Journal Entries
Week 2 - NFL Europe
Posted Apr 30, 2001
Week two for the Claymores was not much unnlike week one, except for one thing. They lost.
Last week, they "won ugly" and this week, the "lost ugly".
Once again, the special teams and the defence covered for the shortcomings of the offence. But it wasn't enough, as the Claymores lost 14-10 to the Amsterdam Admirals. It seemed as if the offence didn't work, and at one point, the center snapped the ball when the quarterback wasn't ready, resulting in a fumble.
The problems started early in the first quarter, as the uplink to the quarterback headset failed, leaving QB Clint Stoerner unable to hear the play calls from the side-line. This, in addition to a very vocal Amsterdam crowd and a very quick play clock forced Scotland to take all three of their first-half time.outs within the first half of the first quarter. Despite this, the first half ended score-less and we were all hoping for better play in the second half.
Unfortunately, this didn't happen. Yes, the offence managed to move the chains from time to time, but Scotland's first scoring chance came when a punt was fumbled by the Amsterdam return man, and was recovered on the 1-yard-line by last weeks Special-Teams player of the week, London Dunlap for the Claymores. Vaughn Sanders powered into the end zone for the TD and Rob Hart's reliable bare foot ensured a 7-0 lead for the Claymores.
The Amsterdam response was immediate, QB Spergon Wynn connecting with his recievers, ending the drive with an 11-yars pass to WR Chris Coleman. The following kick by K Silvio Ciliberto tied the game at 7-7.
The momentum seemed to swing in the favour of the Admirals, and they were the ones who had the next scoring opportunities, with a dropped pass in the Claymores end zone and a missed FG, keeping the score at 7-7.
Once again, the SCotland Special Teams proved a deciding factor, forcing another fumble at the Amsterdam 11-yard line. The offence continued to struggle, and tree plays later, Rob Hart had to try a 32-yard field goal. HIs kick was good, but the play had been called off due to a delay of game penalty for the Claymores, moving the ball back 5 yards. Hart re-took the kick and the kick was once again good, giving the Claymores a prescious 10-7 lead with five minutes left of the game.
With 2 minutes left of the game, Amsterdam got posession of the ball on their own 5-yard line, and four passes, 95 yards and 39 seconds later, Spergon Wynn hit Chris Coleman for a 30-yard TD, Coleman's second for the day. Diliberto's kick made the score 14-10 in favour of the Admirals.
The Scottish offence tried one last comeback, but two incomplete passes and two sacks later, the game was up, and Amsterdam had registered their first win and Scotland's firt defeat of the season.
In the other games of the week, Barcelona Dragons beat Rhein Fire 24-12, placing Barcelona at the top of the League standings as the only undefeated team, while Berlin Thunder beat Frankfurt 28-20 in the season's first Deutschland derby, putting Frankfurt at the bottom of the table with two straight losses.
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Latest reply: Apr 30, 2001
Week 1 - NFL Europe
Posted Apr 23, 2001
So, the season has finally started. I'll try to give a recap to all the games I attend this season, so that those not so lucky will have a chance to know what's going on.
For the Scottish Claymores, the season started with a win at home against the Frankfurt Galaxy. A scrappy win, but a win nonetheless.
The visitors (Frankfurt Galaxy) had the momentum going for them throughout the game, while the Claymores struggled both on offense and on defense. In the end, what decided the outcome wasn't the offense or the defense, but a couple of big plays on Special Teams.
Frankfurt won the coin toss and decided to recieve the ball, giving them the chance to start on offense. The Scotland defense held them back, though, and Frankfurt had to punt the ball after three and out on their very first posession. That didn't really go according to plan, though, as London Dunlap of the Claymores blocked the punt to give Scotland posession at the Frankfurt 6 yard line.
One play later, and Scotland was 6-0 in the lead after QB Clint Stoerner hit Dante Hall with a lateral pass and Hall pushed his way into the end zone. Kicker Rob Hart continued his record streak of PAT's to make it 7-0.
The joy was shortlived, though, as Frankfurt QB Michael Bishop found Ricky Hall for a 80-yard pass for a TD. With the PAT, the score was tied at 7-7 after about 2:30 into the first quarter.
