Giants American Football is Back

The Sheffield Giants American Football Team are only days away from their first league fixture of the 2024 BAFA Division One North season and whilst the previous year’s 5-5 record - and 3 game winning streak to end on - was a huge success, the nature of the sport means that everything starts back at the beginning for the new season.

The locally based Team, which trains at Hillsborough College and plays their home games at Norton Sports Park, have had a busy off-season of activity and whilst the last game (a 29-7 victory over the Northants Knights) was in August, the off-field preparation for 2024 began in earnest in September.

With a large-scale committee full of highly dedicated and experienced volunteers, the Team has set itself up well to meet its aims of being sustainably successful on and off the field, and to be pillars of the community for years to come.

On the field things have been equally exciting with over 10 external transfers of experienced players from other clubs around the country – a significant showing of the upward trajectory of the Team following last years rebuild – as well as the largest graduate class ever of Sheffield Giants Academy players moving up to the Adult Team having sharpened their skills at the youth level.

Head Coach Matt Flynn said: “If you go back to February 2023 we genuinely didn’t know if we would have a Team to enter into the league. We did exceptionally to recruit talent from around Sheffield and rebuild into a thriving Team that, only a year on, is viewed as a hub for American Football talent in the region. Last year we had only one player transfer in to us, whereas this year we’ve had record numbers with players joining us from Nottingham, Lincoln, Leeds, Chester and even as far afield as France & Australia. We’re becoming the ‘Team of Choice’ for both experienced players and those completely new to the sport, which is exactly where we need to be to balance the long-term sustainability that we need, and the on-field success that I fully expect this Team to be able to achieve”.

The Giants returned to the practice field at the end of January with a weekend long event combining gym workouts, classroom sessions, training, and a day of activities helping the local community (a huge part of The Giants ethos and expectations for those that become a part of the Team) and since then have been through a full pre-season schedule culminating in a fixture played behind closed doors against 2023 rivals the Nottingham Caesars.

After the game against the Caesars Coach Flynn said: “We’ve still got a couple of weeks to get ourselves ready, but we’re just about there now. The coaches and the players at this Team do this for the love of the sport – they don’t get paid a penny but they live in the gym and in the classroom, and they come onto this field and put their bodies on the line day after day. I couldn’t be prouder of the effort and the heart that has gone into this pre-season, but now we go up yet another gear and our focus shifts to the regular season and beating Humber”.

The Giants first game is fast approaching, with a road match against the newly promoted Humber Warhawks on Sunday April 14th. The games come thick and fast, with a further away fixture at the Scunthorpe Alphas in between, but mark your diaries for Sunday April 28th when the Giants will play their first home game against last years heated rivals the Chester Romans (14:00 Kick Off at Norton Sports Park).

Follow the Team on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter for more information:Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/sheffieldgiantsTwitter – @SheffGiantsInstagram - @sheffieldgiants