American football is set to take a giant leap forward in Scotland. Not only will Britain’s only professional team, the Scottish Claymores, embark on their eighth season in the NFL Europe League but the grassroots they have painstakingly nurtured are set to sprout.

The European Junior Championships take place in Lanarkshire this summer. The bi-annual event will feature the six best young teams in Europe from July 28 to August 3. The opening round of matches will be held at Cumbernauld’s Broadwood Stadium with Dalziel Park, near Motherwell, also hosting games. The final will be played at Broadwood Stadium.

It is a sign of how American football has taken off here that Scotland beat off bids from Paris and Vienna to host the championships. With Glasgow’s Hampden Park to host the World Bowl - the championship decider in the NFL Europe League - next year, the game clearly now has a firm foothold in Scotland.

The Claymores will exploit the profile of the European Junior Championships to get the American football message across to every pupil in North Lanarkshire.

But they are hoping to enthuse students not just about gridiron, but about learning too. After Easter, Claymores’ players will visit more than 200 schools in the area to speak to pupils, not only on how to play the game but also about the value of education.

The Claymores’ Read to Succeed programme is backed by North Lanarkshire’s education department and is designed to encourage pupils to read more in their spare time.

The Claymores will distribute free tickets for their home games at Hampden Park and every secondary and primary pupil will have the chance to attend a game.

They are also promoting an Honours Row programme with the education department, where pupils will be rewarded for improvement in school work with VIP tickets for games.

For the past three years, the Claymores have been working with schools in the North Lanarkshire area and the European Junior Championships will provide a focal point for the game.

“Coaches have been working within our primary schools over the past 18 months to encourage youth flag football, a non-contact version of the game,” says Charlie Gray, convener of North Lanarkshire’s education committee. Flag football is proving “very popular”, he says.

“Around 15 schools now have flag football development groups and 12 of these took part in last year’s Claymores festival.

“Combining sport and academic subjects in education encourages young people to develop and improve their belief in themselves and confidence in their abilities - a philosophy at the very heart of our Raising Achievement for All strategy - and I am confident that this initiative will prove to be a huge success.”

Scott Couper, who retired from the Claymores at the end of last season after seven years as a wide receiver, is now concentrating on coaching. He admits that he is still involved in “missionary work” to spread the gospel about American football and he is full of praise for the forward thinking of North Lanarkshire council.

Part of Mr Couper’s remit has been to train children to coach the sport. Last week, he spent some time at St Margaret’s High in Airdrie teaching fifth and sixth year pupils how to coach flag football.

Coaching the coaches is seen as the key to the game taking a firm grip in an area more noted for traditional football.

“The North Lanarkshire Rams are based at St Maurice’s High. They have grown out of a flag football team and are now playing kitted, tackle football and have a good club going,” points out Mr Couper.

For Mr Couper and Steve Livingstone, general manager of the Claymores, the growth of American football over the past 10 years has been remarkable. Both started out as amateur players with the Glasgow Lions when the game was hardly known in Scotland. Now, by putting a solid infrastructure in place, they are hoping the sport will continue to flourish.

“We hope that every school pupil in the North Lanarkshire area gets involved in the initiative and comes along to try out a Claymores game at Hampden Park this season,” says Mr Livingstone.

“We hope their enjoyment at a Claymores game will spur their interest in American football enough to get them involved in trying out the game and supporting the European Junior Championships in July.

“The Claymores and NFL Europe look forward to great involvement with the schools in North Lanarkshire over the coming months.”

In addition to players going into schools, sports centres in North Lanarkshire will host American football clinics, with Claymores players attending to pass on their skills.

“We will be working together with the Claymores prior to the championships to host a number of clinics within our sports facilities over the school holiday period and I hope to see as many young people as possible get involved in these championships,” says Jim Logue, convener of the council’s community services committee.