Max's Blog
In the wars
The NFL has more entertainment off the field than on it
Last updated: 28th October 2009
Tampa Bay Cheerleaders!
The weekend just reaffirmed what we all know. Football really is the greatest game on earth.
Max Rushden
Quotes of the week
I'm slightly concussed at the moment. Yesterday I decided to take on the ground with my face. It'll be interesting to see how make up manage to fix that on Saturday.
I play occasionally for a mate's side on a Monday night - on astro-turf. At the start of the second half, I flicked the ball over the 'keeper, tried to jump his challenge, got clipped, and went face first onto the pitch.
A day later here are my conclusions.
1. Astro Turf is harder than Grass.
2. Sand and blood in your mouth doesn't taste nice.
3. Arms are a better than your top lip when you choose which body part to break your fall.
You'll be pleased to know that I played on, and scored the final goal in a 5-3 victory. But I look like the elephant man today. And let's see what the nurse says this afternoon.
I know for certain I'm going to have a terrible mouth ulcer. But at least I have my teeth.
These things come in threes, so black eye, fat lip, and what? I'm slightly nervous I'm going to get a career-threatening injury just before Christmas...
NFL
On Sunday, I wasn't concussed. I was hungover. But I still managed to get to Wembley to watch the NFL. Obviously I was supporting the Buccaneers after their cheerleaders came on the show. I liked Nina the best.
But despite Nina and her friends, I've noticed this a lot with American sports - certainly compared to British ones, and in particular football, the events (and people) off the pitch are almost always more entertaining than those on it. You don't actually spend any time watching the game.
I like American Football. I've been a Cleveland Browns fan since I was six, when an American man came into our house and gave me a bobble hat with the Browns logo on it. I presume my parents knew him. But it seemed as good a reason as any to follow a team.
Every Sunday I'd go round Matthew Walsham's house, and watch the highlights on Channel 4. Matthew's mum would make hot chocolate and I'd burn my tongue. It would take a week for it to heal, and then I'd burn it again the following week. Essentially I couldn't taste anything for most of the early '90s because of it.
But this was the first time I'd been to a live game. Earlier last week, Fabio Capello said football could learn a thing or two from the NFL. He was talking mainly about training and coaching. But hopefully he wasn't talking about anything on the pitch.
Because, while I was at a match between one of the best sides in the league (New England) against one of the worst (Tampa), at Upton Park there was a football match between one of the worst (looking at the league table) sides against one of the best, going on a few miles down the road (I know quite a few miles, but at least in the same city).
In both games, the best side went in to a seemingly unassailable lead. Arsenal two up, New England 14 points up. At Wembley, that was it. Game over. The fans had to turn their attention to keeping a Mexican wave going for an entire quarter. At Upton Park, West Ham, out of nowhere scored twice and got a draw.
Unpredictability
The weekend just reaffirmed what we all know. Football really is the greatest game on earth. Look at the results in the Premier League. Stoke winning at Spurs, Liverpool dominating Man Utd. Fulham and West Ham's brilliant comebacks. Hull and Portsmouth... OK so there's always an exception. But the point is that football's unpredictability is what makes it so good.
The yanks (and rugby fans) might argue that possession should mean winning, as it does in NFL and Basketball. But there will be huge upsets in the Carling Cup and FA Cup this season. Upsets that simply can't happen in sports that favour the better team much much more.
Americans do sport brilliantly. Better than us in almost every way, except that is, for what happens on the pitch. All the live US sport I've seen - baseball, the US Open tennis, now NFL, lend themselves to being much more sociable.
You leave with more friends than you arrived with, certainly slightly more drunk, but like Sunday, by half way through - you've stopped concentrating on what's going on.
I even left two minutes early to beat the rush - something I'd never do at a football match - the greatest crime in football...
Lucky I guess that I present a football show.
Have a good week.
See you Saturday, hopefully less concussed and with a mouth smaller than the rest of my face...
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Comments
Robbie Fleming (Celtic fan) says...
I was at the NFL match too but I'm a patriots fan always have been
Posted 15:45 1st November 2009
James Hughes (Wolverhampton Wanderers fan) says...
When i was 10 i learned the rules off nfl like the downs etc the first nfl game i watched was a patriots one - they lost but they put up a good performance and i just fell in love with them. But they have to be forever second in my heart to the mighty wolves and the premier league. Max you're right the best bit of nfl is off the field i was at wembley and the atmosphere was great but didn't come close to the premier league. We have the best players in the world in our league the best fans and best of all we have two of the best football shows in the world ........... Goals on sunday and of course soccer am.
Posted 00:23 28th October 2009
Callum Taylor (Brentford fan) says...
Nice one, however I'm sure your lying about flicking it over the keeper and getting the last goal....RUSHDEN!
Posted 16:00 27th October 2009
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