor turnout'. I reckoned the Claymores were struggling to get more than 5,000 fans into the ground and was extremely surprised and more than a little dubious to hear the commentator announce a crowd of 10,000. I'll not go any further down this path as they have the system to do the counting and I'm only going by impression based on previous numbers from seasons past.

So what of the game ? Well what of it ? Hopefully this wasn't shown live anywhere as it was the most excrutiating and dull game to watch. Conditions weren't good with a wet surface and poor grass conditions to start with (there were still the bare spots from a season of soccer). I heard a comment that it had rained all week in Glasgow and this was the reason that the performance wasn't so good but that's not such a compelling argument when you have watched NFL teams battle out great games in blizzards in Buffalo, Minnesota and Denver and play in the mud of Pittsburgh and San Francisco over the years. We like to moan as a nation, about the miserable conditions in Scotland but they are less severe, if a little more unpredictable, than many other countries.The Claymores presumably practiced in these conditions during the week and should have had the upper hand over the Admirals but it didn't show.

Lets make no mistake, I love defense. If a game was lost 3-0 and it was down to great defense, I would go home happy but this wasn't it, no disrespect to eitherD on the field who put together some good 3rd down stops but the majority of problems, it seemed to me, were down to our QBs' lack of ability to get the ball into our receivers' hands. They weren't helped by a very poor offensive line who consistently failed to hold back the opposition, resulting in the QB having to move and think on his feet and trying too hard for a completion. Throwing the ball away IS a valid option guys, the best QBs do it and for the receivers to catch the ball it has to be thrown in their general direction, throwing the ball to two Admirals players with no Claymores player anywhere nearby is just incompetence of the worst kind (A blown timing route, or a bad read by the QB ? What was that ?). Likewise an attempt to run the ball from 3rd and 20 is a positional play at best and desperation at worst. Sadly we didn't seem to have a consistent plan and few options when faced with long yardage. Penalties against our offensive line were numerous and costly. One delay of game call against our QB would have been thought unfortunate, two within the space of a few minutes,,, well lets just say it wasn't the brightest thing to do.

On the rushing side I didn't think we were that bad but the Admirals had prepared for the rush and were pretty quick to get to the man. I would have liked to see us try to rush our way through one or two more downs when we were 3rd and 3 or 3rd and 4, I think we had the guys to do that.

Special teams weren't that special, although I noticed we lost Nick Davis early on with what looked like an ankle injury which might have affected us. Our kicker had a bad day, missing 2 from 2 with the second not even reaching the posts before it hit ground (The kind of game that has everyone calling for your head).

Defensively we did ok, considering the Admirals offense was pretty lame as well. I can't say much against the D. Holding the opposition to two field goals is pretty good. I'ld like to see them do as well in the rest of the matches.

I can't see much for us this season,either, as it looks from this outing that we will be lucky to finish 1 and 9. I am only hoping that a siege mentality sets in and the current players settle down to grind out any kind of result they can.

For the attendance. Well, if there were 10,000 there on Sunday then that's not bad for a team in this position, but there is no terrestrial TV coverage of the league in Britain this season, which is a big mistake as satellite viewers are still only a small fraction of the viewing public and probably bought satellite so that they could sit in their houses anyway, so attendance is less likely to improve as weeks go on. Add to this the league problems in financing NFL Europe due to come to a head at the end of next season and this could be the beginning of the end for American football in Scotland.