Tales From Across The Pond Day 8 (Vikings Game Day)

Mark And Kev's Most Excellent Adventure

Central Time

Day 8 of 8

Even though we are not flying back until tomorrow, I can't really count it as a day of my holidy because we are flying from Minneapolis to Chicago at 11:30 and then sitting around O'Hare until our flight for London leaves at 17:10. It will be sad to leave this great country and all of those untapped experiences behind, but I would be lying if I said thsat I was not looking forward to returning home. All of this travelling and sleeping in different beds is exhausting and as Dorothy says "There is no place like home"

I woke uo about 08:30 and took a long relaxing bath to try and soak out some of my aching muscles. The blister on my toe refuses to go away and my lips are only slowly healing. I meet Mark for breakfast at 09:30 and we discuss the forthcoming game. He thinks the Vikings will win 36-6 and I think they will win 38-21. At some point Jay has to have a good game fo rthem, doesn't he? I am looking forward to watching Favre play, even though I believe that all the retiring/not retiring circus has tarnished his reputation. And of course I will get to see the sublime Adrian Peterson, who I think is currently the best RB in the NFL. I do like Chris Johnson at the Titans because he gashes defences, but AP appears otbe a more direct muscle style back. Unfortunaytely, I think his style of upright running
and the heavy hits he takes, will mean he will unfortunately not have as long a career as Johnson.

I had my usual breakfast again and Mark had the "healthy" option of granola and waffles. This time the waffles came smothered in whipped cream. The look on his face was priceless. After we have finished eating, Mark went for a walk to send some postcards home, while I finally got connected to the web and wrote yesterdays blog.

At 10:50 i started to get ready for the game and put on my new Broncos grey hoodie, number 24 blue gameday shirt, jacket and orange Broncos beanie hat. I met Mark outside and we walked to the Metrodome for the 12:00 kick off. Twenty-five minutes later we arrive and are surprised by the lack of other fans. We take some touristy pictures of the stadium and make our way to our gate. It is closed and does not look as though it will be opeing soon. We flag down a passing fan and ask him what is going on, to be informed that the game has been moved to the 15:15 slot. Great! Not only have we wasted our time walking to the ground, but we may miss our Manny's reservation. I hope there area lot of time consuming running drives by both teams. 

Before the game we go to Lyons Pub on South Sixth Street. This place is rocking and has the Colts @ Texans and the Redskins @ Eagles games along with one tv devoted to NFL Redzone. It was sometimes very confusing watching 3 games at once, but I concentrated mainly on the Colts game. I thought the Texans played well in the first half and should have been leading 21-7 at the half. But in the 2nd half, Peyton turned up and opened the running game with his passing. This game highlighted the fact that turnovers can kill your team. We drank "Extra Pale Ale", which did not designate which brewery it came from. This beer was smooth and had a slight hops aftertaste. But best of all there was no citrus flavour at all. We had a few pints while watching the game, and luckily this bar offered a free shuttle bus ride to the Metrodome. We took this and arrived about 15 minutes before kick off.

Entry to the dome was as quick and easy as Invesco, and we were both amused by a sign stating that "guns are not welcome at the Metrodome". We don't think that anything demonstrates the differences between our 2 countries than the need for this sign. Mark even took a phot of the sign to show to friends back home in case they don't believe us.The queues for the men's toilet was ridiculous and reminiscent of the older stadia back in the UK. At Soldier Field they were located on the ground floor, so about a mile from our seats, at the Dome they aere close by but not enough of them, but at Invesco they were near our seats and plentiful. This may seem an odd topic, but believe me the location and accessabilty of toilets is very important to beer drinkers.

Our seats were located on the upper tier, about 10 rows from the top and on the 35 yard line. We were closer to the pitch than had been the case at either Invesco or Soldier Field and Mark really rated our view. He also thought that the Vikings fans generated more noise than we Broncos fans did, but what does he know. The roof does help the accoustics, but I believed that we generated more sustained noise on defence than the Vikings fans did. Also, they do not have any chant to compete with "Lets Go Bears" or "In-Com-Plete". They did have their own silly song that they played after every Vikings score, but like the Bears song, it was incredibly 1930's. I have to keep pointing out to Mark thsat the reason we don't have the depth of history that the Bears have is that we were not extablished until over 40 years later and that we have won more superbowls than them. He doesn't like this fact at all and keeps whining about 7 championships, as if they count before the merger. 

I thought that Jay Cutler played well today. I am not sure why I am so protective of him, but part of it is because MHR has taught me to look beyond the obvious and examine the reasons why the play went bad, apart from just blame the QB. I thought his first Interception was underthrown and that if he had aimed for the back pylon then Knox would probably have collected it. On the 2nd Interception the ball was deflected and could have gone anywhere. I think that the Bears real problem is not being able to run the football. Forte looked very average and did not seem to posess any periferal vision. He always appeared to take the wrong running lane and cut back to the wrong spot and ran into the back of his blockers. I know that last year he appeared to play very well for the Bears, but this season he has struggled and put additional pressure on Cutler.

