If you think NFL is not popular in Wales, then you should have been in Cardiff for the NFL UK Live Tour. Dai Sport’s Twm Owen was there for a colourful blend of sporting superstardom and Star Trek convention.
Marble statues of Welsh historical greats line the first floor landing at Cardiff City Hall, but those filing past Owain Glyndwr and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd this evening have come to see all-American heroes in the flesh.
Washington Redskins defender Josh Norman is one of the most brash, recognizable, and outspoken stars of American sport and is spending a week touring theatres and conference centres with highly rated opponent Emmanuel Sanders, a Denver Broncos wide receiver. It’s like Aaron Ramsey and Dele Alli holding town hall meetings across the American midwest to push the English Premier League.
But the NFL, which has played at least one regular season game in London since 2007, is keen to engage its UK fan base and has brought its promotional tour to Cardiff for a second year running. It’s easy to see why as 600 die-hard fans from south Wales and beyond queue outside Cardiff City Hall to get up close and personal with the sporting stars of Sunday night television.
The NFL UK Live tour, which has already stopped at Glasgow and Manchester, is organised by the league’s long-established London frontier office. It is part an insightful discussion show and part the sporting equivalent of a Star Trek convention.
A surprising number of adults, in replica shirts with the names of their highly paid heroes emblazoned on the back, are keen to take to the stage to join in games and challenges with the current and former NFL players. Imagine a talk at the Hay Literature Festival stopping for a touchdown celebration dance-off or a ‘throw the football in the bucket’ challenge.
Hosted by Neil Reynolds, the British presenter of Sky Sports’ weekly marathon Sunday night NFL coverage, Norman and Sanders are joined on the panel by 2006 Super Bowl winner Dallas Clark and Sky TV pundit Shaun Gayle – a former teammate of William ‘the Refrigerator’ Perry. Their 1986 Super Bowl victory signified the period when the most American of sports finally gained traction beyond the 50 states and a place in international pop culture.
In Britain Chanel 4’s weekly highlights show hooked a new audience including Chris Foster, now 47 and of Chepstow, who was watching at his then home in Yorkshire.
One of the first to take his place outside City Hall Foster, wearing a Washington Redskins replica shirt and clutching various items of NFL merchandise, has a specific aim tonight: “To get a couple of bits signed by Josh Norman as I’m a Redskins fan.”
Washington played at Wembley Stadium in 2016 and the dedicated fan, of course, was there: “I saw them for the first time in the (pre-season game) American Bowl at the old Wembley in 1992.”
As Foster is also a Tottenham supporter he plans to see the first NFL game at the new Spurs stadium this autumn. With the NFL having previously made encouraging noises about Cardiff’s potential to host a game Foster is keen for American Football to become the latest sport to make use of the 74,500 seat Principality Stadium.
“I was a volunteer at the Champions League final in May so why not? I never thought the NFL would bring regular season games over and there are a lot of fans outside of London.”
A potential NFL franchise being based in London has also been touted and according to Sanders, when asked by an audience member, would be what UK fans “deserve”.
But a UK team isn’t a priority for Martin Warren, and his friends who have have travelled from Bristol.
“Do we want a team? I don’t think I’d go to every game, I wouldn’t be able to afford a season ticket. A game in Cardiff would be great as it would be pretty easy for us to get to,” says Martin acting as un-official group spkoesman.
Friends Anthony Williams, of Cardiff, and Darren Aitken of Swansea, claim to have “dragged each other” along. Williams is a Los Angeles Rams fan and Aitken supports the New York Giants and both headed to Twickenham, in 2016, when their teams became the first to play gridiron at the rugby’s HQ. They attended all four London games in 2017.
Williams wasn’t aware of talk of a Cardiff game and didn’t want to get carried away: “It would be good but it’s probably not going to happen.”
Aitken was sporting an Odell Beckham Jnr replica shirt. The Giants wide out is famed for spectacular one-handed catches – and an infamous feud with tonight’s star guest Norman.
Host Reynlods chides the defensive back that he couldn’t even mention Beckham’s name earlier in the week when there is an inevitable reference to the pair’s 2015 encounter. Norman, then with the Carolina Panthers, was fined $26,000 by the league for a hit on Beckham, who was also disciplined. The high-profile Giant claimed he felt intimidated by Norman swinging a baseball bat in the pre-game warm up.
But Sanders, who claimed victory over Norman and the 2015 Carolina Panthers in the landmark Super Bowl 50, pleads with his colleague to talk about the encounter when a member of the audience asks the panel to name the “nastiest player” they’ve faced in their careers.
Norman, grinning, explains frankly: “To play this game you have to be nasty. If you get into a little fuss with a wide receiver it’s just part of the game.
“I don’t care about problems at home, or if you’re girlfriend just broke up with you before the game today, I just want to get inside your head.”
Pressed to name, names Norman listed division rivals “Dez Bryant (Dallas Cowboys), Odell, the Eagles’ wide receivers” after first citing Sanders as “nasty”.
Some of the banter, such as when Reynolds pleaded with the crowd to help Sanders prank Norman by greeting his arrival with complete silence, appears a little scripted.
But the pair are genuinely, engaging, amusing personalities in every sense of the word and work well together such as when they rise to their feet to demonstrate the tricks of the trade cornerbacks and receivers use against each other on the field.
Norman especially has a refreshing honesty. He admits to thinking he’d rather scrape into the play-offs than post a near perfect season, like the 2015 Panthers did, and lose just the one game, Super Bowl 50. Losing the “granddaddy of them all” was the “biggest downfall”.
Sanders, who tasted victory that day, having been injured in his first Super Bowl, a loss with the Pittsburgh Steelers, described winning what the sport calls its ‘World Championship’ as “the greatest feeling ever. I went to grab my son, who was a year-and-a-half-old, as I knew that would be the best photograph of my life.”
The panel, whose NFL experience via Gayle stretches back to the early 1980s, provide an insight into the culture of the high-profile league but most of the talk was related to on the field issues.
This past NFL season has been one of its most politically charged after President Donald Trump called the, mostly black, players who’ve chosen to take a knee in protest at racial and social injustice rather than stand for the US national anthem “sons of bitches” and called for owners to fire them.
The high-profile protests, fall out and tensions weren’t raised by the audience in Cardiff but Bears Super Bowl winner Gayle did refer to the 1987 players strike, the last time industrial action, which is more common in US sports than in the UK, disrupted the regular season schedule.
“We went on strike, we stood together and stood up to the owners,” said Gayle who maybe felt he needed to lighten the mood by laughingly, but justifiably, stating he and his generation had made a sacrifice so that the generation of Norman and Sanders can benefit from multi-million dollar contracts.
His comment appeared to be prompted by praise from Norman, who called the 85/86 Bears “the baddest team ever”.
Gayle’s response, the only insight into the big business nature of the NFL, indicated there is always more to the league than the on-field action. But despite the game’s reputation being built on intelligence as much as it is violence it seems hype, frivolity and excitement must take precedence over, or at least mask, meaningful discussion.