That NFL Wembley Experience
On Sunday I took a trip to Wembley to watch the NFL game between the San Diego Chargers and the New Orleans Saints. I made some observations about the experience. Travelling and London The train has something called a "Shhh … Quiet Zone", a carriage for those who dislike loud noises – I know because we sat in it. Admittedly accidentally. This zone of peace instructs people to not use their headphones (which they do anyway) and to not use their mobile phones (which they do anyway). It doesn’t instruct people to keep their dreadful Boring Bicycling Twats Club Of Great Britain (group name extrapolated based on incessant drivel) conversation to a minimum (i.e. the silent minimum): "Have you met Melvin?" "Hello Melvin! Where’s Tom?" "Oh Tom’s texted to say he’s missed the train!" "Oh no! Tom’s missed the train!" "That’s right, he’s missed the train." "So should we wait for Tom or cycle to Greenwich to meet Sally and Tristan?" "I think we should wait and then make Tom buy lunch." "Oh spiffy! Fancy Tom missing the train." "The train." "The train." "Tom." "So where’s your bike?" "Back there where you put the bikes." "Mine too!" "Tom’s bike’s not there." And the zone has no instruction for making parents of screaming children dangle them out of the window to deaden the noise either. Not that anyone would pay any attention even if they did. Once you’re in London you travel by Tube if you want to get anywhere, stay dry, and don’t mind giving oxygen a miss for half an hour or so. If you’re after a recession-proof business then the London tissue industry or the inventors of an anti-tar, one-piece suit might be worth investing the last of your life’s savings in. A day in London travelling on the Tube coats the insides of your nostrils with a black, sticky crud and must be blown out and examined at first hand to truly appreciate its vileness. One can only conclude that most Londoners are, themselves, lined with this substance. This may make Londoners more flammable than normal people or, conversely, it may be impossible to burn one at all. Tests should be carried out. Now. The NFL Tailgate Party I’d never been to a tailgate party before but now I know … a tailgate party is a giant circle of queues, snaking around and devouring one another’s tail. People queue to buy merchandise and reward themselves for tolerating that hour by queueing to buy a drink that they drink while in the queue for food which they consume in the static line for the toilet which gives...
Saints Chargers Tickets
Hooray! And Yay! And Woo! And Whoop-de-diddly-doo! Tickets for the New Orleans Saints versus the San Diego Chargers playing at Wembley – Club Wembley tickets no less! – plus tickets for the pre-game Tailgate party held at the terrifyingly awesome-sounding Palace Of Industry arrived today. At stupid o’clock in the morning. When I was downstairs. But the door was locked. And the keys were upstairs. Because I’d just got up to inject the cat. And I’ve got a long hall. And steep twisting stairs. And a long upstairs hall. And I run like a buffalo. And I dread to think what a buffalo-like running me sporting only a dressing gown thundering down the hallway, up the stairs, down the other hallway, grabbing the keys, thundering back down the hallway, down the stairs, and down the original hallway would have looked like to an outsider or sounded like to our neighbours. But who cares! I’ve recovered from my mild heart attack following all that exertion and I’ve got NFL tickets for the Saints and Chargers! Whoop-de-diddly-doo! I’m really going to start pushing for more Whoop-de-diddly-doo in general...
How To Improve Football
I’m a big sports fan. Not playing any! Oh God, no, not activity! Watching sports. Watching sports. I like many sports. Diverse sports. Not basketball, of course, as I have standards, but I can watch almost anything else from cricket to athletics to rugby league to kayaking to weightlifting to well, as I said, almost anything really. And I love football. American football or worldsoccerballfootball; it doesn’t matter which because they’re both awesome. Okay, it does matter which as far as this post is concerned. Watching the English Premier League matches this past weekend highlighted just what a state the game of global football is in. There’s no one particular thing that’s the problem but there is one person who could sort it all out: Sepp Blatter, FIFA President. An open letter to everyone’s favourite honest, upright, caring, football-loving, not-at-all connected with corruption within the game of football, occasionally sexist Swissman. My darling Sepp, Please allow me a moment to recover from the laughing fit over your ridiculous name. That’s better. Okay, football’s in a right old mess and I just know you want to sort it out but where do you start? Luckily for you I’m around. Problem: Refereeing Referees have a hard job to do. We appreciate that. It’s not easy being the centre of abuse for two hours while the game is on, pressured by fans, managers, players, coaching staff, ball-boys, stewards, and living under the constant fear of a swallowed-whistle emergency situation arising. Then again, they chose to do the job so screw them. The important thing is not whether they’re good or bad, though. It’s whether they’re consistently good or bad. If everyone realises that a referee is always going to fall for a theatrical dive in the penalty area then it provides a fair playing field for both teams and nobody will get upset. It’s when the referee makes a howler giving advantage to the opposition and then promptly fails to make the same howler for you that tensions rise. Suggested Solution: It’s not too late to get Pierluigi Collina‘s stem cells. And by that I mean: Clone Collina. Clone. Collina. Problem: Bad Decisions People make mistakes. They’re not perfect. Referees – even assuming they could be consistently bad or good – are as far from perfect as you can possibly get and will make a lot of mistakes. Mistakes annoy people. Football mistakes annoy spectators and players and they can cost a lot of money to the commercial interests behind football and to people betting on outcomes in dimly-lit cellars while Fat Jimmy and his "Associates" wile away the time sharpening their...