In contrast AP looked brilliant apart from his fumbles. I like to take heart that this is similar to Kno Mo and think that if the best can fumble the ball, then so can the 2nd best (If only). I do believe that our number 27 is getting better with every game an I can't wait for his first 100 yds game. I probably don't need to mention how well Favre is playing at the moment, but he always seemed to have so much time on the ball, even when the pass rushers were closing in. He was helped by the fact that at least one of his receiving threats was always wide open. I am not sure if this was because of poor Bears defence or good WR play. The Bears safetys appeared to be defending too deep, but I suppose this is what having a twin deep threat in Harvin and Rice will do to you. This did of course set up the running game, or was it the other way round? Harvin really impressed me with his sharp route running and he always appeared to get separation form the Bears CB, who also played very deep and did not bump the WR once.

This game again reminded me to thank God that Jared Allen is no longer playing us twice a year. He dominated the Bears left tackle and even though Ryaqn Clady WILL dominate him, I am pleased not to have to put this to the test. There was a large Bears contingent in our section and they made some noise in the first half, but they were deflated for most of the 2nd half. I suppose it is easy to judge other fans for the fickleness of their support, especially in turning on Cutler (as though that is their only problem position), but from some of the blogs on this site, our fans have their moments as well. I know it is the emotion of the game, but surely a player can't go from hero to zero and back again in the same game?

There was a lot more swearing amongst the fans than I had heard at Invesco. I would like to think that it is because we have such classy fans, but a part of me thinks it may be because we were winning. I have been pleasanty surprised by the number of females who attend NFL games and I hope that they have a civilising influence on their male counterparts. I think they must make up at least 35% of the fans who go to the games (and I may be underestimating this), but in soocer in the Uk they only make up 5% of the fans at games.

I know that the game was all but over with 10 minutes left on the clock, but I was shocked by the large numbers of fans who left the game. Is it that important to get home early after paying all of that money for a ticket? I thoroughly enjoyed the game as a neutral and it was a great experience watching any sport inside a dome that holds that many people. My only previous experience of watching in doors sport has been boxing with 20,000 fans.

After the game we headed to Manny's steak house. We decided to treat ourselves to a bottle of 2000 Vray Croix De Gay red wine. This is from Bordeaux in France and comes from my favourite appelation controlee. I drink this about 3 times a year and it is so smooth and flavoursome that it is an excellent acompanyment to red meat, although usually lamb, because a fuller bodied Burgundy is better with beef. This wine was very well preserved and went down far to quickly. We accompanied the wine with the best beef I have ever tasted. Mark had an 8oz Filet Mignon, but I was a gready pig and had the 24oz Porterhouse Steak. Mark wanted a jacket potato (which was the biggest either of us had ever seen) and I had some fries (which could have fed 6 people) and we shared soem asparagus (about 20 spears). All of the food was of the highest quality, but there was far too much quantity. I was determined to finish my steak, and managed this at the expense of the fries and some of the asparagus. I cannot praise the food here enough and the service was excellent. 

Halfway through our meal an extremely large Afro-American sat at the booth next to us. He was probably the biggest man I had ever seen. He was about 6' 4 and weighed 300lbs, but it was all solid muscle. Neither of us wanted to stare but we couldn't help ourselves. Eventually we asked our server if he knwe who he was and he told us it was Ray Edwards, the Vikings DE. This was the closest I have ever been to an NFL player and he was a lot bigger than any professional rugby player I had ever seen up close. I can now understand how the QB and RB can get hurt when tackled hard by players this size.

After we had finished our meal, we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel because we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

Mark's favourite city of the visit has been Mineapolis. He likes the atmosphere and the wide boulevards. I think that he should delay judgement until he experiences it on a normal working day. My favourite place of course has been Denver. I will endeavour to return one day if I can get enough overtime. I have thoroughly enjoyed my visit to all 3 cities and cannot find any real fault with the hospitality that I have experienced during my brief sojourn in your country and I bitterly regret not coming here earlier in my life. I have enjoyed writing these posts, and of course it is now a permanent record of my journey that I can read again and again to remind me of howmuch fun it has been. I would like to thank you all for reading the posts and particularly those of you who recomended places to visit and beers to drink, and those of you who have commented on my scribblings.

NFL Games 3

Real Beers Tried 23

Clothes That Still Fit 0

Liver Failure 1

Cholesterol Level Technically Dead

I am now looking forward to getting home and an opportunity to read all of the posts on this site that I have not had time to read over the last 7 days. If I can finally figure out how to post my holiday snaps, I will try to post a link for you to view them.

Thank you Mile High Report and America for providing me with this MOST EXCELLENT ADVENTURE.