The kickoff times for BritBowl XXV (25) – the official championship weekend for the BAFA (British American Football Association) National Leagues – have been unveiled ahead of the season-ending showdown later this month.

BritBowl XXV (25) will see eight finals take place over the course of two hard-hitting, action-packed days at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre on Saturday September 24 and Sunday September 25. Here is the line-up for BritBowl XXV weekend:

Saturday September 24
11:30am – Gates open to the public
12 noon – Cadet Flag Final
1:00pm – Junior Flag Final
2:00pm – 14-17 year old Contact Final
3:00pm – Division 1 Final – Leicester Falcons v East Kilbride Pirates
6:30pm – Pre-Game show – The Urban Voodoo Machine
7:30pm – Premier Division Final

Sunday September 25
11:30am – Gates open to the public
12 noon – Junior Contact Final
3:00pm – Division 2 Final – South Wales Warriors v West Coast Trojans
6:00pm – Adult Flag Final

Single tickets cost £15 for adults, £10 for 14 to 18-year-olds and £6.00 for under 14s. Weekend packages for both days of gridiron action cost £25 for adults, £15 for 14 to 18-year-olds and £8.50 for under 14s. Tickets can be bought via Ticketmaster at http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/Britbowl-tickets/artist/5003180 Tickets can also be bought on the day.

Event organiser DREW ANDERSON says: “We are busy finalising our plans for BritBowl XXV and think our event offers something for everybody in London. The hard-hitting action on the field will appeal to American football fans in the UK while there will also be plenty to keep the family entertained over the weekend. We are planning a special weekend on and off the field.”

The semi-finals for the elite Premier Division will take place on Sunday September 11 with top-ranked London foes on course to meet at BritBowl XXV. The London Blitz will host the Bristol Aztecs, while the London Warriors – featuring TV personality and NFL fan VERNON KAY among their squad – will take on the Tamworth Phoenix.

You can follow the build-up to BritBowl XXV via Twitter @BritBowlXXV or by going to Facebook and searching for BritBowlXXV.

If you have even a passing interest in American football then this is a great and cheap way to find out how the UK sport looks and works. I will be there, you may not see me, but I will be there and it would be great to see as many fans of the sport as possible.

A lot of the websites seem not aimed at those who might come to watch them but at people who may want to take part. While this is fine due to the relatively low popularity of the British game I feel they are missing out on the opportunity to get more people interested by not having this basic information available. As an NFL fan my first thought may well be “oo I want to try being a quarterback” and so you search to find your nearest club. My personal next step would be, I want to watch them play to see what it is like. To do this I would need to know when the team is next playing and where to go. Having seen a game I might then go “this isn’t for me” or “I’d like to give this a go”. Not knowing when the games are taking place rather hampers this for me as it demands additional research and so on.

As the league owners I’m sure there is more BAFACL can do and I will be suggesting this in the coming weeks/months to the others working on the site but there is a lot that the teams should be doing to help encourage people to come and watch their games as well.

For the record of the sites I have currently spent a reasonable amount of time on the Sussex Thunder team website – which just happens to play its games in Horsham (my home town) – seems to be by far the best at displaying the relevant information. If you think your team’s site is better, let me know. If any teams want help/suggestions with their websites then also let me know.

If on the other hand you have found this blog post by searching for a team’s fixtures they can be found here (as of today)

For the first time in NFL history 5 teams go into week 6 undefeated. The Broncos are of course one of this illustrious bunch with New Orleans, Indianapolis, New York Giants and Minnesota being the others. If you were to rank these teams in terms of abilities Denver would probably find themselves 4th. Having watched their five games they have been very lucky at times but credit where its due they have done a brilliant job on defence which was our big problem last year as we continually heaped too much pressure on the offence. This year with a new 3-4 defence several players at truly showing their quality. Elvis Dumervil is the best example having sacked the opposing quarterback 8 times so far. The secondary has also greatly improved thanks to Champ Bailey finally having quality around him thanks to Renaldo Hill and Brian Dawkins.

Things are less rosy for the offence but you sense they are gelling together better than in previous years thanks largely to a quarterback who does not make risky throws. This leads to more completions and less interceptions but does not lead to much in the way of excitement due to the loss of Cutler’s powerful arm. This makes us less one dimensional and allows the team to build on its once strong running game. The maturity is paying dividends for the team.