NFL At Wembley In Pictures
The day started really well and by that I mean that is was raining as we left making us drenched before we reached the train station. From there things got much better and by that I mean that the trains weren’t operating for the first five or so stops so a nice, slow bus service was in use instead. But once we were on the train things went swimmingly at long last. And by that I mean that there was engineering work around Clapham Junction and the train needed to sightsee Chertsey and Staines before it could arrive at Waterloo tacking on another 25 minutes to the journey. There are no pictures of this part of the journey. There are pictures for other parts of the journey taken with my – as it turned out, rather crappy – camera phone. Yes, even the ones that look like they weren’t. We boarded the Tube for Wembley! The Tube was hot. Real hot. The kind of hot that makes Satan whip up a memo stating "Turn it down, would you? Regards, Dark Master." But we arrived at Wembley after a small trek from the Tube station in the pouring rain. You’d think we’d appreciate it after the heat but we seriously didn’t. We found our seats early. Ooh! Right in line with one of the End Zones! Where all the exciting action would take place! There was a pre-game show involving the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders, some band I’d never heard of, an inflatable thing, and two giant team shirts carried around, rotated, and flapped by people. The Cheerleaders were good. The game started after some awesome booing for John Terry, honorary team captain for the day, during the coin toss. We do so like to boo John Terry. Clever move, NFL, asking him to come along. Action on the field of play! It was raining a little bit, but not so you’d really notice. Luckily we were dry as the roof covered us nicely. I pity the fools near the pitch action though. I started noticing those horrible things called "other people" in the stadium. For example: Observe the heads of the people in the row in front of me. These "other people" had apparently turned up not to watch a real, live game of American Football in Wembley, but rather to see just how much beer and food they could buy during the first quarter, and then try to better that record for the second. With absolutely no exaggeration I can confirm that they left their seats and returned with beer and food – much of it spilt on themselves...
Wembley, Giants, Dolphins, Tickets, Me
Image modified to remove seating information. Guess who’s going to Wembley to see the New York Giants versus the Miami Dolphins! You’ll never guess! No, go on! Guess! Give up? It’s me! I don’t even like any of the teams! I don’t care! I’m going to see the game! "Peyton, give us a wave, Peyton, Peyton give us a wave!" Eli will LOVE that! Look out for me on TV. I’ll be one of almost eighteen thousand people in the stadium wearing a Patriots Brady #12 top! You can’t miss...
The Media Versus The Patriots
There is a land across the sea; a vast land with occasionally vast people in it. It is the land where everyone is assumed innocent until proven guilty by enforced public opinion. It is the land where spying on citizens, intercepting their emails, tapping their phones, and quite possibly inserting cameras in ceiling tiles above every toilet cubicle in the country to stamp out forbidden consensual acts of homolove is all accepted with little more than a whimper from the seated masses, their representatives in power, and the media who feed them their daily dose of Things We Tell You To Think®. Americaland. So what’s making the news in Americaland these days? The New England Patriots were caught doing something illegal during a recent football game. The New England Patriots cheated. The New England Patriots’ reputation is shredded. The New England Patriots spoilt Christmas for little Jimmy. The New England Patriots were working in league with Osama all along. Really? Apparently so. If you listen to the media. Which you shouldn’t. Ever. What Did The New England Patriots Actually Do? The Patriots used a video camera to record the play-calling of their opponents – The Mangini Nancyboys out of New Jersey – from the sideline during the game. This is against the rules. Bad Patriots. Naughty Patriots. What’s not against the rules is: using a camera to record the play calling of opponents from booths at the ends of the field or on the 50-yard line (which everyone does), taking still photographs, printing, and writing on them (which everyone does), using binoculars to spy on your opponents and making notes about plays (which everyone does), just looking across at the opposing bench and field and writing down what you see (which everyone does), employing players who use their ears to listen to opposing calls, their eyes to see what the opposing team does, their brains to remember what happened, and their mouths to mention this to their teammates and coaches (which everyone does), asking new members of former teams about the play calls of their previous employers (which everyone does), sacrificing chickens and examining their entrails to identify defensive formations long in advance (which the Arizona Cardinals do to awesome effect!) The video camera-taping by the Patriots did not provide a direct feed into heads-up displays in the helmets of the team. Head Coach Bill Belichick does not have a cybernetic implant that allows him to tune into video camera feeds wirelessly. He does have cybernetic implants. Just not that one. The Patriots broke a rule for the convenience of taking notes. Yes they did. Not for cheating. Getting...
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