NFL Europe = NFL Germany

[TrueBeliever]

Here's my latest entry to the "Football stuff no one else cares about" File:

Don't ask me why, but years ago I decided that I should have a favorite NFL Europe team. I picked the Scottish Claymores, partly because I've always thought Scotland would be a cool place to visit and also because their uniforms were the closest of the six Europe teams to the Patriots. (Silver helmets with dark blue jerseys.)

Well low and behold I went onto the NFL Europe website a week or so ago and here the Claymores are no more. They've moved to Hamburg, Germany, and are now the Sea Devils.

This means that five of the six NFL Europe teams are now in Germany. I guess those Germans must love their American foot-balling, huh?

But seriously, when I started following the spring league back in '96, it was like this:

London Monarchs
Scottish Claymores
Barcelona Dragons
Frankfurt Galaxy
Rhein Fire
Amsterdam Admirals

First the London Monarchs became the England Monarchs, then they gave up and moved to Berlin and became the Thunder. Then last year the Dragons left Barcelona and became the Cologne Centurions. And now the Claymores are, well...

On top of it, I can't even find a Claymores mini-helmet on the Internet anywhere. Not even on eBay.

What really sucks, though, is that now that I have NFL Network I was hoping to actually see the Claymores more often. Even though the quality play is usually only just above the average NFL preseason game. In the third quarter.

Life is so hard.

[BigDickSeymour]

mini helmet, try ebay UK... It's your best shot IMO.

[mgoblue101415]

Cripes... Another friggin Germany team???

You know the funny thing... Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, the hubby had to entertain a guy from one of the companies they deal with in Germany. Very nice guy. Well, the Daytona was on, so before dinner we took him to ESPN Zone, which he loved. He'd never seen anything like it. But we got to talking about football. He's from Frankfurt. We asked if he followed American football at all and he said no. Then we mentioned the team in Frankfurt... Neither the hubby or I could remember the name. I remembered the Fire and the Berlin ?Thunder?, I'm pretty sure, but I was drawing a blank on the Frankfurt team. The guy from Frankfurt couldn't remember the friggin team name. About an hour after that particular conversation was over, he finally remembered it was the Galaxy. He's into handball. Handball is to Germany what football or baseball is to us. It's like the IN sport over there.

I just thought it humorous that Germany is getting all these teams and yet a guy from a city that has a team, barely knows there's a team there. Obviously that's just one person, but you ever notice the stands at the games over there? Not exactly bursting at the seams.

And back when I first started really following NFLE, back in the mid-90s, I always liked the Dragons. Don't know why... That was just the team I really started following.

Another amusing little sidenote... My hubby is who actually got me into NFLE. He had been following it since before the re-organization back in the early or mid-90s, I can't recall exactly when they went through those first changes. But back in like 96 or 97, we were at a sports bar that one of the local sports stations was broadcasting from. And they were doing the normal "give-away" stuff. Anyway, one of the questions was "name the 5 NFLE teams". The hubby knew, but wouldn't go up there, so he had to tell them to me. Ten minutes after the question had been asked I went up and was the first to get all 5 teams. The guy looked at me like I was a freak of nature. :p But I got a T-shirt out of it. So I actually have a NFLE T-shirt. It's a league T-shirt, not any particular team.


Talk about stuff that no one else cares about. :p

[B A Rabbit]

Jeez, If I can Find a Boston Breakers Mini, Surly you can find a Scottish Claymours Mini.

Try this-

http://www.joessportsconnection.com/nflemini.htm

[thomas144]

That's interesting about NFL Europe gravitating towards Germany - I would imagine that has something to do with the fact that the U.S. has about 70,000 servicemen stationed in that country, far more than any other European country.

I hadn't heard about the popularity of Handball in Germany but I think Soccer is to them what Football or Baseball is to us, except that they are more passionate about Soccer than we are about either Football or Baseball, so maybe their interest in Handball is more like our interest in Baseball in particular.

[TrueBeliever]

Originally posted by Supkem
Jeez, If I can Find a Boston Breakers Mini, Surly you can find a Scottish Claymours Mini.

Try this-

http://www.joessportsconnection.com/nflemini.htm

Thanks Supkem. I'll try them. I've actually been meaning to get a Breakers helmet as well, so maybe I'll order both to save on shipping.