Tigers History 1996 – 2000

Denmark

By Bo Thygesen, editing by Jon Haugaard, Mikkel Guldbjerg and Brian Woodward

1996

Following a successful ’95 season, the goal for 1996 was singular: bring the Mermaid Bowl trophy back to Aarhus. But things didn’t go quite as planned from the start. In the season’s opening game, The Roskilde Kings made a statement to football Denmark that they, too, planned a march on the Mermaid Bowl, knocking the favored Tigers off. The game was a wake-up call for the Tigers, but the team was able to pick up the pieces and went on to win the remainder of the regular-season games that season.

During the ´96 season, the Tigers played the Copenhagen Towers in front of 3,000 spectators and a national TV audience on DK4 at Aarhus Stadium. The game proved to be an offensive showdown and one of the most entertaining in Tiger’s history. With Aarhus leading, at one point 46-26, the Towers never gave up and fought their way back to eventually tie the game, which ended 46-46. The Tigers advanced to the playoffs in spite of the tie and went on to meet the Roskilde Kings again in a revenge game from the season opener. But, once again, the Tigers were bested by the Kings, who won the game and went on to win that year’s Mermaid Bowl.

For the Tigers, the third time was the charm as they eventually did get their revenge over Roskilde in the 1996 Trophy Tournament, in a game that ended 42-20. This was the Tioger’s second Trophy championship in a row and it meant that the club could compete in the Euro Cup Tournament against teams from across Europe the following year.

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1997

In the 1997 season, the Tigers again set their eyes on the Mermaid Bowl from the beginning. The first two games gave two wins and in the season’s third game, a Euro Cup game against the Oslo Vikings, the Tigers won big, knocking out the Norwegians 56-0 in front of 2,000 spectators at Aarhus Stadium.

The Tigers confidence was peaking, but it proved to go a bit too far. The following weekend, The Tigers were upset at home by the Kronborg Knights 18-0. Things continued downhill from there as the Tigers also dropped the following two games. The season ended, however, with three victories and a playoff berth. But the now thin hopes of a Mermaid Bowl appearance were again doused by the Roskilde Kings, who shut the Tigers out 16-0 to end the season in a game played in a prolonged downpour.

Things went better in the Euro Cup Tournament that year, but a loss to the Valerenga Trolls in Norway meant the Tigers missed a chance to play in the Euro Cup final. The season ended with a third straight victory in the Trophy Tournament, which meant a ticket to the Euro Cup tournament in 1998 and a victory in his final game as Tigers Head Coach for Claus Elming.

1998

The 1998 season proved to be the most successful for the Tigers to date. With Claus Elming gone, the club succeeded in luring coach John Lawson from Roskilde. With Lawson came QB Scott Lane (who had played for Aarhus in 1997) and RB/CB Kusanti Abdul-Salaam, who had been a four-year starter at UCLA with teammates like NFL greats J.J. Stokes, Skip Hicks and Abdul-Karim Al-Jabaar, Getting Kusanti was a real scoop for the Tigers and he and Lane became the cornerstones of a team that lost just one of twelve games during the season and won both the Mermaid Bowl and the Euro Cup Championship.

The season started with big wins over the Odense Swans and Herlev Rebels. The third game, against the reigning champion Roskilde Kings, was a charged affair from the beginning. Not only had the two teams become perennial rivals and not only was Coach Lawson going against his former squad, but the game also counted in the Euro Cup standings. The game lived up to its billing in every way with the Tigers closing the Kings 21-15 halftime lead and fighting on until, at the buzzer, the game stood tied 28-28. The Tigers went on to pull ahead in overtime and won 35-28.

In the 1998 Euro Cup tournament, the Aarhus Tigers breezed through their 4-team bracket, making it to the finals in Brussels on June 6th where they took on the winner of Southern Europe, the Seaside Vipers of St. Gallen, Switzerland. The Tigers crew dominated every aspect, and for the first time in Danish American Football history brought a European Championship trophy home to Denmark. A relentless defense created room for an aggressive and potent running offense lead by a nasty offensive line that was able to create holes at will and rack up 300 yards on the ground. Kusanti Abdul-Salaam, led the running attack with 179 yards and 3 touchdowns on just 19 rushes.

