Skip to main content

The Vice President of University of Nottingham American Football has shared her excitement about the growth of Flag Football after hosting Game Day Four in BAFA’s Women’s Flag Football League.

Jess Maughan, who plays for University of Nottingham Women’s Gold in addition to her role on the club’s committee, praised the support of the university’s Student Union as its flag programme celebrates 11 years of competition.

With both of its flag teams (Green and Gold) competing in the WFFL, Maughan pointed to flag football’s inclusion in the LA 28 Olympic Games as a key driver in the club’s growth.

“It’s been a really good Game Day,” Maughan said.

“We had some good games, we played each other, which is always a fun game.

“Nottingham celebrated its 10th year as flag team last year, which is really great because we’re building a strong alumni network and we get to see them on days like this.”

“It was somewhat starting from scratch, especially at that time because flag compared to now was barely known about. But we worked really closely with the contact side, so we’re all one club, we’re UoNAF and the uni’s really supportive of that.

“The Olympics has helped so much because we’ve seen such growth this year. We’ve had 200% growth in members last year I think, which is brilliant.

“To have two teams, I think it’s a really strong respect for the university because it’s a non-contact subsidiary and we’ve got mixed flag that doesn’t compete, but we have a training session for them and to be able to offer that as an alternative to contact, I think they see it as a real positive.”

Women’s flag football is drawing excitement from all corners with Great Britain’s National Team ranking fifth in the world at the end of 2024. That excitement is materialising notably in university, with several new team springing up in recent years.

“It’s brilliant to have [new university teams] because while these are excellent Game Days, you’ve got teams like Panthers who have been playing together for over a decade now, so it’s quite nice to have other people that are just coming in and learning the sport to play against, so it’s sort of a level playing field,” Maughan added.

“We’ve had Portsmouth and Birmingham pop up and we’re trying to arrange friendlies with Birmingham, with them being so close.

“The university is so supportive, and I think it helps that we have a strong contact side as well; Flag and Contact American football is so strong here. It’s so nice to be able to encourage it.

“Speak to your student union. You need relatively low interest to be able to get one going. We’ve only got 50 members and that’s after the growth, there have been years where there’s only been 20, so there’s a lot less than you think.

“Get your friends into it, get the interest going and then try and get a pitch. Because realistically all you need is a couple flags, a ball and some green space. Even if that’s not necessarily university facilities such as these, you could just go to a park and join.”

The support from University of Nottingham American Football’s contact programme has been invaluable for the flag teams, with players, coaches and resources shared across the club.

“Our Head Coach came from the contact side, he played contact. As have our assistant coaches, so all our coaching staff came over to stick to the university family of sorts to come and assist.

“Today we’ve used their stuff – It’s trivial, but we’ve used their stuff to outline our pitches and we have one committee, so their kit sec looks after our kit when we ask them nicely. It builds a community because you’ve got turnouts at the big events like Super Bowl, it’s almost like conjoining families, if that makes sense.

“I’m excited to see what comes with LA 28. I want to see what alumni we get in there and what current players, because we got three into GB last year. So to have that is growth in individual players is great.

“We’ve got people with all different levels. We’ve got people aiming for GB and we’ve got people that just want to come for a run around.

“To be able to have that run alongside each other, I think it’s a really special place and I’m very excited.”