BRITISH UNIVERSITIES AMERICAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE OFFICIAL SITE

Hertfordshire Hurricanes

The University of Hertfordshire Hurricanes have been one of the most successful and dominant teams in the history of British university football.

First formed in 1993, the team entered league competition in 1995. In 1998 the Hurricanes recorded their first undefeated regular season and then stormed through the play-offs to win their first national championship. They won it all again in 1999 and then completed the unprecedented ’threepeat’ in 2000 to become the first an only team to win three university championships in a row.

 The Hurricanes returned to the national championship game in 2003, only to lose narrowly in the dying seconds. But in 2004, with the team now relocated to impressive facilities at the new de Havilland Campus, the Hurricanes put together a second undefeated season to lift their fourth championship trophy. In doing so, they set a new record for the most national championship wins by any team.

Since 1998, the Hurricanes have qualified for the play-offs every year winning eight divisional titles, five conference titles and four national championships.

The Hertfordshire Sirens are an all-girl cheerleading squad that have cheered for the Hurricanes since 1999 and began competitive cheerleading in 2004.

Since then their membership figures have grown from 10 to 60+ and in this time they have gained five national titles in Cheer and Group Stunt divisions as well as placing 3rd in an International Division at the COA Ultimate Championships in Orlando, Florida in 2007. Alongside the Hurricanes, the Sirens are one of the University of Hertfordshire’s most successful sports teams.

In 1951, the de Havilland company gave land in Hatfield adjoining the A1 to Hertfordshire County Council for educational use in perpetuity.

The Council used this to build and operate Hatfield Technical College, which trained aerospace engineers for Hatfield’s then-dominant aerospace industry.

In 1967 it became an early polytechnic, The Hatfield Polytechnic. With the passage of the Further and Higher Education Act, 1992, the institution gained university status and became self-governing rather than controlled by the county council.

The £15m Hertfordshire Sports Village has some of the best university-based sporting and fitness facilities in the country on the de Havilland campus.