Jönköping HAWKS wasn't officially formed
until January 1995 and it was really during the winter 1994 / 1995
that the big interest boom for American Football came to Jönköping.
However, there had been some attempts to start up a football club a
couple of years earlier, under the name Jönköping Froga, but it was
never more that about ten guys and there really wasn't anyone that
could take on the heavy work to start a club. Our play during 1998 didn't show many similarities
with the year before. Suddenly we could play even with many of the teams in
our division and we more than doubled the score compared to the earlier seasons.
Despite the progress we lacked stability and the goal for 1999 had to be to raise
the lowest level both at the individual players and for team as a whole.
Despite that HAWKS hasn't been around for so many years, the club is built on a
great group of friends and the fact that new players gets into the club all the
time shows that it's easy to get into Football. We hope that YOU will
enjoy playing in HAWKS and get to feel the special HAWKS feeling.
That's usually one of the first questions we get from people that are
interested in starting to play for us and therefor we think its best
to straight things out right away. A complete equipment consists of
a helmet, shoulderpads, and a trouser pack that contains hip-, thigh-, caudal vertebra- & kneepads.
This equipment costs about 3.000 SEK (unless you can't get over used pads) and
the club helps you find the equipment that is proper for you and the position
you will play. The money you spend on the gear is a one time cost since it lasts
for many seasons, and you can usually buy / sell used within the club.
You pay a membership fee to the club of 800 SEK and that includes licensing,
insurance and loaning matchclothes during the season. Aside from this fee the
only other costs you have to pay is for away games (and one or another club party).
Jönköping HAWKS has a board of directors that works voluntarily
and if you're interested in helping in the board work, as coach for
the junior players or as a referee, are we greatful.
You can also become a supportmember in the club by paying 100 SEK
together with your name and adress to the club post-account: 42 52 915-6.
Then you get the club magazine Weekend Warrior in the mailbox a couple of
times per year.
During the autumn of '94 however there was a somewhat stabile club
management that started to lay the ground for HAWKS and by New year
we applied for membership in Swedens´Amercan Football Association
(SAFF) whom, by that time, was one of sweden´s fastest growing
sport association. A match-field was given to us by the county.
It was called Ribbaplanen and was located in Gränna which wasn't
the best alternative for us since it was about 25 miles there, but
there was really not much we could do about it.
On May 5 1996 Jönköping Hawks played their first game versus
Göteborg Giants B-team och that resulted in a major loss, looking
at the results. The rest of the season went about the same and the
only game we had the chance to win was against Västbo Goblins, that
game ended 12-25, with Västbo as winners. At the end of the season
we had a total of 30 points made and 421 points against us, that
spoke its clear language. Those who thought we had been to fast in
playing in a league.
During the '97 season the troop started to grow and our team made
som major improvements, which even resulted in the first VICTORIES
for the team. The date to remember is Sunday September 7'th which
has become historical. Västbo Goblins was defeated with 36-2 at our
home field, Rocksjövallen and that night there was party until early
Monday morning. We had put three teams behind us in the league and that
gave us a big apetite for the coming season. At the management levels
things happened too. We started to get up the speed on our economy, which
had been showing a minus result for the last tow years. Furthermore the
discussions with the county about a new home field started to come somewhere .
After a meeting in February '98 we had been given a new field to call our
home field, which was better than most had been hoping for. Rocksjövallen is
an arena that has been drawing many people to watch our games.