A Football Match Was Attended

... And it was NFL! Yes, we went to the historic first regular season match outside America at Wembley Stadium on Sunday. It was a "home" match for the Miami Dolphins against the New York Giants.


We supported the Dolphins, on the basis that they were the underdogs (and we've driven past their stadium in Miami).As you can see from this shot of the cheerleaders, we were up in the top tier. It didn't matter - the view was good.

Here's DH (at the front) and friends, all wearing their team shirts and jackets. They're serious fans. DH and his best friend used to play in the local amateur league, and they've all played play-by-mail fantasy NFL games.

Do you like DH's New England Patriots jacket? Pretty blue, isn't it? He's had it since he was 21. I was disappointed to discover it still fit him (I was hoping to "borrow" it for the match).

Here's me and my knitting. Unsure of whether there would be a problem with knitting needles, I almost smuggled the sock in. The security guards saw my make-up-bag-knitting-case and didn't check inside. Once inside, the Safety Stewards didn't care.

You can't really see from the picture, but I'd just picked up the gusset stitches and knitted 3 rows before we got to Wembley. I knitted throughout the match.



Can't say it was a particularly good football match (if you hear that from me, who's only seen a couple of live NFL-Europe games and a few televised matches, it really was bad!). But the pre-match and half time shows were good and it was just really great to be there.

The middle two quarters were dire. The Dolphin's were their own worst enemies - they clocked up a string of penalty plays in the second quarter (six, I think), including a 1st and 25. Much to the surprise of my friends (who'd thought that was the worst play they'd ever seen), the Giants topped it with a 2nd and 37!

Just when you thought the Dolphins had a chance in the final quarter, they inexplicably blew through their 3 time-outs before the two minute warning. This meant that although the did manage to score a touchdown (finally!), they couldn't call a time out to organise a field goal. Even I know that was stupid. What did their coaches think they were doing? Throwing the match?



This is how far I managed to get with the sock, approximately 60 rows knitted at the match including the gusset. The blue part is leftover Opal self-striping yarn, while the white is all Lisa Souza's Sock! in ecru ordered directly from her (remember the problem I had obtaining white yarn? Lisa solved it for me. More pictures later). No, I didn't borrow DH's jacket - he held the sock for me.

Here's another photo of the sock. Taken in the last two minutes of the match.



On the whole, a great evening out. Next time, though, please can we see the Pats?

- Pam (when the play got really bad, I was chanting "we want Pats")