By Søren Bendixen and Jens Rørbye
The Copenhagen Towers are extremely proud to announce a merger with one of the premier flag football teams in Copenhagen; The Copenhagen Barbarians.
The merger has been in the works for a long time and will benefit both organizations greatly. The Towers have been looking at a number of ways to improve our offering to new and existing Towers players. Flag football has been at the top of our wish list for years.
The Barbarians on the other hand will join a very mature organization, where the flag football players can focus on delivering results on the field.
Barbarians president, Lasse Christensen, is thrilled with the merger: “We have had communications with the Copenhagne Towers about a merger for a long time. We’re obviously very pleased that things have fallen into place. From now on we can focus all of our energy on football, so we are happy to have expanded our purple family.”
Towers president Jakob Munksgaard is equally excited: ”It’s a pleasure to welcome The Barbarians into the Towers family. The Towers organization is growing rapidly and we are looking forward to helping further the development of flag football in Denmark. The plan for the future is to also include flag football in our successful youth development program and that will benefit both flag- and tackle football.”
The Barbarians have become a very established organization in the flag community, since their inception in 2007. They possess an impressive 33 active players, who compete at two levels in the Danish flag tournaments. Over the years the Barbarians have produced not just great team results, but also very talented flag football players.
Among these is Silas Meyer-Juhlin, who is among the very best flag football players in Europe, if not the world. Meyer-Juhlin is a national team fixture and has won three straight European Championships with the Danish national team. He was named MVP of the entire tournament at the 2017 European Championship.
Over the past years the Barbarians finished second in the Big Bowl Flag tournament in Frankfurt, Germany in 2017, fourth in the Danish Flag League in 2017 and third in 2016.
Over recent years, flag football has contributed significantly with talented players to the Towers’ national league team, so a closer collaboration between the two sports seems logical and beneficial. The merger will ease the transition between the two sports and increase the talent level on both sides. With the addition of knowledgable and talented flag players to the towers organization, we believe that a platform for alternative practice and improvement will emerge.
Flag is also an easy introduction to the sport of football and a great addition for our youth football program. Flag provides a possibility to engage in the tactical aspect of football and focus on the skills and technical aspect of the game.
Towers assistant head coach Victor Andersen is an avid flag football proponent. Lasse Christensen recognized Victor’s contributions to making the merger a reality: “I would like to thank Victor Andersen, who has been an important factor in making the merger possible. He has been a cornerstone of both clubs for a long time.”
Welcome to our purple family, Barbarians!
