Football, football, rah rah rah!

That's what my dad used to say all the time when it was Saturday and time for college ball games to start - after fixing the popcorn in our old-fashioned popcorn maker, where you melted the butter on the top while the kernels exploaded below, pelting them into the bowl and drizzling the butter all over it. Oh I love fall - football, pretty leaves, crisp weather...

Anyway, so I was complaining loudly Friday and Saturday about not finding anyone or way to go to the football game that was at Wembley stadium Sunday. Saints and Chargers, second year the NFL has been here. And then I thought, why am I choosing to complain instead of doing something about this? So I shut up, started searching for spare tickets and found a guy looking for a girl to go with him, since his mate couldn't go, and I said, what the hell, I'm doing it! It was slightly like responding to a personal ad, but when it comes to a chance to see a pro football game at a cool venue like Wembley in London, I have no shame. Plus, the guy was Irish, and it's built into my American girl genes to find Irish guys unreasonably attractive. :)

It was SOOO much fun! I had my Steelers jersey on, and probably 70% of the crowd had on some NFL team jersey, it was unlike any sporting event I've ever been to, b/c everyone was a fan of the game, not really the two teams that were playing. The weather even behaved, it had been raining, but stopped an hour or so before the game so it was chilly but clear. The game was great, and the "home" team was the Saints, so most people were routing for them, and it was almost like a home environment, which was fun.

The funniest part for me was the beginning, when the cheerleaders came out and the whole crowd went WILD - probably the biggest reception I've ever heard for the girls. Two reasons - A) being a minor sport over here, there were MAYBE 10,000 out of the 83,000 people there that were female. Actually that's generous, I was the only woman out of the 25 people I could see around me. B) none of the sports here have cheerleaders, it's a phenomenon for them.

Then there were the funny spellings - people with DEFENCE signs, instead of defense. And of course I loved being the local expert on the rules :) Even the game was good, lots of 'offence' and it had an exciting fourth quarter with the Chargers almost coming back from well behind. And my Irish date turned out to be pretty funny and we hit it off well, so it couldn't have been a better day, really.