England rules

No matter that the rugby union code might as well have been the Da Vinci code, or that the only telephone was in a cobwebbed cupboard in the clubhouse, or that (truth to tell) I couldn’t even see the blessed ball.

“Think of the overtime,” they said, mendaciously. “Think of the lineage pool.”

There were to be running reports for sports editions in Darlington, Middlesbrough and Carlisle – the green meets the Pink – something longer for one of the Sundays, considered stuff for Monday’s editions and for the Cumbrian weeklies.

It was September 4, 1965, and it was a bit like asking a Red Cross cadet to perform a heart transplant.

Last Friday evening, Woodham Warriors v Menwith Hill Mustangs, history repeated itself.

BACK then, tiddler in the lineage pool, Darlington played rugby at McMullen Road.

Now they have a posh headquarters at Blackwell Meadows, the ground where the town’s football club hopes to lodge next season.

This, though, was American football and very much a whole new ball game. The Warriors are essentially a school side from Newton Aycliffe, the Mustangs family of the 2,200 workers at the high security US “intelligence support” station at Menwith Hill, west of Harrogate.

If Menwith Hill is secretive, then American football is positively impenetrable.

It doesn’t help that I turn up at Darlington Arena, the wrong stadium, thus missing the 6.55pm kick-off along the road. It’s one thing not understanding the rules, quite anther not even understanding the ground directions.

About 250 are there, fervent and evangelistic, many of them parents or what these days are known as Wags. Since many are only 16 or 17, there may be fewer wives than girlfriends.

There, too, another first-timer, is the Venerable Nick Barker, the Archdeacon of Auckland, whose wife teaches at Woodham. Nick, who appears every bit as baffled, is sporting the sort of cap that the villains used to wear in Dixon of Dock Green.

Another teacher, English department member, is writing a poem about the match.

The archdeacon, good bloke, gives the impression that he’d be more comfortable explaining the Transfiguration to a Sunday School reception class – particularly puzzled by the role of the match officials.

The cheerleaders in action

“There’s a referee and two sidesmen,”

says Nick, as only a churchman might.

Happily, he’s also in the company of an American student called Amy, who’s staying with them. When they cross the line it’s a touchdown, says Amy. “There’s other stuff, too,” she adds.

Menwith Hill have also brought along a troop of a dozen-or-so tiddleyom- pom-pom cheer leaders, camp followers as in former times they might have been called. They work very hard: Mustangs, Mustangs, on your feet: When we yell, you repeat...

The only trouble is that, so far as may reasonably be ascertained, the Warriors are winning quite comfortably.

We’re beating the Americans at their own game.

AMERICAN football was introduced to Woodham Academy ten years ago by Jon Tait, a former Crook Town goalkeeper who was then a PE teacher and is now assistant head. Though it might all have seemed a bit left-field – as they may or may not say in such circumstances – for the past four years they’ve reached the Britbowl final, losing every time, and have played in the world championships in New Orleans.

“Whatever you do with kids, if they can see passion and energy they respond,” says John.

Now they’re improbable members of the Department of Defense Dependants’ system, a mini-league that embraces the US International School in Brussels, Menwith Hill and the USAF station at Lakenheath.

When they played in Brussels a few weeks ago, there and back overnight, they travelled on a former Sunderland FC team bus. The joke was that it had been a long time since a Sunderland bus got to Europe. Two weeks ago they won at Lakenheath.

Jon Tait has been part of a parliamentary delegation to promote the sport in the UK and was chosen to carry the Olympic torch through Stockton. “There are some very hard-nosed teams, we’ve done tremendously well,” he says. “The sport can give so much to those who play it, but if you’d said ten years ago that we’d be playing American high school teams, I’d have just laughed.”

IT’S a rum business, though, and though the universal language is English, an awful lot appears lost in the translation.

It’s tough, thick-padded, school of hard knocks. It’s played in quarters, each of 15 minutes – but that’s only when the ball’s in play. Frequently it’s not, which explains why a first half that begins at 6.55pm ends an hour and 40 minutes later, after which they have a 15-minute breather.

What if it’s wet? What if it’s cold?

What if it’s Tow Law?

“The reason it grinds to a halt so often is that if something goes wrong they sit down and talk about it,” says retired teacher and American football enthusiast Ian Wilkinson.

It’s redolent of the old line about workmen’s club acts – a canny torn, but gans on a bit lang.

At the end of the first quarter, Warriors lead 27-6, or something, and the archdeacon’s gone home for his tea. Soon afterwards it’s 33-6, or 27-12 to those who remember that they’ve changed ends. In the second half, however, something wholly unexpected happens: they invoke what apparently is known as the “mercy rule” – not out of clemency towards potentially perishing spectators, but towards the inferior team whenever a lead of 39 or more points is established.

American football at Darlington Rugby Club

Warriors are leading 66-25, the game then played with a running clock and ending at 9.35. The crowd’s thinned a little. “Past the bairns’ bedtime,” says Ian Wilkinson.

Pete Renzick, the Mustangs’ head coach, is greatly impressed. “The difference between when we first played them is like the difference between night and day,” he says.

“It’s a hard game, mentally and physically, and there were some tough guys out there. We couldn’t gang up on them. They may be English, but there’s no embarrassment at all about losing to these guys.”

Afterwards, Jon Tait and new head coach Dan Kitch unwind in the rugby clubhouse, thereby doubling the number of customers. This Saturday, 1pm, they play the return fixture with Brussels at Blackwell Meadows.

“Just think what it would mean if we could beat three American high schools in succession,” says Dan.

“Our kids have worked tremendously hard to get where they are. They’ve put in a lot of donkey work and they’ve come up smelling of roses.

Who’d have thought it? Ten years.”