After this exciting start to the game, the interest factor quickly dropped as both teams strugled to accomplish much, with a missed field goal from each side and a lot of mistakes by both teams. In the end of the second quarter, Scotland's offense finally managed to set up for a Rob Hart field goal from 30 yrads out, so that the Glasgow side could go to half time with a 10-7 lead.
At the start of the third quarter, Scotland had the ball and QB Stoerner managed to find reciever Gerald Williams for a five-yard touchdown, to put Scotland further ahead, leading 17-7. Another blocked punt by the Claymores special teams unit saw London Dunlap recover the ball inside the Frankfurt end zone for another TD within minutes, and the Claymores looked to be well in control with a 24-7 lead.
However, the Galaxy offense started working as QB Bishop started eluding the Claymores defensive unit and finding his recievers. It looked as if the Frankfurt side had decimated the Scotland lead when RB Denvis Manns rushed 10 yards into the end zone, but there was a flag for a Frankfurt holding on the play, so an extra five yards were added, but that did not matter to BIshop, who found tight end Pete Muther for a 16-yard TD pass instead, making it 24-14 in favour of Scotland.
The Galaxy continued their charge in the fourth quarter, as they managed to get to Scotland's 15.yard line. BIshop once again managed to outrun the Claymores defense and fired a 15-yard pass to RB Rashon Spikes for the final score of the game, making it 24-21 in favour of Scotland.
The Frankfurt side could have tied the game with a 32-yard field goal late in the fourth quarter, but Ola Kimrin was wide of the target, and in the end, the Claymores defense was able to stop the Galaxy offense from getting within field goal range again, before the time ran out.
As I said at the top, a really scrappy game with a lot of mistakes from both sides, and a lot of the record crowd of 16.347 people went home well before the game was over. I felt as if the Galaxy had the edge throughout all the game, and the Claymores were lucky to come out on top, as the Galaxy outgained the Claymores by 384 yards to 171 on total offense.
In other NFLE matchups, the Rhein Fire defeated Amsterdam Admirals 24-20, while the Barcelona Dragons beat Berlin Thunder 21-14.
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Latest reply: Apr 23, 2001
Saturday, April 21st. That's when it begins.
Posted Apr 9, 2001
The NFL Europe Leage (NFLEL) of American Football. Scottish Claymores will do their best to go one better than last season when they were defeated by Rhein Fire in the dying moments of the World Bowl.
This year will be the first season under a new head coach, as it will for many of the six teams that compete in NFLEL. The team will also move their home games to just one arena this season. Hampden Park, Glasgow. Previous seasons, they have divided their games between Murrayfield and Hampden, and even before that, they played all their fixtures in Edinburgh at Murrayfield.
It will be an exciting season, as always, and I hope the Scottish Claymores will emerge victorious from the World Bowl which will be played on June 30th at the Amsterdam ArenA.
If you're located somewhere around Glasgow and you feel that you're interested in knowing more, or even going to one of the games to see what it's all about, give me a shout and I'll be happy to give you more details.
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Latest reply: Apr 9, 2001
Good news.
Posted Mar 22, 2001
I just found out yesterday that another department here at work wants me to relocate from my current job to that department. This is a good thing. Especially since I applied for that position about 5 months ago, and they finally decided to give me a shot at it.
Now I just have to wait for my TL to decide when she wants to let me go there. I do have some things to sort out at this desk, like making sure things won't collapse when I leave and stuff.
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Latest reply: Mar 22, 2001
Work codes...
Posted Jan 12, 2001
New work codes to adhere to:
5000 - Surfing the Net
5001 - Reading/writing social e-mail
5002 - Collecting jokes and other humorous material via e-mail
5316 - Meeting
5317 - Obstructing communications at a meeting
5318 - Waiting for lunch
5320 - Waiting for end of day
5330 - Covering for incompetence of co-worker
5340 - Inventing time sheet entries
5502 - Waiting for something to happen
5610 - Searching for a new job
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Latest reply: Jan 12, 2001
Lost in Scotland
Researcher U98749
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