And It All Ended with Superman Holding an Icepack to His Head

We had a blast at the NFL game at Wembley Stadium. Although the actual football part of the game was not necessarily the best example of American football around, the NFL can surely call this game a success.


Along with most people, we took public transportation to the game. The underground line by our house goes right to Wembley stadium. We started to feel it the minute we got to the station. That "big game" feeling. Excitement
was in the air. We saw lots of people in the colors of both the Giants and the Dolphins. Lots. By the time we got to Wembley about 45 minutes to 1 hour before the game, the crowd was just pouring into the stadium. Everyone was in a party atmosphere, except the police. They were shouting into loudspeakers warning us not to buy tickets from the "tats" selling them outside the station. On the walk up to the stadium there were the usual cast of suspects selling t-shirts, "game-day" scarves (long woolen team scarves are very popular for football and rugby) with the giants colors on one side and the dolphins colors on the other (ewww), people yelling "Let's go Giants" and "DOLPHINS". A typical scene played out every Sunday afternoon in NFL cities around the US and it was the same in London. Of course there were some differences, no individual tailgates, although the NFL threw a tail-gate like party prior to the game, it was a typical rainy November day in London.

Other than the game itself, which was pretty standard, we noticed a bit British twist to the other usual components of the whole experience. Vendors walking around selling snack items? Sure but not peanuts or big foam fingers. Popcorn and jelly beans. Jelly Beans?? National Anthem. Yep - two of them. First, US national anthem. I sang and I could hear the crowd singing along with the singer. I thought "hmmm, this is pretty impressive, you can really hear the crowd sing". And then I thought that it must be great for the players to hear everyone sing the national anthem and feel connected to the crowd. Then they played the British national anthem, "God Save the Queen". PUT.US.TO.SHAME. They were LOUD. I think it comes from all those soccer
matches where they sing the whole game through. It was pretty amazing. And it just goes to show that the crowd wasn't only American, there were lots of locals there as well. Halftime entertainment. Yes but not scantily clad cheerleaders or gyrating "dancers" but these guys. A marching band. And they marched all over the field. And they were pretty good.

What else? Hot Dogs. Absolutely. However, when I purchased mine, I picked up the hotdog by the paper container, and brushed the bun with my hand. I noticed it was cold, actually it was frozen. Solid. I pointed this out to the young man handling the transaction. He took the hot dog to the back area, I heard loud yelling and the young man came back to tell me "that is how we make them". Maybe, but that it not how I pay for them, so I cancelled the order and moved on.

Ground crew? We had them, although on a somewhat smaller scale. This is a photo of the crew, putting the divots back in grass. I'm sure that worked.


The crowd got into it as well. It was close to Halloween so we saw a few guys in costume, like Superman and Captain America. It is important to note that apparently Captain America is a Dolphins fan while Superman favors the Giants. The English apparently really, really like the wave and they attempted to do it several times during the game. I think they had one session that went twice around the stadium. They love it! Well, most of them. One angry guy near us hated the wave and screamed every time they tried it. I think his anger had more to do with beer than than the actual wave.

I am fairly certain beer had something to do with the fan that ended up on the field at the start of the second half. The teams lined up for the kickoff to the
second half and all the sudden you see a "referee" run out onto the field. The players all looked confused and then the "ref" pulls off his uniform and is there in all his glory running around the field. Then he starts to show off and does a few pushups on the fifty yard line in the middle of the field. He runs around some more and finally is tackled. Ouch!!(although I am sure he wasn't feeling too much).

My only criticism of the day concerned the memorabilia. Of course, my complaint has to do with the shopping! We wanted to buy souvenirs and that is where things got a little cranky. Okay, I got a little cranky. The lines were sooooooooooo long for t-shirts, hats, and other memorabilia and it took so long to get anything. On our seat level in the stadium and by the time we reached the front of the line, they ran out of t-shirts in every size except small sizes and this was an hour before the game. Fans weren't allowed on any other level than the one they held a ticket for, so we couldn't get to the other levels to check out any other stands. It was pretty aggravating. One of the officials told me that they had not anticipated this kind of demand. What???? They had over 500,000 people indicate they would be interested in attending the event. Each time they had a lottery for tickets they sold out within hours. What more heads up did they need? They didn't anticipate people might want to spend money and buy a t-shirt or two. Yikes. Later Snake decided he was going to try and find one of his friends on another level and was determined to find a way. He did. And then he found 2 large t-shirts on that level and saved the day!! He got the last large t-shirts on that level at two different stands. Either that kid has shopping in his blood or a little civil disobedience, either way I am proud.

Oh yeah, one last thing that this game had that most games I have been to in the US have - a real alcohol induced brawl. Remember "angry that they are doing the wave because I have had a lot of beers" guy? Well apparently, he got very frustrated that some of the folks behind were cheering some misfortune of the Dolphins. So he turned around and started walloping on him, actually beer guy and his friend, younger beer guy started walloping on . . . . . . Superman. Apparently his supervision couldn't see that coming. And before you knew the emergency response team was there . . . responding. Well at the end of it all, the ruffians were ejected from the game and Superman was left nursing his wounds.

It was interesting going somewhere so reminiscent of home but different in its own way. I don't think we will see many jelly bean vendors at 49er games but it is nice to see streaking, the wave and fan brawling might be catching on here. We can be proud!