American football: Mud sweat and touchdowns beyond the NFL – grassroots gridiron in the UK

Based in Sudbury Hill, Wembley Stallions were founded in 2013 by American football fan and coach Warren Smart and his wife Jackie.

Smart began playing the sport in the 1980s after he was medically discharged from the Royal Air Force [RAF] and within two years he was coaching.

After ending his playing days in 2007, he became head coach at Sussex Thunder before soon moving to London Olympians, in Croydon.

The journey from north to south London and back each weekend was long, so the couple decided to launch their own club closer to home, with Warren taking charge of the playing side and Jackie overseeing administrative duties.

“When you’re out here on a Saturday and they’re all playing, it’s brilliant – it’s just awash with people,” Warren says.

The couple quickly decided they wanted to own their own equipment and make the sport as accessible as possible to interested players.

Helmets can cost anywhere from £200 for the cheapest products up to more than £1,000 for the top of the range.

The club now owns approximately 100 helmets and 120 pairs of shoulder pads, funded by grants from bodies such as Wembley National Stadium Trust, which is open to sports clubs in the London Borough of Brent.

“Asking parents to pay £450 for equipment [shoulder pads as well as helmets] when their son or daughter might only want to go for a few sessions is a bit of a barrier,” Jackie says. “So we said ‘no, we’ll take that barrier away’.”