Millfield student claims silver for Great Britain at European Flag Football Championships

Millfield student Luke Barry won a silver medal for Great Britain at the 2024 IFAF European Junior Flag Football Championships.

Year 10 Luke represented the Great Britain U15 Mixed Team, who reached the final only to lose out to Germany. The 2024 IFAF European Junior Flag Football Championships saw 28 teams from 12 nations travel to Belgrade, Serbia for the event from September 6 to 8. Teams were entered into U17 boys’, U17 girls’ and U15 mixed categories.

Flag Football is a non-contact version of American football, where tackles are made by pulling off flags which all players wear on their hips.

Luke, a boarder from Berkshire, joined Millfield in Year 9. He said “I had hoped to be selected as I was selected last year but I didn’t know if I had done enough in the trials to be picked, so I was ecstatic when I got the news! It’s incredible to be able to represent your country.”

Luke first got into Flag Football after signing up for his local American Football Club, Berkshire Renegades. Due to age restrictions, he was unable to play the full contact version of the game, with younger age-groups introduced to the sport through the Flag format.

Fourteen-year-old Luke said, “I couldn’t wait for the GB kit to arrive and to try it all on. Travelling as a GB group felt incredibly special. At the event, all the other teams were so friendly and being a part of an international event was really exciting; it was interesting to mix with people from different environments and cultures.”

Luke balances two positions: Blitzer and Running Back, with the former involving putting pressure on the quarter-back's throw, and the latter having the ball handed off to them and attempting to weave through the opposition’s defence.

Alongside his Flag Football commitments, Luke plays in the school Rugby team, Football team and is part of the Rugby Premiership club Harlequins’ Developing Player Programme. He also takes part in drama at Millfield, and will be featuring in Millfield’s upcoming Junior Production, ‘Brainstorm’. Luke said, “The skillsets of rugby and football really help me with Flag (Football), there are lots of transferable skills such as agility and quick changes of direction. The amazing thing about Millfield is that you’re able to try out and balance so many different things, whether that be academic, sport or co-curricular.”

The majority of Luke’s Flag Football training takes place back at home in Berkshire, which he supplements with training at an academy club called XL Performance, based in London. Luke said, “It’s rare that I miss school time for Flag Football but I did have to for the European Championships. I was able to speak to my teachers beforehand and they sent me work to complete on OneNote so I didn’t fall behind while I was away. The school are often very flexible in that sense. It can sometimes be a challenge to keep up all my commitments, but if I want to get to where I want to go, I need to balance these things and work extremely hard.”

Luke hopes to represent Great Britain in the 2028 Olympics, with Flag Football making its debut as an Olympic sport in the Los Angeles games.