Posted by “I think it’s safe to say that these people came here today to watch a game of FOOTBALL!! FOOTBALL!!!” The immortal words of John Madden as a cartoon character on The Family Guy. Brian & I went a Superbowl Party hosted by the NFL at the Battersea Evolution in south London. The game started at 11pm GBT.
I think there were around 3000 people at the party. It was crazy. The organisers set up bleachers but those were filled up by the time we got there, which was an event in and of itself. We took the bus down to Chelsea Bridge Road and it dropped us off pretty far down the road. So, not knowing and not having looked up if there was a northeast entrance to Battersea Park, we hopped the frickin’ fence into the park! And then we walked thru some dirt trails in the ‘forest’ of the park till we found the proper (concrete) walkway to the events area.
I wore my Steelers jersey to the party – the Troy Polamalu that I had bought just on the day that I left Pittsburgh. I thought there would be mostly Bears & Colts fans and though their ranks were the most numerous, a number of other teams were well-represented. I saw packs of Patriots fans, some Raiders jerseys, a couple Cowboys and Texans people.
But what made me most proud was the solid representation of the Steelers Nation. Bettis, Polamalu (other than mine), Roethlisberger, Parker, Santonio Holmes and even a Tommy Maddox jersey! And most of these folks were British, not just expats.
It was such a great thing just stopping and talking with some of our people, reminiscing about where we were last year, the struggles of this year and how much of an idiot Ben was for not wearing a frickin’ helmet!! Stupid Ohio hick. Of course, we were all convinced that the franchise did the Colts a favor this year by struggling. Because YOU know if Ben hadn’t been a drama queen, we would’ve won 3 more games, gotten into the playoffs and caused some frickin’ havoc, beotch!! I even got many a compliment from non-Steelers people on my Polamalu jersey (even if one fellow couldn’t really pronounce the name properly… for some unknown reason).
I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that Steelers fans were the 3rd most numerous behind the Colts’ & Bears’ fans. I can only imagine the scene last year – there’s no way that CryHawks people would’ve outnumbered us. I only met 1 Seahawks fan. He seemed like a nice guy, said how much he liked Troy. But then he inevitably started whining about last year. b*tch, shut the f*ck up!! ahh ha ha ha. But the most pathetic examples of fandom were a few people wearing Cleveland Browns gear – Kellen Winslow and Kelly Holcomb jerseys. Someone must be playing a joke on them. Disgusting.
Oh right, there was also a game… and cheerleaders! The NFL brought in the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders to provide some entertainment. The game was broadcast on two huge screens, in reasonably good quality, with only a few technical difficulties. But no commercials unfortunately. So I’ve watched a few online and so far, I like the Budweiser ROCK/Paper/Scissors commercial best.
And to the outcome – what a sloppy game. Peyton Manning played really well and definitely deserved the MVP though I think Rex Grossman deserved a share of the prize too. We left with 7 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter because we knew it was over. No sense in making one’s self retch watching Grossman try to bring da Bears back.
This outcome didn’t surprise me and not because of Grossman’s infamous ineptitude. The NFC just sucks. I don’t care how vaunted the Bears Defense supposedly was – the NFC is a sad-sack ghost of its former Cowboys & 49ers dominated selves. After the high & mighty Bears came into Heinz Field last year and got rocked by a Steelers team which was reeling at the time, I knew there was no way they would be able to take on a properly motivated, rested Colts team.
It was nice to see Dungy’s team play the type of defense that he’s known for. I hope DITKA isn’t mad at me for rooting for the Colts but I just couldn’t be prouder that the first African-American coach to win the Superbowl is one of the Steelers Nation, having played for and learned his craft from the Emperor Chuck Noll and defensive coordinator Bud Carson in the 1970’s. Cover-2/Tampa-2/Colts-2 = Pittsburgh-2. You see, it all comes back to the Steelers… here we go!
