Edinburgh Napier University

Edinburgh Napier Knights, the university’s American football team, is celebrating the achievement of breakthrough quarterback Cameron Dunn - one of several young players who are making moves towards playing the sport professionally.

The 20-year-old from Livingston, who took up the sport with the Knights youth teams in Sighthill, is embarking on a scholarship with St John Fisher University in New York state, which is due to formally start next month.

After arriving in the USA, he said: “The move over has gone well so far. We are just settling into the pre-season camp schedule now. With practices underway, every day is busy, but exciting.

“The Knights have really helped me prepare to compete at this level with the quarterback coaching I received last year.

“Being able to compete against Americans who have played all their life is really special.”

Edinburgh Napier Knights Head Coach and Club Chairman Pete Laird said: "Cameron started with us as a youth, ended up choosing to come to university, then broke all sorts of records with the team.

“He's so dedicated, such an earnest kid, his parents have kept him on the steady level. He is a wonderful example to others at the club.”

Cameron isn’t the only young Knights player to have been offered a chance at a higher level. The Knights’ youth teams, which were founded by Edinburgh Napier University students in 2017 as a way of getting children from the Sighthill and Broomhouse community into sport and education, have also drawn more attention from across the country.

Just weeks after the club fielded an under 19s outfit for the first time, it will provide 25 players for the Scotland under 19 squad for an upcoming fixture on 24 September.

Some of those players - AJ Danso, Charlie Torrance-Hay and Steven Malan - have been recruited on athletic scholarship degrees by English universities, while under 16s Luca Clement and Charlie Rattray were invited to try out for a place at the new NFL Academy in Loughborough.

Their development stems from the club’s determination to give young people opportunities in sport in an area of Edinburgh which has suffered from anti-social behaviour and vandalism.

Pete Laird explained: “American football has gone from being a novelty to a participation sport. That is the big difference for us.

“We had 85 kids last year and we're now starting to see scouts come from elsewhere coming to watch our players. We get kids that have never played before and we teach them the game. We have a resource in our students who can do that - they have such a love and a passion for it.

“For us the main thing about trying to engage with the local kids and offer them an alternative. The university was always seen as an alien external building to them, but we try to show them it’s part of the community. We tell them ‘students at Napier are just like you’.

“That's what we're in it for, if they use it as a platform to stay in studies then we've done our job. I always say we could be teaching tiddlywinks. It is about giving them an outlet.”

The club is open to anyone aged 8-19 and is always on the lookout for new players. Anyone interested in playing with the Knights youth team can contact Sam Stoddart Durning on: edinburghnapierknightsyouth@gmail.com.