British American Football League Britball People

I recently met up with Mel Biscombe when the Knights played the Coventry Cassidy Jets and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of interviewing one of the most proactive women in football.

The first question I asked Mel was how old she is, and the retort came back with an infectious laugh, “Over 21! Common belief is somewhere around the age of 29 but we don’t talk about that too much!” So I thought I’d risk getting a bit more personal and asked whether or not Mel is married, and again I was treated to a chuckle and a grin that I soon learnt is never too far away; “I have a partner, Chris Hartley, who is the current Head Coach of the Reading Knights University team. He also plays for the Reading Renegades and was Special Teams Coach for the Coventry Jets last season. When I asked Mel if she has any children she said with obvious pride, “Yes, two daughters. Lana who is 13 and Elenie who is 11. Elenie is currently ranked fifth in the country for shot putt and her dream is to play on the O line for the Knights.

Mel went on to tell me her day to day job when she’s not up to her ears in Knights’ stuff is as a Committee and Partnership Manager for Surrey County Council. She explained, “I manage the County’s partnership working within a borough, so I do a lot of work with the Police, Borough Council and Health Authority, or partnership working and mainstreaming of services.”

Then came the surprising bit when I enquired about any hobbies Mel may have – “There’s no time for hobbies outside of American Football, but I’m currently training for the Midnight Walk on 5th September which is a 13.1 mile walk in aid of Princess Alice Hospice, and I’ve just succeeded in gaining my Level 1 Pole Dancing Certificate, so I’m very proud”, she said, again with that infectious laugh.

I had to ask Mel about all the stories surrounding her and baking and she told me, “There’s actually gong to be a Bake Off at the next BritBowl between me and Kat from the Wolves. We went head to head last year and I think it was declared a draw by all the volunteers so I’m going all out to win this year! Kat’s going to have to pull something pretty good out of the bag to beat my coffee cake!

So, having got a bit of an idea now about Mel, the woman, I thought I’d delve deeper and find out about Mel, Chair of the Knights and asked her how she first became involved in American Football. “I met a guy at University who said ‘I’m an American Footballer, do you want to come and watch us play?’ That was fifteen or sixteen years ago and we ended up getting married. My first ever Knight’s game was back when they were the Seminoles and I’ve just gone along ever since.”

“I spent a brief stint with the Surrey Stingers University team when I was at Surrey Uni, coaching their Cheerleaders for a couple of seasons, but no, I’m Knights through and through; powder blue all the way. It started off seven years ago when I gave a hand to the supporters club and then I was asked to help out with a few little things, just really water and that sort of thing, and then I was asked to do something else and it’s just grown and grown. I worked my way up to Gameday Manager and then last year I was lucky enough that the guys wanted to have me on board as chair and voted me in.”

The next question I posed was a bit more contentious; if she could what would Mel change in American Football in Britain and how would she do that? “Wow! How long have we got?” she laughed. “If I had to choose the main thing it would be (and a lot of people will let out a long sigh when I mention it) I firmly believe the league is due a restructure. I don’t feel there are enough opportunities to give teams to move up; there are an awful lot of people competing in Division 2 for relatively few places and I believe the Premiership is too small. I’d like to see it go back to the North/South split with a minimum of twelve teams in the Premiership; I think that’s what’s best for the game. It’s just too difficult for teams to move into the Premiership and I’d like to see more teams be given the chance to compete in top flight as I believe competitiveness and the chance to play top teams would mean teams would step up their game. At the moment the league is dominated by a few teams, but I’d like to see more teams moving up and given that shot at the main prize”.

Mel said she felt the Premiership could be opened up to other teams by restructuring and explained, “So we’ve got twelve teams with that North/South split so the Bowl could be the winners of the North vs the winners of the South or it could be played along the same lines as Division 1. I think that would open it up. I firmly believe at the moment the game needs to stay as an amateur game, I don’t think the game is at a developmental point where we can make that move into semi-pro of professional and I think teams just need a chance to have a decent structure that is in place for more than just a couple of years, so we can all get to grips with what the structure is and formulate our team development plans. With that in mind, it’s difficult for teams to be able to plan for their development when the goalposts are constantly being moved.

When I asked Mel to comment on the season the Knights have had she responded, “Obviously I’d have liked to have seen a few more numbers in the win column. It hasn’t always gone our way, but we have come really close on a number of occasions. I think we need to draw strength from that – we have run teams really close; when teams have challenged us we have stepped up. What we have to do now, going into the Playoffs is not wait to be invited to step up, but go in at that level already and build on that. That’s where the guy’s heads are at right now.”

So talking about the Playoffs, I asked Mel how she felt the Knights would do against London Blitz. Could the Knights turnover the formbook and how do they plan on getting a win? “On any given Sunday, anything is possible” Mel said. “It’s going to be tough, it’s going to be the toughest game we’ve had this season. The Blitz are an outstanding team and I’ve got a lot of respect for the Blitz’ organisation. How they conduct themselves both on and off the field is great and I think an awful lot of teams can learn alot from them. That having been said, I think we have got the strength at the moment to really push them and yes, I think we can do it.”

So before this interview ended, and I missed the opportunity of discussing this matter with the Chair of a Premier Division team, I decided to risk a very controversial question and asked how the recent directive from the league regarding payment of players would affect the Knights. With a second’s hesitation the response came back loud and clear – “It won’t affect us at all. I’ve always been very clear, the Knights don’t pay players, we haven’t paid players and we will not be paying players. Several people have quite recently, even this morning, said they have evidence we’ve paid players, and to all those people I say, ‘Send it to the league and send it to me, so we can look at this.’ I don’t believe it exists, but if people think they’ve got evidence then send it through.”

“The rules themselves need more clarity and I think they need a lot of work, but I understand they are still rules in formulation; they’re not finalised yet, so it’s great we have the opportunity to input to that and teams can really be involved now. I believe that’s a real turn around that the league are now involving teams in policies such as this. I really think that’s the way forward to make sure we all have a say in how our sport changes in future years. I know there has been some confusion about one or two points and I understand from the league the rules aren’t clear and they are intending to change them, so really until we have something final we can look at it, but the water is still muddy.”

So there you have it folks, some straight answers to some tough questions. In my opinion, this lady is nobody’s fool – very articulate and intelligent, proud mum, dedicated Chair of the Knights who will defend “her guys” to the hilt. Throw into that mix a wicked sense of humour, ready smile, warm character and, just for good measure, a Pole Dancing Certificate and I think you get a fair idea of the personality that makes up Mel Biscombe.