Wembley Crowd Completes Four-Hour Ritual Of Pretending To Understand Football
British fans attended Texans v Jaguars at Wembley, bravely treating every unexplained whistle as part of the cultural exchange.
WEMBLEY, The Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars played their NFL week six game at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, giving thousands of British spectators several hours to nod gravely at a sport they had decided was important.
The crowd arrived with scarves, snacks and the quiet certainty of people who had watched one introductory video in 2014. Many had learned the phrase “good field position”. They used it whenever the players stopped moving, whether they had gone up, down, sideways or gathered in one of those dense little meetings.
“We are delighted to welcome everyone to this afternoon’s sporting ceremony,” said Malcolm Vane, deputy director of the Wembley Department of Polite Confusion. “Please remain calm during the pauses. They are either strategy, advertising, or an American unit of time.”
“Please remain calm during the pauses. They are either strategy, advertising, or time.”
During the game, supporters carried out the old national practice of asking the nearest stranger, quietly, whether the quarterback was the one who kicked it. The stranger generally had no more idea. Still, he would mention the downs, and a working partnership based on mutual bluffing would begin.
Every so often, a player carried the ball a short way before an official lifted an arm and everyone returned to where they had been. The audience seemed reassured. The rules, plainly, were not written for civilians. One man consulted a folded programme, then turned it upside down with the care of a cartographer finding an unexpected continent.
“The important thing is to look surprised at the right moments,” said Priya Latchford, senior adviser to the Institute of Casual Sports Expertise. “If the crowd makes one coordinated noise, join in. If the game stops for no visible reason, say ‘clock management’ and accept whatever happens next.”
By the final quarter, Wembley had become a large laboratory of courteous uncertainty. Fans applauded athletic movements and commercial interruptions. They also applauded several incidents apparently known only to the invisible committee responsible for the line of scrimmage. Nobody said they understood the entire afternoon. Almost nobody wanted to risk seeming rude by trying.
The teams finished their Wembley engagement. Britain completed its own familiar duty: supplying a full stadium, an attentive audience, and several thousand people prepared to act as though they had always known the difference between a punt and a penalty. Outside, one supporter called the experience “excellent”, before admitting he had spent most of it watching the wrong scoreboard.