Flying high after the Euro Cup win, The Tigers returned home to take on their rival Roskilde Kings again. This time, there was no contest. Aarhus won easily with 37-0 victory that advanced them to the Mermaid Bowl X. In the Mermaid Bowl that June 5th, the Tigers would meet the Kronborg Knights, the only team to hand them a loss in the ’98 regular season.

The Knights played hard and kept the game close at times, but the Tigers’ momentum proved to be too much. Mermaid Bowl X ended with an Aarhus victory 48-20. Kusanti Abdul-Salaam led the charge again and was named offensive MVP, and Mohammad Hadi Abdullah, a late season acquisition for Aarhus, chalked up two interceptions and an 82-yard punt return for a touchdown. Phillip Sanning from Kronborg Knights was named Defensive MVP.

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1999

In 1999, on the heels of international success, the Tigers were invited to play a pre-season game against the Kiel Baltic Hurricanes. The Hurricanes are one of Europe’s best teams and play in Germany’s Bundesliga, the top league in Europe. The game was a memorable experience for most of the Tigers players, who weren’t used to the number of sponsors, professionalism and number of spectators in the bleachers. But the show didn’t phase the team’s on-field play, and led by the Tigers new QB Matt Reiling (Doane University) Aarhus jumped to 20-7 halftime lead. The Hurricanes closed the gap after halftime and with just :36 remaining, the Tigers’ were up 20-19. Coming out of the end zone, with the ball on their own 5-yard line, in the final seconds of the game, the Tigers were called for holding in the endzone. This meant a safety for Kiel, which ended up winning the game at home 21-20.

The club decided in 1999 to participate in Europe’s most prestigious league, the Champions League. In the first game, the Aarhus Tigers met the Helsinki Roosters on the homefield of the Stockholm Mean Machine. Helsinki had a long tradition and historically have been one of Europe’s most elite teams. Despite being ahead 14-10 at halftime, the game ended in a 14-17 loss for Aarhus. But the game proved to the club that it was worthy of playing at the highest level of European American Football.

Because both Helsinki and Aarhus had beaten Stockholm earlier in the bracket, the Aarhus loss meant Helsinki advanced and the Champions League adventure was over for the Tigers. Reiling suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in the game, which also meant the Tigers were without a QB.

The focus then turned homeward and toward winning the Mermaid Bowl. Lacking a QB, Head Coach John Lawson took over duties behind center. First up was Roskilde, a game the Tigers pulled out 21-12 despite the QB shift, a number of penalities and nagging injuries to star import RB/LB Reggie Ignash.

By the next game, the Tigers had found a new QB in Canadian Neil Bacik and, fortunately, he had two realitvely easy games against Vejle and Esbjerg to come up to speed before the seasons final showdown against Kronborg Knights just before the playoffs. Against the Knights, Bacik found his stride with Denmark’s best WR Dian Sørensen. Freddy Bang and Reggie Ignash added scores to secure a 21-6 victory and good momentum into the playoffs.

In the semifinal game against Odense that year, NFL kicker Morten Andersen attended his first Danish game and despite the awful weather, the Tigers pulled out an easy 36-6 victory and would meet the Kronborg Knights for the second straight year in the Mermaid Bowl.
The 1999 Mermaid Bowl was held at Aalborg Stadium in conjunction with the annual 4th of July festival at Rebild. The game amarked DAFF’s 10th anniversary and the coin toss was held by US Ambassador Richard Sweet. On the field, the fireworks were all from the Tigers, who, for the second year in a row, could call themselves Mermaid Bowl champs with a 28-0 shutout over Kronborg.

2000

The start if the 2000 season was turbulent for the Tigers. The league’s governing body, DAFF (Danish American Football Federation), decided to start the 2000 season already in the fall of 1999 and let it run to Mermaid Bowl X11, which was played in June of 2000. At the same time, it cancelled the Trophy Tournament that the Tigers had dominated in previous years.

Because of budget concerns and a general pushback to DAFFs move, the Tigers’ Board chose not to seek import players in the first part of the season, so the Tigers had no American players on the field in the fall of 1999.

That decision meant that just 14 players were on the roster for the season’s first game against archrival Roskilde Kings, a game which ended, unsurprisingly, in a 51-0 blowout. In the season’s second game, just 11 players made the trip to Herlev and during the game the Tigers’ Freddy Bang was sidelined with an injury. Despite the decimated roster, the Tigers managed to pull a win out over Herlev 3-0.

