Birth of the SJAFL - Britball Youth History

Pete Laird on Founding the Scottish Junior American Football League at Age 15

In the mid-1980s, American football fever hit the UK — but in one corner of Scotland, it wasn’t just adults getting involved. At just 15 years old, Pete Laird not only started a youth team, the Corstorphine Cougars, but went on to coordinate what may be the first junior league in British American football history: the Scottish Junior American Football League (SJAFL).

This is Pete’s story — in his own words — about how a skinny teenager with a rotary phone, a stack of American football magazines, and a borrowed rugby pitch helped spark a youth football movement in Scotland.

🏈 The Accidental Kickoff

Pete:
I used to have to visit my uncle and aunt on Sunday evenings. They’d send me to play with my cousin David, who liked nothing better than to beat the shit out of me. One Sunday in January ’83, I told my folks I’d rather stay in and watch TV. That came as a surprise — this was back in the era of three TV channels, and Sunday night meant Songs of Praise and The Money Programme.

By pure luck, Scotland had just started getting Channel 4, and I caught my first game of American Football: the AFC Divisional game, Miami Dolphins v Seattle Seahawks. I was hooked. I’d avoided my cousin and his shitey wee dog, and found a new obsession.

Hand-drawn by Pete himself — later earning him his Art Higher.

Starting the Cougars

I wanted to play, but there was nothing for kids my age. After a year of lobbing a football around the park with a couple of mates, I figured: how hard can it be to start a team? (That same deluded optimism still exists in Britball today.)

So in October 1984, I roped in a bunch of lads from school to form the Corstorphine Cougars. Our colours were red and black — though everyone had to bring their own shirt, which meant some brilliant not-quite-matching combos.

My mum knew a rugby coach (Kenny Williamson), who knew an American. That’s how we got Coach ‘Dirty’ Dick Daniels. (Yeah, not a name that would survive a DBS check these days.) Since we had no kit, he insisted we play flag football — with flags made from torn cloth, no less. I found us a field by writing to our MP, and we recruited through word of mouth and ads in Gridiron UK magazine.

📸 Cougars team photo

The First Junior Game in Scotland

Other youth teams were starting to pop up. Gridiron UK was great — in the days before GDPR, it actually published people’s home phone numbers. I rang every team I could find.

On 29 September 1985, we played our first game against the Edinburgh Hawks at the Meadows Park. We won 18–0, and I reckon that was the first ever junior/youth game played in Scotland.

A month later, we travelled to face the Diamond Roughcuts — coached by Allan Halkett and featuring future Glasgow Lions and Claymores players like Martin Dorman, Gary McNey, Davie Kidd, BA Nelson, and Stevie McCusker. They weren’t used to flag football and just tackled us before pulling the flags off. We lost 40–13, but it lit a fire under us.

That’s when we decided to switch to limited contact football. Our American coach bailed soon after.

📞 Building a League From the Stairs

By early 1986, there were more youth teams sprouting up — and I had the idea to link them. I used the Gridiron numbers and organised the first league meeting in March 1986 at my local youth club. Entry fee? 50p per team, to pay for the room.

Most of them had no idea I was only 15 until we met. To be fair, most of the teams were being run by kids anyway.

We agreed on 11-a-side limited contact rules, and games would be self-officiated by at least 3 people. I ran the whole first season’s admin via a rotary phone on the stairs — taking scores for an hour every Sunday night.

That’s how the Scottish Junior American Football League (SJAFL) was born.

📝 Pete’s original fixture list and scores from 1986.

🏆 The 1986 Season

We split into East and West:

East: Cougars, Hawks, Dalkeith Devils, Dundee Giants
West: Glasgow Diamonds, Kilmarnock Marauders, Irvine Coasters, Ayr Raiders

Ayr pulled out before the season started, Kilmarnock folded after 3 games. My Cougars topped the East. Glasgow Diamonds won the West and ultimately the championship, beating Irvine Coasters 42–16 at Burnbrae Rugby Stadium on 31 August 1986.

By then, Dave Wakefield was in touch, and we were preparing to join JAFA in 1987. Even a Scotland vs England junior game was being floated.

But by the end of the season, I was ousted as league president by Fran O’Neil from the Hawks. He merged with the senior Eagles, renamed the league SJAFA, and moved the season to the autumn — aligning with the seniors. It was dead within a year.

Our final Cougars game was 21 September 1986, fittingly against the Hawks, and we won 30–0. Bit of a mic drop, really.

📸 Cougars vs Demons

🎙️ Looking Back

SJAFL was ahead of its time. We had no real coaching, no proper kit — but what we had in spades was enthusiasm and a total “let’s just do it” attitude. Honestly, I think the league only started going sideways when adults got involved.

Everything was typed by my mum, who worked as a pool typist. Results were handwritten in a jotter. I even used American Football as my Art Higher submission — drawing a still life of a helmet.

I went on to play senior ball at 17. I was skinny, bang average, but more experienced than most. That experience, more than anything, shaped my later career in coaching.

The SJAFL’s true legacy is what came after — especially the dominance of the Glasgow youth teams, the rise of the Glasgow Lions, and eventually the East Kilbride Pirates youth programme. It took a long time for proper ties between junior, university, and senior ball to become standard. But those roots? They were laid down in muddy fields with cotton flags, mismatched shirts, and a hell of a lot of heart.