It’s play-off and championship season in the National Football League and I am riveted by the mass of information on the TV screen. There’s the score, the time, which quarter the game’s in, the number of yards needed and which down it is. It’s a lot to take in but I remain baffled as to why the home team’s name comes second on the screen.
A lifetime in the UK has been based upon the immutable law that when a match is promoted and shown the home team’s name is first. It makes sense because the game is at their stadium and it’s a reminder of home advantage. It is very disorienting to have this turned on its head for no good reason.
The argument from American friends is that it is to reinforce the spoken version. So it’s “the Steelers at the Patriots” and they seem equally bemused by my concern. It’s common to American sports from basketball to baseball to hockey but it is as strange to a resident alien as some of the spelling.
It might help if the American sports had proper knock-out cup competitions because it seems inconceivable that you would draw the away team out of the hat first. But there was incredulity when I described a competition where pure chance might pit the might of Premier League Champions against the humblest of pub teams. There is no equivalent here to the televisual genius of watching faded, mumbling players of yesteryear plucking swirling numbered balls blindly from a rotating device that has been borrowed from the local Bingo hall.
The ‘oooing’ and ‘aaaing’ and sharp intakes of breath as particularly juicy ties are drawn is a staple of being a fan of English football. It’s matched by the camera in the clubhouse of some non-league upstarts looking to make an impression on the shins of an overpaid, over-tattooed and overrated Premier League star. They may themselves be overweight, overworked and, er, over-tattooed but this is their moment in the sun.
Everything about the FA Cup speaks to the principles of a working class game that has spawned decades of clichés. It’s eleven against eleven, a game of two halves and a pitch recently cleared of cow pats is a great leveller. Nobody wants to play against Clogger United on a frosty, January night but it’s a reminder of the days when players caught the local bus to the stadium and drank a pint or four with the fans after the game (and sometimes before).
It seems to me that the lack of decent cup competition is against the very spirit of the United States and I’d venture, without any genuine understanding, that it is likely to be unconstitutional. This is supposed to be the land of opportunity where every child has the chance to become President and where Supreme Court Justices vehemently declare their love of beer. Surely there has to be a space for the town of Gonzales, Louisiana, the ‘jambalaya capital of the world’, to form a team called the Gophers and take homefield advantage to give Bill Belichick’s all conquering New England Patriots a bloody nose.
When I raised the possibility it was suggested that the entire Gophers squad would be hospitalised in the first quarter by the superior physical qualities of the visiting supermen. But anybody who saw Division 2 Sunderland beat the mighty Leeds United in the FA Cup Final, or savoured Southern League Herford’s win against the, then high-flying, Newcastle United, knows that dreams never die. A ruptured spleen and complex fractures of every limb seem a small price to pay for a shot at glory.
It’s always good to have a theme so if I’m obliged to start a campaign my intention would be to invoke the spirit of the Rocky’s – Balboa and Marciano – and the formidable peak peaks of the Rockies – Elbert and Massive. Warming to the task I’d eat Rocky Road ice cream (invented in California in 1929), wear Rocky boots (from Ohio since 1932) and sing Rocky Mountain Way by Joe Walsh (born in Kansas 1947) as my closer.
I put the whole fear of being beaten by part-timers down to another unfathomable thing about American sports – there is no promotion or relegation. For a land which consistently harps on about winners being first and losers being nowhere this rather softens the blow of not being good enough. No chance of going down or up, or facing ‘Nutter’ Smith in the backfield during a tricky cup match, means that the players can coast indefinitely.
The weakness of some of the groupings in the NFL’s structure of eight, four-team divisions grouped in two conferences has been recognised. An example is the NFC East where the New England Patriots have topped the table 16 times in the last 18 years. The advantage is that you get a week of rest and then homefield advantage against a ‘wild card’ team.
Talking of the Patriots reminds me of another strange thing about American football. Each team gets to use their own balls when they are on offense (or attack in English parlance). This led to the famous ‘deflategate’ scandal where the Patriots were accused of under-inflating their balls. It was January 2015 and they were playing the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game.
The referees seemed not to notice at the time which is not surprising because their ‘ruling on the field’ is overruled by video review with astonishing regularity. It may also be because they are dressed in replica Newcastle United shirts and throw yellow dusters around when they spot an infringement. It’s like watching the Toon Army take up Morris Dancing with Molly Maid Home Cleaning Services.
It’s difficult for me to get excited about the scandal because the thought of teams being able to change the ball just because they are in possession is bizarre. But I do laugh at the thought of running a rugby game in the same way. Imagine stopping some lumpen Welsh flanker with cauliflower ears and a broken nose, who has just turned over a ruck-ball by stomping all over the head of an English fly-half.
Referee: “Sorry, old chap, but it’s your turn to attack now so you need to stop for a moment and play with your own ball.” Flanker: Makes unintelligible, sub-human noises due to fractured septum, mud up the nostrils, multiple concussions and an ill fitting gum-shield over teeth already needing complete reconstructive surgery. Referee: “Good man, tha……” before the rest of the conversation is lost as the unfortunate official being trampled by what the late Bill McLaren might have called, ‘twenty stone of the finest, Welsh livestock on the hoof’.
And with that I am immediately looking forward to the first day of the new six-nations championship on 1 February and the opportunity to indoctrinate friends here about the virtues of rugby. Dark-arts in the scrum, pace and power set against speed and strength, and the ultimate in physical confrontations without padding. There is nothing quite like it and I am hoping that the screen will show the home team first – just like it should be.