2011 Season In Review

As advertised last week we're going to be running a few features this week to tie up the loose ends of the 2011 season.  Here's the first of many features this week, a piece on my journey from the IAFL to being on the cusp of being the first Irishman to play in the GFL1.   Read on after the jump!

2011 Berlin Rebels

Berlin Rebels 2011 Season In Review
by Ross McCooey

Back in January of this year I was going through the paces of my mundane nine to five.  I was happy enough to be in a steady job even if it was something I had no passion for whatsoever; I was in a very safe situation.  Safety and security in ones earnings is too often viewed as the pinnacle of ones career; I can't tell you how depressing it was for me to be in that job and to see guys my own age accepting the job as their career, no ambition for anything better, no will to risk stepping outside of the safe parameters of the life society dictates to them.  Sure these guys I would pity would travel in packs, often entering the lunch room in large waves to presumably hide their individual vulnerability.  No, I mean that, stay with me now.  To me when I observed these groups the individuals seemed to lean on each other, acting as crutches to their fellow man as they slogged through the week, living for all the escape they would have to create every weekend as they spend their wages at the up-scale clubs and revel in the misadventures come Monday lunchtime.  And that was their cycle: trudge through the week, get to the weekend and escape the realisation that they had given up on any truly ambitious goals they may have once held.  For me I hit my breaking point in January of this year and got the idea into my head that I could leave the office job and do something I actually had a real passion for: football.

With some friends having left the Dublin Rebels to play and coach in GFL2 I had examples to work off of, guys to ask advice from.  Europlayers was the first stop they advised me to take; get on there and let people know you're out there and are looking for higher levels of football.  Sure enough, almost as soon as I had set up a profile I could see there were far more opportunities for an Irishman out there in the football world.  The real impetus however came when I was approached by a GFL1 team to play centre for them.  Jaysus; GFL1?  I had to sit down when that notion came to me.  I looked into it and did some digging about and it turned out no Irish born player ever set foot in what is widely viewed as the most competitive league in Europe.  How's that for a life goal all of a sudden?  Get out of the soul crushing office job and become the first Paddy to play in GFL1.  Needless to say I was itching to go; bags packed and waiting by the door!

I'll avoid details but said team hit some, hmm, financial difficulties I was told and after I was lead on for some time they made an about face and I was on my own again.  Luckily though thanks to my research on Europlayers I knew there would be other opportunities for me out there, so no panic.  After my GFL1 plans went up the spout I had three main teams taking a serious look at me as a player they could bring in and use, two in Germany and another in Switzerland.  Now, although there were some lucrative offers tendered to me from some teams in other countries too I came to the realisation that I wanted to play ball in Germany due to it's high level of play compared to other leagues about the continent.  After weighing up the three major suitors for some time and changing my mind almost hourly I had to stick the neck out there and make a call: the Berlin Rebels.

With three former teammates on the Lubeck Cougars team it was a very tough call to go elsewhere from them, but the Rebels had another former teammate on their coaching staff and won out and as I am now the first-Irishman-to-play-in-GFL1-elect I know it was the right call.

The season was an eye opener for me; in Ireland I thought I was knowledgeable about the game and my position but making the jump from IAFL to GFL2 knocked some sense into me pretty quickly.  Thanks to the shenanigans of the GFL1 team that jerked me around I had already missed three games of the Rebels' season by the time I joined them, not ideal but being a football player I loved the immediate challenge.  Basically I was here a week, still a super-raw player from the basic level of play of the Irish league and I was thrown in to our starting base package defense against league leaders the undefeated Hamburg Blue Devils.  I don't mind telling you that I was a tad nervous going in to that game!  I would line up roughly in the right spot, next to guys whose names I was unsure of and just play.  Later in the season I would discuss that moment with the other imports here and the reason I was able to be successful in that game and come up with a number of tackles was that I was just a natural football player going out there and sticking his nose about for the ball; quite a compliment to hear from the vastly more knowledgeable western hemisphere guys be honest, but as you'll no doubt realize, being a football player is all well and good but you still have to fit into a system and work within it for the team to succeed.  Well for me as a player after that first game was when things really got interesting.

I was chuffed to bits with how I played in that Hamburg game, I was immediately part of a D that held the undefeated league leaders to a 10-7 game, and the D even scored our lone touchdown, I was excited.  Well, then we really got into the playbook and into training and that raw Irish linebacker was sharply broken down and forced to reboot.  I had to unlearn everything I thought I knew from Ireland and reboot the football computer.

In Ireland I was a positional coach for our LBs and so I found it quite difficult to coach myself and to do things properly, having a positional coach who could push me and make me a better player was a rare treat for me and I was going to use it.  There were times in training when I'm sure coach wanted to kick me onto a plane home and be done with the lumbering Irishman falling over his own feet but we somehow managed to co-exist in harmony and with the help of some of the other linebackers and other imports my level of play improved exponentially seemingly each week!  My confidence at the level of play grew and I began to settle in to the speed of it all and get my head around the mental side of things.  After the mid-season break for the world championships there was an obvious world of difference in my play as we racked up the games and set ourselves up for a tense finish to the season.

Berlin Rebels vs Lubeck Cougars

And so it came to pass that the final (rescheduled) game of the year was against Lubeck and my former teammates and the winner would be automatically promoted to the expanding GFL1 due to last placed Essen opting out of the relegation game for financial reasons.  All on the line, who wants it more; the sort of stuff Steve Sabol and NFL films love!  The best part of the showdown for me though was the fact that whichever team goes up, they would presumably have an Irishman in their squad next year so history would undoubtedly be written.  The game itself was a tough battle that left a few forgetmenot bruises on the body to keep me company into the off-season, but during the game I had a few 'holy moley' moments as it dawned on me that I was in the final game of my first GFL2 season and I'm on the cusp of getting to the GFL1.  When that final whistle blew and we knew we had accomplished our goal of getting promoted I was overcome by a sense of justification: I had left a job that was out to suck me in for a lifetime of silent servitude and taken the risk to reach for the higher levels of football available to European players on the continent.



It wasn't all happy thoughts though I'll admit.  Walking out from our sideline after the game to meet the former team mates in the middle of the field was such a bittersweet moment.  On the one hand I wanted to celebrate and revel in the result of the Rebels' season but to see guys who I've played with in some great battles back home and at European competitions being so deflated and dejected was a tough pill to swallow.  I know how much these guys are competitors and want to win but unfortunately this is the nature of the beast, in football there has to be a decision, someone has got to go up and someone has to remain.  I feel very lucky to have decided on the Rebels as the team for me (it really could have gone either way as I made my decision), and I am unbelievably excited about the chance to play GFL1 but I am also excited about what this season will mean for Irish football in the future.

Berlin Rebels defeat Lubeck Cougars 21-6

To see five former Dublin Rebels involved in a pivotal GFL2 game was something special and I was very privileged to be a part of it, but being honest I think this is only the beginning.  As I progress my football career with the Rebels here in Berlin I have to cast an eye back to the IAFL and the players there.  I've been exposed to greater amounts of knowledge here, as have the Lubeck guys, and I know for sure that they too want to spread the wealth about and get the level of play raised in Ireland.  To me this is one of the more exciting aspects of branching out into Europe, letting people know that Ireland can produce players that can contribute at high levels of play.  Once we have an Irishman play in the top tier league I think the gates will open for our developing league; players will leave and be exposed to the wealth of knowledge out there, in turn bringing that knowledge back to Ireland and raising the level of knowledge there.  With a bit of luck too teams out there will be more open to bringing in Irish players to help their squads out.  It's early days still but I think the future for Irish players and the league is a bright one.

This is only the beginning.