This weekend is for me going to be the one that shows how far we have come, San Diego have been our biggest rival in recent years and have had a rocky start despite still being a quality team. If we can beat them in San Diego this weekend they will have fully earned my trust and belief for the new way of doing things. They have failed to do this so far even with the strengths previously mentioned because of the vast number of penalties given away on both sides of the ball. Last week against New England we had them pinned in their 20 on fourth down when we roughed the passer giving them a first down. We got them into a fourth down position again and guess what… another penalty gave them a first. We will not continue to win if this keeps happening. In our other games we have had a number of lucky breaks. Stokley was the hero when Orton threw a bad pass at the end of the first game of the season against Cincinnati. We were scrappy against Dallas as well. Indeed you could say we should be looking at a 2-3 record. The boys will need to dig deep and start playing more tidily to maintain this run, one slip and I can see the losses building up. The schedule is only going to get tougher from here on out as well. After this week we have Baltimore who are anything but a walkover. This will be followed by a game against the ‘world’ champion Steelers. Of the remaining 11 games we could lose seven quite happily. We need to tighten up as a team to ensure that this does not happen as the last thing we need is to start well and then end with something like a 8-8 or even 9-7 record. We as a team need to aim to be at least 10-6 at the end of the season followed by a strong post season campaign.

You know what, I have decided Orton is the man to make this happen, he is not electric or the kind of guy who turns games but he is aware of his limitations, keeps a cool head and is dependable within his abilities. If the defence can stay strong and he is not overpressured then we have nothing to worry about this season. While I miss having a superstar like Cutler behind centre for the pure thrill of watching him play we need a strong and consistent season to win the fans to the new leadership. We just need to stop the silly penalties.

Are we going to be the champions down the stretch? It would be great but I will not be getting my hopes up, you can never discount Indianapolis with Peyton Manning at the helm (is he the best quarterback ever?) and New Orleans are so great to watch that I hope they win the title one of these years. But a good end to the season and a run to the championship game to be knocked out by Indianapolis would be fine for me.

Bring it San Diego, you are going down… I hope.

Image from http://www.zimbio.com

While I am sure that Jay is a better quarterback than Cassel the more I read about it the more I wonder who was at fault. At first it seemed McDaniels was at fault for making a slightly rash decision about who he wanted behind Center but now Jay has made a bit of a fool of himself.

Although the possible trade for Cassel may have sparked this situation properly Cutler has been against the hiring of McDaniels since the beginning, he did not back the firing of Mike Shanahan in December either a move that seems like it was increasingly neccesary as he focussed too heavily on offensive personal leading to one of the weakest defences in the league. Since the trade talk though Cutler has gotten worse and seems to be showing his overblown ego and immaturity something that has been evident in some of his onfield plays the last two seasons. Certainly some distance should be travelled to ensure your pro bowl quaterback is happy which has not happened but at the same time he needs to realise he is working for a company and companies do whatever they feel is necessary to succeed. Is Cutler throwing a hissy fit good for the company? No.

In a comparison to another sport this is now not dissimilar to Alonso’s feud with Mclaren two seasons ago when he felt Mclaren were completely favouring their other driver he decided it would be fun to blackmail the team to get preferential treatment. He was gone at the end of the season. So therefore should the Broncos keep Cutler?

He is if honest a bit hot headed under center, he does not deal overly well in pressure situations, he misses as he did when I saw him in Denver against the Bills miss wide open receivers. He has not yet developed into a dependable commodity for the Broncos but given another couple of years he will. It seems he will not get this chance in Denver anymore and for him that is a good thing. This whole thing will help him mature as a quarterback and we should see a lot more of him in Detroit or wherever he ends up next year. Denver, however, will now need to be on the look out for another quarterback, this late in free agency this means trading for one or trading for a higher position in the draft (probably using Cutler to do so) this will likely mean that the team will not do well next year as they prepare a new QB and a new coach with an new defence but in the long term it should work out. Either that or we will go thirty years without winning a game. That, however, will work out better than having a quarterback who is conflicting with the direction the team wants to go in. Therefore Cutler should go and I just hope that we get a good draft pick or two for him.