Amsterdam Admirals

The Amsterdam Admirals>were a proficient American football team that participated in NFL Europe matches. The team was based in Amsterdam. It was founded in 1995 as one of the aspects of NFL’s plan to resume the World League of American Football, which was based completely in Europe. Admirals along with Edinburg based ‘the Scottish Claymores’ and Düsseldorf (Germany) based ‘the Rhein Fire’ were the new teams to join the teams of the World League’s European Division which were the Frankfurt Galaxy, the Barcelona Dragons, and the London Monarchs.

Al Luginbill was their first head coach who served the team from 1995 to 2000 until Bart Andrus took over. Andrus remained the coach until the last NFL Europe season in 2007. Some of the many notable players who represented the Admirals were Jamie Martin, Will Furrer, Darren Bennett, Joe Douglass, José Cortéz, Glenn Pakulak, Derrick Ballard and Jonathan Smith.

The Admirals started playing their home matches for two years at Olympisch Stadion until the venue was shifted to Amsterdam ArenA, which was newly constructed in 1996. They made a return to Olympisch Stadion for their last host game in 2000. They had to play away from Amsterdam ArenA as the preparations for Euro 2000 were finalized. The game turned out to be a very unusual as the end zone at one of the ends of that stadium was declared not safe for playing by the officials because of the poor condition. Hence both teams were made to switch ends after every change of possession so that they could play at the other end zone.

The Amsterdam Admirals qualified for the World Bowl 1995 with a regular season record of 9-1 but were defeated by the Frankfurt Galaxy by 26–22. Ten years later, they won their first ever World Bowl by a 27-21 victory over the Berlin Thunder. The following season, they were unable to defend their title and lost to Frankfurt Galaxy at a score of 22–7.The Amsterdam Admirals signed Linebacker Derrick Ballard and Jonathan Smith Under the “Player Continuity Program” for the season of 2007.