The Bairn, The Giants and The Dolphins

Posted on October 29, 2007
Filed Under Football, Life |

It’s been a while crocodiles. Sam is now two weeks old. He’s changed dramatically in that time. He’s gained weight and is going from strength to strength. The nappies stink. Naturally. Milk, it appears, is a smelly business. Obviously we are absolutely exhausted. Sam does not respect the natural lifestyle patterns of his thirty-something parents. Sleeping in on a Satruday and Sunday morning are things of the past.

Yesterday morning, in an attempt to get him off to sleep and give my wife a break, I took him on a walk around Leith Links. The links are usually deserted by the time I surface of a weekend, however it turns out that they are a hive of activity on an early Sunday morning. Numerous kids football teams are playing a hit and hope style of what I can only call humpball watched by proud parents on the touchline. Me in 8 years time?

Which leads me on to another type of football. The American variety to be precise, as the NFL landed in London this weekend. I’ve been a fan of US style football for 25 years or more, since I first saw it on Channel 4 as a 12 year old. Nicky Horne was the beardy bouffant haired presenter at the time, along with some huge ex-Basketball player (good old early 80’s British logic). I fell in love with the game ever since and it has endured through many stages - listening to weak AFRTS radio broadcasts of live games on a Sunday night through the highs of NFL Europe and a proper NFL franchise in Edinburgh (sadly since disbanded along with the rest of the NFL Europe league), right up to the present day watching 2 live games every Sunday on Sky Sports.

Anyway, I’ll get to the point. The NFL game in London was a fucking farce. Not just a farce. A whooping, cheerleader and cheeseburger infested fucking farce. The rain pissed down, 80,000 odd Brits pretended to be Americans and the game was dire. You see, the NFL made the same mistake it always has when selling it’s brand of football to us ‘Europeans’. They assumed that all we are interested in is the ‘Razzamatazz’ and all not the actuall game itself. That’s where the NFL Europe league went wrong. More money was spent on bouncy castles and bucking broncos for the kids than was actually spent ingraining the basics of the game into the national sporting consciousness. Stadiums were full of screaming kids, clueless about the game but madly in love with hotdogs.

Last night’s game was no different. I’ll always love the NFL but it doesn’t learn it’s lessons.

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