London Calling

The Giants 13-10 win over the Dolphins was the ugliest game I've seen, yet one of the best I've attended.

This Sunday, the Buccaneers and Bears will square off at Wembley Stadium as part of the NFL's annual International Series in London.  Four years ago, I flew across the pond to watch the Giants take on the soon-to-be 1-15 Miami Dolphins in the NFL's first game in the U.K.  It was one of the worst games I've seen in person, yet one of the most unforgettable football experiences of my life.  When I arrived back in The States, I wrote a synopsis of the trip for my family.  Here it is, four years later.

London was awesome.  Here are a handful my observations from the game:

a.  Part of me wondered if the Londoners would even notice or care that an NFL game was coming to town, but there seemed to be significant hype around it.  The NFL paraded a 26-foot tall animatronic Jason Taylor around London, and I caught him at Victoria station on Thursday.  Some of the people taking pictures of him told me that the game was getting decent coverage, and was being nationally broadcast on Sky (the British ESPN), which apparently showed old NFL highlight reels leading up to the game.

b.  So after flying over without a ticket, I gave in and bought some last minute club seats over the phone for 125 pounds on Friday.  It was the most I've ever spent on a game, but i didn't want to risk flying 3500 miles to miss out on it.  Plus being in a foreign country, i had no idea what the deal was with scalpers (or touts, as the Brits call them).  In the end, I probably could have scalped (touted?) them for $50 less, but oh well.

c.  The crowd makeup was the most interesting I've ever seen.  10% was pro-Dolphins, 10% was pro-Giants, and the other 80% was sporting the colors of any and every other NFL team.  Some of the different outfits I saw: a Warren Sapp Bucs jersey, a Michael Westbrook Redskins jersey, a Carson Palmer pro-bowl jersey, a Brian Westbrook blue-and-yellow alternate Eagles jersey, a Ken Dorsey UMiami jersey, some Alabama shirts, and even some Frankfurt Galaxy gear.  You could tell these fans weren't there to cheer for the Giants or Dolphins as much as they were there to cheer for the game of football.  I assume this is what a Super Bowl crowd usually looks like.

d.  Speaking of the Super Bowl, you would think that's how far the Dolphins had made it with the amount of fireworks they let off when they ran onto the field.  The stadium did as good a job as they could to make it a home game for the Fins, complete with a Miami-biased announcer and Fins graphics on the scoreboard.  I think the majority of the crowd was cheering for the Dolphins because they sided with the underdog, but it wasn't the kind of home-field advantage that Miami would have enjoyed in Florida.

e.  Wembley Stadium is one of the best I've ever been to.  It's state of the art and a beautiful venue.  They had the roof closed at the start of the game, but then curiously opened it in the middle of the 1st quarter, and I think it may have been a mistake.  Most of the crowd was sheltered, but it poured on the field and destroyed the quality of play.  I can't remember the last time I've seen so many balls slip through players' hands and runners slide out of tacklers' grasps.  The main problem was that a field that's used to 175-pound soccer players now had to handle 350-pound lineman, and we saw chunks of grass fly up on every play.  What a mess of a game.

f.  A few people in the crowd had whistles that could be heard throughout the stadium.  I'm not sure if it threw the players off at all, although it didn't seem to affect their play.  It would've helped if someone told the sound crew what was going on, because there were a couple of times when I couldn't hear the referee's call over the Bon Jovi music blasting in the background.

g.  To complete the British experience, a streaker even made an appearance.  Right before the second half kickoff, I noticed a referee walked out of the stands and wandered aimlessly around the field.  Then he stripped off his breakaway shirt and pants and stood at the 50 yard line for about half a minute, wearing nothing but a football-colored sock over his crown jewels.  It seemed like security almost wanted to give him time to do push-ups and jumping jacks to entertain the crowd before they took him in.

(2011Pete note: I found a video of the streaker.  They really did take their sweet time before reeling him in)

h.  Cheers to the crowd.  Despite the sloppy field and lack of excitement (22 yards was the longest play of the day), they were loud and enthusiastic for the whole game.  They stayed until the end, and booed when the Giants knelt to run out the clock.  Unlike the average U.S. crowd, they didn't rush out to beat traffic, and soaked in the whole experience.

i.  It's almost freaky how patient the English are.  It took over an hour of walking with a packed crowd to get from the stadium to the train home, yet I didn't hear one person complain amidst the congestion.  Something tells me if that happened in the Northeast, we'd have had a few fights on our hands.

All in all, the game was sloppy, low scoring, and full of mistakes, but the atmosphere was awesome.  The Brits are a lot more familiar with football that i realized (apparently Miami is the 2nd most popular team there, mainly because everyone takes holiday in Florida and the NFL used to be broadcast British TV back in the 70s when the Dolphins were good).

Do I think there could ever be a permanent NFL franchise across the pond?  Not for a couple of decades at least, if ever.  But I do think this International Series is great for the league, and I hope they keep doing it in the years to come.  Forget the hicks who want to keep football within our borders.  It's a great game and we should give it as much exposure as possible.  I'd can't wait to go see the Giants in Tokyo. 

Image found here.