In the season’s third game, Aarhus hosted Kronborg which was led by American quarterback, Kenneth Suhl. The Tiger’s managed to beef up the roster for the game, but couldn’t keep up with Kronborg’s offense and were handed their second loss, 20-6.

The season resumed in the spring and with it, the Tigers had roster reinforcements from the USA. Quarterback Josh Nelson (Ole Miss), RB Rob Love () and ILB Matt Finch () joined the Tigers for the start of the season and, later, Canadian WR Luke Ware () signed on.

The Tigers’ sights were set on the Champions League tournament for the spring of 2000, but there were a couple bumps along the way. First, the Kronborg Knights decided to forfeit the remainder of their schedule due to a lack of players, which meant a thinner spring season for Aarhus and a dispersion of Kronborg’s best players to other rival clubs in Copenhagen. In addition, RB Rob Love was sidelined for the first three spring games with a pulled hamstring.

The Tigers squeezed out a win in the spring’s first game against four-time Danish National Champion Copenhagen Towers. The game was seen as a test of the new imports and an indication of Aarhus’ strength and chances going in to the international Champions League, and following the game the feeling was that Aarhus was not ready, despite the victory.

The second spring game was against Roskilde, and, despite six offensive startes being out, Aarhus still managed to pull out a 20-0 win on the strength of a stingy defense. It was now time for the start of Champions League play.

In the first Champions League game, the Tigers again met the Stockholm Mean Machine in Sweden. The Canadian WR Luke Ware had joined the team, and the Tigers had beaten the Mean Machine the previous season, so expectations were high. But Stockholm proved to be too much and the Tigers were sent back to Denmark with a 32-20 loss.

The second Champions League game of the season was played on the Tiger’s homefield at Åhavevej against the Oslo Vikings, whom the Tigers had met in both ’97 and ’98. In a close game, the Vikings benefitted from Tiger penalties and led the game into the fourth quarter. Running Back Rob Love, who by then had returned from his hamstring injury, managed to burst through the Oslo defense late in the game, though, and help the Tigers pull off a one-point win 14-13.

Hopes of advancing from group play, however, were doused in a rematch with Stockholm in Aarhus in the next game. The Mean Machine lived up to its name, and its potent offense proved too much for Aarhus, which lost 21-7 and were statistically eliminated from advancement. The final Champions League game against the Oslo Vikings in Norway didn’t go much better; the momentum was gone and the Tigers were sent home from Oslo with a convincing defeat.

With the Champions League ambitions crushed, The Tigers’ were forced to turn their focus to a run for the Danish national title. In this run, it was clear that the Tiger’s experience on the international level had improved their play immensely. The first stop was a 54-0 pounding of Herlev. Then came a 33-0 bludgeoning of the Copenhagen Towers. A semifinal rematch against the Herlev Rebels ended with an easy 50-0 win and the Tigers were poised for Mermaid Bowl X11.

That year’s Danish championship was never even close, and it was clear that Aarhus had pulled far away from the rest of Denmark- including archrival Roskilde, which stood on the opposite timeline. The game ended in a 49-6 victory and a back-to-back Mermaid Bowl championship for Aarhus.

As an afterword to the 2000 season, DAFF again decided to change the season structure. Following the June 2000 Mermaid Bowl, the Trophy Tournament was reintroduced in the fall of 2000. But the Tigers by then were already a different team. Many of the team’s long-time stars decide to “retire” after the Mermaid Bowl win, and, in spite of a win in the tournament’s first game against Triangle Razorbacks, the Tigers were outplayed by the Herning Hawks in the Trophy final.

The end of the 2000 season would also prove to be the end of an era for the Aarhus Tigers, which not only lost a number of players, but also saw the entire Tigers Board, with the exception of Morten Glenthøj, abandon their posts.

The 2000 season was also the year that Glenthøj and teammate Nicolai Blom founded the club’s youth committee to help support and foster the many younger players who were beginning to show interest in the sport. Their efforts in recruiting and promoting the sport through visits at schools and youth clubs around Aarhus would prove to be a salvation for the club in the tough years that followed and were the start of a new generation in the history of the Aarhus Tigers.

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