A Carlisle American flag football team has said that it is going from 'strength to strength' as the Superbowl records its highest-ever viewership.

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw the game-winning touchdown in overtime at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas to hand the Kansas City Chiefs their second successive Superbowl win. 

In addition, much of the build-up to the clash with the San Franciso 49ers had been centred around the relationship between superstar musician Taylor Swift and Chiefs' tight end Travis Kelce.

However, in Carlisle, a flag football group is offering Cumbria and South Scotland all the fun of American football without the pop culture strings or bone-breaking hits. 

Border City Centurions was formed by a group of friends on a Carlisle park in 2022 before becoming affiliated in 2023, with the team reaching the national flag football playoffs in its debut season. 

"There were few of us that always played contact American football but unfortunately due to the size of Carlisle we could never really draw up enough interest to get a full team," Dylan McKenzie, one of the team's committee members, said. 

"We looked into the flag league and it does come into effect that you are playing for free and people don't want to get hit and struggle to go to work on Monday morning, so we affiliated in 2023.

"You can still get injured because it is a sport but it is very low risk. It's fast-paced, enjoyable and there is no discrimination, you can have any size player and it is multi-gendered."

2024's Superbowl also became the most watched iteration of the National Football League's final match, with averaging 123.4 million viewers, only being outshone by the Apollo moon landings in July 1969.

Whilst the Border City Centurions don't have Usher performing at their games, Dylan was pleased to say that the club is continuing to go from strength to strength with this being evidenced by the turnout to their pre-Superbowl taster session on Sunday, February 11.

He said: "At the back end of last year and the start of this year we have started our first junior team with ten juniors coming every weekend to play and we are looking to build that.

"Our rookie session was aimed at adult and young players and we had a total of 33 attendees so it was really nice to see.

"It's gone from ten people on a park to having a full committee and thinking about having two teams because we can't take everyone to a game day, it is just going from strength to strength."

The Border City Centurions train every Wednesday night at Carlisle Richard Rose Academy between 7.45 pm and 9 pm.