Flag football, a non-contact version of American football, is growing in popularity in the UK, with more and more schools taking part and participation numbers expected to reach 100,000 by 2026.

Driven by a vigorous campaign by the New York-based NFL to encourage young people in Britain to try the less violent alternative, teams with names such as the Northants Ducks, South Coast Spitfires and London Fruit Bats are seeing rising demand.

PE teachers in schools report an increase in interest among children, partly due to the sport’s growing global profile, but also due to parental concerns that rugby and full-contact American football pose too great a risk of brain injury. This year, 343 schools have registered for the UK NFL Flag National Championship, a 78% increase on the previous year.

“It’s gotten completely out of hand in the last three years,” said Jay Taylor, who founded the Fruit Bats flag football club in Ealing, west London. “Flag football has a chance to take off here because there’s nothing else like it.”

Flag football’s reputation was also boosted by the International Olympic Committee’s decision to include the sport for the first time at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, as well as by the NFL’s switch from full-contact to flag football at its season-ending Pro Bowl showpiece.

It is one of several fast-growing new sports in the UK, which include pickleball, a variant of short tennis with a fixed racket, which has become very popular in California and is now catching on from Cornwall to Newcastle. Padel, a hybrid of tennis and squash popular with professional footballers, is also spreading, and former Wimbledon champion Andy Murray is among those opening the courts.

Flag football is a version of the game in which defenders make “tackles” by grabbing a cloth “flag” attached to each player’s belt with Velcro. It is not the brutal physical attack that parents and doctors increasingly fear can cause long-term brain damage. Instead of 11 fully armored players per team, five to seven take the field wearing only shorts, T-shirts and sneakers. The principles of the game are the same – the offense tries to advance the ball through a series of pre-planned plays, while the defense tries to stop them.

The Fruit Bats already have 70 players aged 14 and under. Compared to football, which is played by more than 3.3 million children, the chances of success are higher. A major attraction seems to be the NFL’s annual invitation to the best school teams to an international tournament in Florida.

Taylor said the NFL and several of its professional teams have also been quick to support schools and clubs by offering balls and flag belts. The Jacksonville Jaguars have promoted “Jag Tag” in the UK for several years. This year, the New York Jets, owned by Donald Trump’s former ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, and the Chicago Bears announced an expansion of their girls’ tag football league in the UK.

Jacob and Leia, both 11, are members of the Little Ealing Primary School team that won the national title this year and will compete in the NFL Flag World Championships in Florida in February 2025.

Leia, who played her first game at age 10, said, “I didn’t know the sport before. You can run a lot more and there’s a playbook, which is pretty fun, and the quarterback gets to decide what play we make.”

“You have to be able to jump high, get into open space, pay attention to the ball, run fast and avoid players.”

Jacob added: “You have to make sure you listen carefully and really understand what you are doing.”

Physical education teacher Bobby Behzadi said that given the school’s success, he had been inundated with a “ridiculous” number of players wanting to join next year’s team. Their interest was boosted by the possibility of overseas travel. But part of the popularity is because the roles on each team cater to different strengths.

“Speed ​​helps, but the thinkers can also get involved,” Behzadi said. “It’s a game of cat and mouse. There are a lot of decisions to be made and weaknesses to be exploited and found in the opposing defense. We have guys who may not be the fastest runners, but they have good arms and can play quarterback.”