Sonny Cohen, 23, is a Hackney resident and starting left tackle for the London Blitz Senior American Football Team. Growing up, he always wanted to play the sport but didn’t get the chance until he went to university. American Football has grown in the UK, but Sonny hopes that Hackney will soon have a team to represent the borough and East London.
I discovered American Football when I was a kid. We had a Nintendo 64 and we used to play NFL Quarterback 64 a lot. I picked a random team the first time I played it, the Denver Broncos, and I’ve supported them ever since. I’ve been watching the sport since then, too. I love the physicality of it.
It was unlike the sports I had grown up playing – football and basketball. It was action-packed, physical and anything could happen in the games. From then I wanted to play, but the sport wasn’t really a thing in the UK. I couldn’t play in my school team or a local team, because we aren’t in America, where the sport is everywhere.
But I felt like it was the game for me. I was the biggest kid in class and now I’m 6’6 and I can use my strength to block pretty much anyone trying to run at me.
When I was 14, me and my older brother found the London Blitz, a senior team based in Finsbury Park and the closest club to Hackney. I wasn’t old enough to play, and they didn’t have a non-contact flag team – they only had a full-contact youth team for 19-year-olds. They did let me train with them, though, and they let me join in with the fitness and the fun stuff.
The game has grown so much since then. There are more American football teams than ever before, and more and more people are watching and trying it out at their local club. Now I play for the London Blitz. My coaches, who have been playing for around 20 years, tell me that they would have never imagined the game being this popular in this country.
The Blitz currently has two senior teams, a few youth teams and a flag football team. There really is a community of Brits who play and watch the game. I wish it was like that when I was a kid – I had to wait until university to play. There, I played offensive tackle. My job was to protect the quarterback and create holes for the running back to run through. It’s about being physical more than anything, blocking off the huge guys running at you and stopping them from hitting your team mate.
Everyone knows the game is violent, but you never know how violent it really is until you play. No matter what happens in the game, I am always hitting and being hit. I don’t get to rest. Every play, someone is trying to get past you or hit you and your job is to hit them harder.
Teams consist of about 50 people. Being a part of something like that is probably the best thing about playing. You meet a lot of people and there is a camaraderie between players. When you’re playing and you’re struggling, they come and pick you up, and you do the same when they are struggling.
Hackney should have an American Football team. There definitely needs to be a team to represent east London. All the teams in the capital are in south or north London. There are a lot of people in east London who have already found their team, but would love to play for a local side. A lot of the London teams are also very intimidating. They’re serious about winning and often don’t care about development, so a new, smaller team could be a good place for people to learn the game and fall in love with it.
