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Published: September 29th 2009
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Gillette Stadium
Home of the New England Patriots Sunday September 27th 2009
Between the months of September and February in America, Sunday means one thing to the majority of people who live here - American Football Game Day!
Ever since we decided to head on Honeymoon to Boston I have pestered Kay continually about being able to go and see the New England Patriots play American Football at Gillette Stadium which is outside of Boston. American Football has been a passion of mine for quite some time, so for me one of the real perks had arrived and being a ‘Football’ and ’Patriots; fan as I will continue to refer to the sport and team as in the rest of this blog is difficult to follow in the UK and I had waited around 9 years from seeing my first game on TV for this opportunity
The main concern I had before the game was the weather. All week we had been spoilt with nothing but perfect sunshine and then Sunday had crept up and all the radar was showing was rain, or to be more precise as the weather guy said ‘A Tropical Storm!’. Unlike most top level UK football and rugby venues, nearly all
Decked out in Patriots Gear
You've got to love the Poncho's! American Football venues are inside a dome or are open with no roof on any of the stands. Unfortunately for us, the stadium we were heading to fell in the latter category and so some scepticism started to creep in about how enjoyable four hours watching some blokes in padded uniforms and helmets throwing around a piece of leather may be.
We headed out of the hotel and made the short walk up to Back Bay station in central Boston to get on the official match train that runs out of the city down to Foxboro, Massachusetts. The station was rammed with replica shirt dressed fans and I struck up a conversation with a few people who thought it was ‘Cool’ that a guy from the UK had come to watch the game and after a short wait we got on the train.
The other joy of heading out of town was that it managed to give Kay and I a look at the outer of areas of Boston, and as the train went at a slow pace through the country we saw locations for where films like Mystic River, The Departed and Good Will Hunting to name
but a few were filmed on the outer suburbs of Boston. The train journey itself was painfully slow and with the weather getting more wet as the minutes went by, Kay’s face was looking a more downbeat prospect as the train continued down the tracks.
About an hour and a half after leaving Boston we had arrived, though with no conductor announcement we were none the wiser as all we could see from our carriage was trees! Unlike central Boston where Fall had not really come about, the outer areas were full of the gorgeous deep reds and amber oranges that you associate with this time and they looked magnificent and seeing them first hand has enabled me to understand the obsession that some people have with this time of year in this area of America. With fans piling off the train around us we followed in curiosity to find that the station platform at the stadium was only big enough for about three carriages and so we jumped off the train and walked parallel to the train for about 80 metres with some people even walking underneath the big locomotive carriages as if it were an everyday occurrence.
Health and Safety would have had a field day!!
We followed the masses to the stadium with the rain beating down, and everyone around either drinking small stubby cans of Coors lager or looking pretty miserable at the prospect of getting wet and cold for the next 4 hours and we walked through the mass amount of parking lots towards the giant 80,000 seated stadium that stood out like a sore thumb with wilderness all around.
As we walked through the lots, we became familiar with the football tradition of Tailgating where people turn up in their pick-up trucks, unhitch the tailgate and set-up gazebo’s to host BBQ parties and drink beers with fellow fans to bond about their love for the sport. It was quite an amazing prospect to see with face painting (albeit runny due to the weather) and mini games taking place and everyone seemed in good spirits. The effort of this tradition is taken so far that the Team even give out prizes at each home game to the fan with the best tailgate.
We finally arrived at the entrances and joined the mass queue awaiting secure checking and patting down (better safe
than sorry) and immediately headed for the club shop to buy some beautifully attractive logo embezzled ponchos and baseball caps to wear. We made the long way up to the upper tier of the stadium, and we finally reached our seats just as kick-off took place.
The match in question was between the New England Patriots v Atlanta Flacons, with the Patriots being one of the most successful sides in recent history and the ground was sold-out despite the less than favourable weather. The game itself was amazing, everything that I had hoped for and we quickly made friends with a man and his daughter sat behind us who were season ticket holders and as is tradition in the game I proceeded to high-five them when the patriots scored a ‘Touchdown!!’. As is customary with most U.S sports, there were vendors walking the gantries throughout the match selling everything - pizza, beer, hotdogs, hot chocolate, popcorn, hot nuts etc, but that still didn’t stop lots of people milling around and leaving their seats throughout the match. It may well be that the stop-start nature of the game that allows people to do this, and I can’t imagine it being
Scoreboard
Can you notice the corporate side of the game? tolerated at a Chelsea game but that’s how these folk roll and we ended up getting a hot chocolate, a beer and some hotdogs to eat and drink (its so easy when someone will deliver it to your lap!) Another thing that surprised me with the whole game was the level of commercialism, with everything and anything being sponsored by major blue-chip organisations.
This included amongst others,
The Official …… of the New England Patriots
Bank, Fast Food, Insurance, Soft Drink, Toilet Paper, Car, Donut, Beer
What makes this list even worse, is that the fans lap it up - big time!!! Thankfully the threatened bad weather never materialised and nearly three hours later the game had finished with the Patriots running out 26-10 winners, leaving me with a big smile on my face and Kay just relieved that all this silliness had finally come to a conclusion.
We headed back towards Boston, quite tired after another busy day and knowing it was our last night before an early start we headed back to the hotel to pack our bags ready to leave for New York in the morning. After cramming all our belonging
Cheesecake
Big, sickly but yummy!! A whole shop dedicated to cheescake - good times! into our suitcases, (I say we, but I was more of an official observer) we headed back for one final trip into central Boston and decided to get ourselves some late night desert at ‘The Cheesecake Factory’. Once again the difficulty laid in the choice of which one, with more than 30 varieties of cake available - all served as huge slices with cream. We walked back to the hotel, cheesecake in hand and both of us reflected on what an incredible place Boston is. We got in, kicked back and drank a few beers before heading for an early night ready for the bus ride all the way to the Big Apple in the morning.
Nic and Kay x
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Ryan
non-member comment
Easy Sausage...
You two seem to be having a great time...but Nic, the money I contributed was for strippers...where the fuck are the strippers? x